Scope Nights Astronomy Weather App Reviews

Superb. Quick, accurate, easy to use. A constant companion.

Useful for Predicting Conditions. Scope Nights has a lot of good functionality for helping me determine what viewing conditions will be. Its dark sky map doesn’t seem to be accurate based on what I’ve seen in other dark sky locations map apps. It still seems to be supported by the developer since most of it works.

Outdated and broken - do not buy in 2023. Save your money - don’t buy this broken app. Scope Nights received awards years ago. It was once one of the best astronomy forecast apps. However, a global forecasts update broke it over a year and a half ago and it still hasn’t been fixed. You can still use the app for forecasts but if you save any locations as favorites, you’ll receive annoying pop ups that you need to close - for every location, every time you open the app. Even if you don’t save any favorites, this will still happen for your current location. This makes the app very annoying to use - and unusable with many favorites. The fact that the developer is charging $4.99 for this app without even a word on an update in over a year and a half is honestly messed up. I get that it’s just one guy maintaining it in his free time but this app should be free in its current state. Lack of resources doesn’t excuse poor quality.

3 years without an update. This was my first goto weather app. Unfortunately, no updates in 3 years and the errors on startup “no global forecast available “ still come out. It still works but can’t recommend it to new buyers unless there is more support, updates forthcoming.

Scope nights app. Used this app now for two years and is very accurate! Once it said poor and the sky was clear so I set up my scope and by the time of sunset I was completely clouded in! When it says good it’s clear and when it says poor it’s cloudy! Can’t ask better than that. I highly recommend it.

Save your Money. Bought this app on a friends recommendation. This app hasn't been updated in over a year. Also get error messages for all my saved locations every time the app opens or when I change sites. If your charging $5 for an app support it or take it off the App Store. So other people don't waste their money.

IOS 11 broke it but developer fixed it. I inadvertently re-clicked a previous review about this issue. Please delete it if you can. Glad to have this app working again. I’ve been using it for years and it is still the best I have found for planning my observing.

Forecasts are not working. Apparently global forecasts have been broken for more than a year. This causes multiple error messages on every start or change in location. For $5 I would expect an app that works without constant errors. Seems like the developer has abandoned this application - recommend that you not purchase.

No working!. Is not working properly and wherever I go a message shows up saying that the app is not able to get the weather in that area!!! Not good!

Excellent App!. I have found the app to be very easy to use. Intuitive and accurate time after time. It’s a joy to use!

It works but you don’t really getting a lot of value. When it was first installed, I got lots of errors about not being able to save location information. Sent a tech support request and got nothing back. The error is now gone but it doesn’t always save my location but I guess my biggest grip is you don’t really get anything that isn’t already free with other apps. It has potential, but hey seriously need to add more features for the price they charge. I guess that is why there is not a trial version.

Had problems with an older version but the current version is fine. Current version works well and thanks to the developer for contacting me with an improved version to try. Good app, buy this one!

Seems reliable and quite useful. I find this app to be useful for a first look at the possibility for decent skies. Your mileage may vary. If you’re a stargazer like me, you know that the weather does whatever it feels like to us poor mortals. But definitely a good thing to have in your toolkit.

Quick and easy. The app provides a VERY quick and easy assessment of astronomy viewing conditions for the entire WEEK ahead. You may wish to pair it with a more detailed astronomy weather app to get a more sophisticated weather predictions on any specific day. But for a quick assessment of the weeks forecast, this app cannot be beat! I highly recommend it!

The best astronomy weather app. I think I have downloaded all the astronomy weather apps, and in my opinion this is the best. Download without fear.

Great app and update. I love this app! I have used it for a long while now and it has been accurate in planning my nights. Great job!

A little gem for all astronomers. This piece of software is perfect for planning your observing, whether you’re an amateur of even a professional Astronomer. It does the job, with no excess baggage. Brilliant!

Needs work. I use an app called “Good To Stargaze”, which is free, and for a nominal fee allows one to save 5 sites. That app is very succinct and intuitive in its forecasts and presentation. Scope Nights offers much of the same information, and has a more colorful interface, and it has some basic stability issues. When connecting to the Internet to get weather information, the app can hang. When the connection times out, it sometimes crashes out to the “Finder”. I like that you can look up known dark sky sites and observatories, and add - evidently - dozens of custom sites. However, when the app is new, it seems to store every map position you navigate to, and your current location is stored dozens of times, and you cannot add new sites because the max number has been reached. I manually deleted all of these sites, which took several minutes (needs a delete all interface), and afterward it worked as expected. Not recommended over Good To Stargaze, and it does mostly work, but has the drawbacks mentioned above.

Wish I’d have found this sooner. I used to use ClearOutside, this is the same idea but actually works. Even for random locations in tiny towns near the desert I get so many location results. ClearOutside couldn’t even find major cities or counties I put in. Icons are great, really easy to understand, and hourly forecast on specific nights make it really easy to find key times to go out. I pair this with PhotoPills to plan my shots of the Milky Way and other nightscape scenes.

