I wasted too many clear nights before I learned to plan astrophotography shots

When I became confident enough in my landscape photography, I thought I could apply the same workflow to astrophotography. Basically, find a good location, chase good conditions, set up the camera, and wait for the composition to come together.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Photographing the night sky, as it turns out, requires a lot of pre-planning. Without planning, most shots were doomed to fail. That’s because astrophotography punishes guessing and rewards a well-planned-out shot.

These days, I plan out a whole shot before I leave home, using the apps below to check out the position of the stars, find dark sites away from light pollution, and get my foreground alignment as close to perfect as possible. It doesn’t guarantee a beautiful shot, but it increases the chances I won’t be wasting another rare, clear night sky.

I start with light pollution before I even think about composition

Dark skies are the easiest thing to get wrong

This is the first, and actually the most important step, to getting a gorgeous night shot. If I truly want to capture as many stars as possible, as well as the subtle glow of nebulae and galaxies, the sky must be dark.

For me, the Light Pollution Map is the first filter for staking out a good nighttime spot. I use this to rule out places where nearby towns, roads, resorts, and infrastructure are going to wash the contrast out of the sky. What is “dark enough,” of course, depends on what you want to achieve. Some light sources can actually work in your favor to create foreground lighting, but they must be subtle if you’re planning on taking high ISO photos with long exposure times.

Light Pollution Map uses the Bortle class system to display light pollution ratings based on satellite data. It uses a color gradient and visualization of star density and clarity, including ambient glow at different latitudes.

Here’s how I use it:

• Comparing several possible dark-sky areas before deciding on a site.
• Checking whether the city glow will sit behind my composition.
• Finding locations nearby that can serve as a backup
• Deciding whether the drive is actually worth it.

The Light Pollution Map can’t predict the likelihood of a comms tower or someone’s campfire ruining your shot, but it does help me rule out places that were never going to work anyway.

Stellarium tells me what the sky is actually going to do

The predictability of stars, celestial objects, and satellites is made into one amazing app

Stellarium is how I calculate the exact time and position of whatever it is I want to photograph in the sky. Stellarium can be installed on Windows, Linux, and macOS, and features a limited web version that runs in Chrome. It also has fully featured Android and iOS apps.

With it, I can set my precise location, choose a date, drag the time forward and back, and see where the Milky Way sits relative to the horizon. That capability alone has saved me from wasting countless nights. It can also be used to check the moon's position and brightness, and it will actually show you how many stars you’re likely to lose due to being washed out by moonlight.

Another extremely useful feature is the ability to view live satellite feeds. This is incredibly important as over long exposures, a satellite moving quickly across the sky can leave long trails of white light that can ruin photographs. It’s something that’s now more important than ever, as Starlink satellites are impacting skywatchers.

This is how I use Stellarium:

• Change the time and location to the site I selected.
• See whether the moon is going to help or hurt the shot.
• Check the position of the Milky Way, or any deep space objects.
• Look to see if there are any useful alignments of planets, sky, and other objects.
• Out in the field, check the mobile app to make sure no satellites will ruin the shot.

PhotoPills turns the sky into a shot rather than a guess

This is where the foreground finally gets involved

PhotoPills is a mobile application I use to pre-plan a shot once I’ve arrived on location while the sun is still up. PhotoPills uses your smartphone’s camera and an AR overlay to show you precisely what the sky will look like at your location at a specific time.

This is useful for lining up my foreground interest objects with the Milky Way and for knowing where the more interesting parts of the sky will be relative to the horizon. It also helps determine the best place to put the tripod if I plan to stack photos with a tracker or create star trail images with time-lapse photography.

This is my workflow with PhotoPills:

• Arrive on site during the daytime and identify which foreground objects to use in my composition.
• Open the PhotoPills app on my phone and place it where the camera will be.
• Set the time to nightfall and see where the celestial objects are located once darkness falls.
• Find the precise alignment I want, and note down the time to start shooting.

It’s worth noting that PhotoPills is a paid app, and quite an expensive one at that. But if you save just one wasted tank of gas driving out to a location you didn't plan out properly, it pays for itself pretty quickly.

Clear Outside gives me detailed cloud forecasts made for astronomy and photography

Normal weather apps are fine for planning a BBQ, but astrophotography demands a more granular forecast

I can plan star positions and account for light pollution all I want, but one annoying sheet of cirrostratus cloud turns my night photography into one grey smear. I have little trust in even detailed weather apps to provide adequate insight into cloud cover for photography. That’s because they never really have photographers in mind when they come up with forecasts like “mostly clear” and “partly cloudy” (is there really any difference between these two?).

Clear Outside gives me the final say on whether I actually head out. That’s because it gives me not just a percentage of cloud cover, but also which types of clouds will be closing in. It also gives me hour-by-hour forecasts and the dew point temperature, so I can determine whether I’ll need to pack plenty of lens wipes and heating pads to deal with condensation.

Here’s how I find Clear Outside useful:

• Checking the cloud layers and sky cover for my exact shooting window.
• If cloud is going to be a part of the composition, I check if the precise cloud type I want will be present.
• Judging humidity and dampness before heading out so I don’t get my gear ruined.
• Checking for the likelihood of fog setting in and truly ruining a shot.

Google Maps and Street View help me scout the area before leaving

Mapping tools are really handy, but not for the reason you think

I know Google Maps isn’t a photography tool, but it does have one really important use in my planning workflow. A location can look absolutely perfect in terms of light pollution and cloud cover, but what if there’s no way to actually get there? Google Maps, and specifically Street View, helped me figure that out before leaving.

If a location requires a good hike to reach the spot, I use satellite view to look for obvious trails and decide whether to call it off because it would involve accessing private property. Street view is handy for viewing not only the site itself, but I can also look at 360-degree panorama images that other people have taken to get the best possible idea of shooting locations.

Here’s how I use Street View:

• Look up the route to get there. I’m looking for unsealed roads, locked gates, and, if there’s even a place to park my car.
• Understanding where I need to point my camera (North, North East, etc.), especially if I arrive at the site after sunset.
• Scoping out the site ahead of time. I’m looking for power lines that would ruin the shot, using the historical feature to check what’s changed over time, and if there is infrastructure that could cause stray light pollution.
• Checking where I might set up the tripod ahead of time and loading that location into PhotoPills.
• Reading reviews and warnings from previous users who have been there.

While Street View can be outdated, it’s still better than heading out blind. And if you’re stuck for composition ideas, you can cheat a little to see how others have done it in the photos section.

I still chase the sky, but I don’t waste as much time

Planning saves me from making silly mistakes, but it doesn’t kill the adventure

Even with the most prudent of planning, astrophotography can still turn a potential night of stargazing into sitting in my car waiting for the rain to stop. Planning with apps still doesn’t solve the unpredictable things that crop up to ruin my night.

Clouds are particularly annoying and can form seemingly for no reason other than wanting to ruin my shot. Haze from wildfires can soften the sky, and wind can blow over your tripod. Even someone driving home from night shift with their high beams on can provide some unwanted foreground exposure in the middle of a time-lapse. Some things you just can't predict.

But using these apps means I no longer waste the easy parts. I’m not hoping the Milky Way core is in the right place, and I’m not driving for four hours only to find some infrastructure has lit up my site like a Christmas tree. And while using them doesn’t guarantee my next shot will make it to National Geographic, it does give me at least a fighting chance.

In the end, the sky always gets the final vote, and that’s all part of the chase. But I’d rather lose a shot to bad luck than bad planning.