r/Stargazing

Hey everyone! I'm a recent CS grad who happens to love stargazing, and I'm considering building a stargazing app, but before I sink a few months into it, I wanted to check if this is actually something the community would find useful (or if it's already been solved better by something out there).

Some feature ideas so far:

• Real-time sky conditions for a location (cloud cover, light pollution, moon phase) at that time or in the near future
• Point your phone at the sky to identify stars, planets, and constellations
• Alerts for upcoming events worth watching (meteor showers, visible planets, ISS passes, etc.) in your vicinity
• Maybe a social-media-esque feature where you can post pictures you've taken (kinda like this subreddit)

A few questions if you have a minute:

1. Do you already use an app like this? If so, which one, and what does it get wrong or leave out?
2. Of the features above, which would actually get you to open the app regularly vs. which feel like nice-to-haves?
3. Is there anything that consistently annoys you about existing stargazing apps (ads, inaccurate data, clunky UI, paywalls, etc.)?

We spend a lot of time looking up at the stars and it's something that has been passed down to me from multiple generations. It's something I've personally always enjoyed and I got her into it. She started using my binoculars and doing some "light" stargazing (no pun intended). We often spend time outside looking up at the stars and talking about life and our loved ones that have passed away (grandparents and whatnot). Had a genuine moment tonight where she asked me how far I thought the farthest light was, how long it might take to get there. Which then led us into an entire conversation about Einstein, the theory of relativity, surpassing the speed of light, becoming infinitely large, etc etc.

The entire purpose of this post is to tell you to spend time with your kids and get outside. Not only are you getting to view something incredible together but you get an opportunity to break away from technology and have a genuine conversation with each other.

I also want to ask you all something. Why have I, and the generations before me, been so incredibly amazed at the stars? I know that this dates back for eons and yeah we can all say ancestors were obsessed with the stars and always looked up and had questions. But what is it? Is it curiosity? Wanting to understand the nature of reality? Home? A longing (that's what it feels like to me, like I'm missing something)? Do you feel this way? Do you feel like, when you look up at the sky, that you're looking at home? It just doesn't ever get old to me. And I know that she's now having the same wonder and fascination as myself. I feel like I could sit there for hours and hours just staring at the sky. Several years ago we saw several meteors during one of the meteor showers which she still references.

Anyway I'm going to stop tying or I'll end up on a total rant about stars, meteors, nebulas, our existence, etc.

(I really need to get a telescope. I keep saying this to myself and at some point I'm going to get us that as a gift. Anyone here who is using a telescope must really feel deeply connected)