Very accurate and useful!. I have been using this app for about a year and rely heavily on it before making the 1 hour drive to my preferred dark site. The app has certainly saved me wasted time and effort!

Improving the App recommendation. Hello Id like to give the technical, and the development team of Scope Nights app, a small advice on improving the overall function of the app. So, when I for exampe, hit the "Scope Sites" tab, then after you choose your dark site in the tab, I would then like the app to go straight to that specific dark site, on the "Dark Sky Map" tab as well (on the map). If you can please implement that feature, I would greatly appreciate it from you. It would greatly improve the app, and make things a lot easier, for the users of the already wonderful, Scope Nights app. Thank you and God bless!

My notes. Astronomical twilight start and end needs to be shown. Moon rise/set time should be shown more prominently Font size should be a little bigger

Observing companion. I run the sky watches at the Horowitz - DeRemer Planetarium . It is very helpful and accurate to know when it will be clear . This app is always right on . The dark sky map is also helpful when planning an observing trip .

Scope nights!. Very accurate, better than any other astronomy weather apps!

Simple & Useful. The app simply provides the information needed to plan in a simple easy to use format.

Uncannily accurate.. App does a great job of forecasting conditions for astronomy. Its my go to app. Far better than using even the best standard weather apps.

Very accurate. My backyard observatory is located about 15 miles inland from the California coast. We are often affected by the marine layer clouds coming in. This app has been a very useful tool!

Accurate. One of my go to Astro viewing weather apps. Its long range forecasts are more correct than not. The graphic display is easy to read and pleasant to look at.

Scope nights. Very useful, accurate! Good quick reference. This from a professional astronomer!

Great App. This is a great app that lets you know the weather ahead of time and is accurate. I use it to let me know if I need to set up for the public sky watch at our planetarium. The dark sky map lets me know which dark sights I can go to with clear nights.

Astronomy weather Wunderapp!. My time on scope has increased 3 fold since getting this app. It has been very accurate and is a pleasure to use. The update is gorgeous and it works flawlessly with the new OS. This is an amazing App.

Disappointing. Much better applications available , Scope nights is not cheap at nearly $5 and it really does not give any more information than the weather app on my iPhone. Adding to this when I open the app i receive a notification NO global data available for you location. This is repeated for any other stored locations. I would like a refund.

Doesn’t view properly on my iPad. From the first time I tried to use this app, it did not display properly on my iPad. Also, there appears to be a problem that prevents global forecasts from downloading properly. This app is not worth $4.99. I would not even advise downloading it if it were free. Save your money. BTW, I would like a refund, please.

Excellent and easy to use. I live down near the Texas border with Mexico and most of the apps do not predict weather accurately for this area. However, this app does a great job. I plan my nightly astronomy sessions with this app and it rarely lets me down.

Has the developer abandoned this app?. Has the developer abandoned this app? The promised fixes for the weather data access errors that were promised years ago have never materialized. Now the app won’t fit into Apple iPad screens without clipping heavily at the edges, so it looks like there haven’t been updates in a very long time.

Second to none. Scope Nights is in class by itself. With the 2.5 update it surpasses even itself in ease of use.

Seems no fix in sight for some users. I loved this app when I first downloaded it but, since the app developer has not updated the app to download all global weather forecasts, I can’t recommend this app for everyone. In Japan, all of my locations give an error that the information can’t be downloaded. If in the future this issue is resolved, I might reconsider using the app again, but as of now I can’t. In all honesty, I would like a refund for the app, but I doubt that will happen.

Very helpful. Short range forecast is pretty accurate. Long range is as accurate as any, but need to check often.

Great app. I have had this app for a few years and seen it improve gradually to the point that I find myself using it regularly along with myCSC to plan my observing sessions. I really like how easy it is to get observing forecasts for different locations with important details and a much longer forecast than one gets with myCSC.

Few bugs but awesome app. It’s a five star app!! one less for a bug pop ups every time when you change the sites.

Great app in need of some bug fixes. I love this app, but every time I go into it, it gives me an error that the forecast for my site is unavailable. Lately I am getting the same error 2 or 3 times and each error must be clicked to make it go away. Regardless of the errors it actually does still provide an updated forecast. If this could be fixed then the app would be perfect.

Sites are a pain to delete. The program randomly fills up the site list with everything you click on. Then the sites take forever to delete. Why would it allow you to add the same site more than once? Also, why not have a “clear all” for the sites? It’s a bit frustrating that for the cost, it’s not a bit more functional.

Not helpful for my location. I work at a dark sky park and love to recommend apps. We do sky tours weekly and I use about 6 locations for weather data. Sky and telescope recommended the app so I bought it. None of the towns within a 40 mile radius are locations that will give me data. I was able to find my park listed on the location finder but our data is “unable to access”

Big improvement!. Well done app with everything I need. Dark sky map was a much needed improvement!

My new Clear Sky bible. So happy to find this app since Clear Sky Clock disappeared for lack of iOS 6+ compatibility. Not always 100% but when is the weather report ever 100%? Very useful when combined with other weather data. (Look out the window, will ya?)

