KiPlanet: Planetary Astronomy

KiPlanet is the tool for anyone who observes and photographs the planets, the Moon and the Sun. It calculates ephemerides for your location and tells you what to see, when, and in what conditions, so you never miss a good night.

🌙 WHAT WILL TONIGHT BE LIKE?
• Astronomical weather forecast: clouds, seeing, transparency and wind.
• The best astrophotography window of the night, and why.
• Countdown to dusk and dawn.

🪐 PLANETS
• Visibility, rise, culmination and set for each planet.
• Maximum altitude and how it changes over the months.
• Closest approaches and elongations.
• Optional tracking of dwarf planets.

♃ JUPITER TRANSITS
• Transits of the Galilean moons and their shadows across the disk.
• Great Red Spot crossings of the central meridian.
• Only the ones visible from your location.

🌕 MOON
• Phase, rise and set.
• Upcoming lunar eclipses and earthshine nights.
• Lunar clair-obscur effects.

☀️ SUN
• Active regions, flare probability and solar cycle (NOAA data).
• Heliographic coordinates (P, B0, L0) for your sessions.
• Regions that might return, and upcoming transits of Mercury and Venus.

🔭 YOUR EQUIPMENT
• Save your telescopes and cameras.
• Calculate effective focal length, ideal focal ratio, sampling and resolving power.
• Find the seeing window where your optical train performs best.

🔍 CAPTURE DIAGNOSIS
Is your planet coming out blurry? Compare your image with a simulation of seeing, focus, altitude and camera settings, then answer a few questions to find the likely cause.

🔔 ALERTS
Notifications for transits, planet and Moon rises and sets, culminations, eclipses and more.

🔒 PRIVACY
No accounts and no ads. Your locations and equipment are stored only on your device.