made a free website that tells you what to point your smart telescope at tonight
I kept opening the Dwarf app, scrolling the target list and wondering "what will actually look good tonight from here?" So I built a small free website to answer that. Before anyone criticises me, this was done with the help of Claude - I have not been a programmer for 30+ years, since I've left uni, and this would be well beyond my capabilities.
What it does
- Finds your location (or search for any town) and works out tonight's darkness window, moon phase, and an hour-by-hour cloud forecast
- Ranks ~45 galaxies and nebulae for your night: how high they get, moon interference, your light pollution, and how well they fit your telescope's field of view
- Each target shows a sample photo, the & exact name to search in the app (M31, NGC 7000, IC 1396…) with a copy button, the best time window, which filter to use (Astro vs duo-band), and roughly how long to stack
- Little framing diagram so you can see if it fills the frame or needs a mosaic
Telescopes supported: Dwarf Draco, Dwarf 3, Dwarf Mini, Dwarf II, Seestar S50, S30 and S30 Pro
What if you don't have a smart telescope? There's an Eyepiece mode for regular telescopes and binoculars: planets, the Moon, double stars and bright deep-sky objects, ranked by your aperture, with star-hop directions ("between the two bottom stars of Lyra…"), suggested magnification, live altitude/direction and RA/Dec.
Also has a red night-vision mode, and works on phones and tablets.
It's free, no account, no ads. Your location isn't stored; it's only used in your browser to calculate positions and fetch the weather.
It's a hobby project, so feedback is very welcome, especially:
- targets you think are missing
- star-hop directions that are wrong or confusing
- telescopes you'd like added (Vespera, Odyssey…)
Clear skies! 🔭