Slow and error messages. I am using this with an iPhone 11, and it is very slow. I also error messages every time I open it. Other Astro weather work great on my phone. Waste of money.

No longer works.. Used this app for years, I thought it was fantastic. However, over the last few iOS updates it has stopped working. Always gives me the ai “local forecast unavailable”. Too bad, really.

Great!. I had issues with an earlier version, but this is great now! Plus it’s free and fully functional!

Forecast errors getting worse. When I first got the app about a year ago, the app complained about no global forecast. It did, however, show a five day. Now often there is just a blank screen where the forecast should appear. Very disappointing because the idea of this app is awesome. It doesn’t seem to be getting updated any time soon.

Nice improvements on a great app. This version has greatly improved the interface on my go-to planning app for stargazing nights. Well done Martin. Thank you.

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Stopped working. This app worked well and then stopped working at all in my area. White to their email address but no answer

Apps stopped working. Loved this app but early March 2021 it doesn’t work????

Thanks for ripping us off. Well done taking everyone’s money and running. App no longer works

Doesnt work. Paid for this app and no weather as it used to do for my area.

Such a shame. Doesn’t work anymore, used to be my go to regarding weather for astro however after many many months now with no response from developer who knows if it will ever be fixed.

Great. Great app, use it all the time. A must to have.

Need to do your homework.. This app only gets it 50% right.

A1 +++. Fantastic app has never let me down.

Dark Sky Paid Upgrade Dissapointing. App seems useful for general astronomy forecasts, but it wasn't made obvious that the Dark Sky feature was a $7 paid upgrade. Doesn't seem worth it.

Brilliant app. The app is now my main planning tool for when I drag out my gear. It's maturing and is very good value. Keep up the great work.

Buggy with IOS11. As above...

Scope Nights - simple to use and excellent info. Easy to use from the moment you open the app. Get it!

Updated but still doesn’t work. Used to be good but now fails to provide any forecasts. I’m sure the new update actually delivered a better user experience to someone somewhere

Won’t upload for my area? For months now!. Haven’t been able to use it since I purchased. Won’t get a response to my email either. Really bad service and disappointing that I paid for this app.

Highly functional. An excellent, functional tool that provide local and global weather data, calibrated to represent astronomical conditions for your site. Fairly basic features right now, but likely to continue with upgrades. Easy to use and worth supporting.

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Scope nights. Un outil intéressant!

Really fantastic astro app! Update. Very impressed with the UI. It is my goto app for astro weather. Well worth the purchase. Will be recommending to others. * not working on ios 11. Please fix.

Useless. When you buy an app, you think that the important features are included. But not this one. You buy the app, then it's useless unless you buy each feature separately.

WAS great. Forecast no longer works for Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Unable to download data about my location. Not much use if it can’t download info on where I am . Algonquin provincial park Ontario Canada

Doesn’t work. I paid for this app to essentially give me my weather forecast...except now it doesn’t even do that. It says global forecast unavailable, which is ok. The weather network has free forecast information. They don’t even bundle astronomical seeing into the report. Not worth money.

Great basic app. If only it had Canadian Astronomy weather reports.... Solid app. Great for the vast majority (US-UK). Hoping the developer gets around to us Canucks sometime. Really can’t provide data? And mebbe explains why the Dark Sky option costs 6.99? Ouch...

Nickle and dime ya. The app is OK, but when you want more that just the single screen of info you need to upgrade costing you almost 10 bucks by the time you get a real full piece of software.

Good stuff !. Util

Used to be a Fantastic astronomy app!. Latest update hasn’t helped. Still No longer works after latest iOS update. Please fix guys! The developer doesn’t respond to emails either. Pull the app if you have no intention of updating it.

Love this app!!. Mostly accurate which is better than I can say about the weather forecast. Also has tonnes of info for astronomical viewing. Can't wait to see some Canadian specific info. Will happily buy the expansion for that! Always makes my day when it tells me I'll be seeing clear sky's tonight.

Broken Weather Lookip. Been using the app for months and it was great. Now any location outside the US is broken and won’t load. Tried several in Canada, none work. Uninstalled and reinstalled. Tried a US loacation and it worked no problem.

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Scope Nights. I just bought this app and received a message that it is currently not working! Who can provide me help. Days will be fixed later this year????

Very poor. The app keeps telling me there are no forecasts for any location i add

Wow. Finally found the app i’ve been dreaming about building. Exactly. What. I. Needed.

Awful want my money back!. This app is awful. It hasn’t worked since I downloaded it and it keeps prompts that you can’t close. Trying to figure out how to get a refund. The worst!

Not. Very good. Have installed all of the applicable add ons and still find the product frustrating. Mainly due to the lack of help or documentation. My inability to find a way of setting up a personal site location was really a surprise. The web site seems to be only for selling products. The main support system seems to be tied to blogs and the social media sites. When I tried to find info on my present location I received a clear skies chart not the scope nights window. This was on the scope nights web site. The need for add ons to get the program to work was a real surprise. The add ons needed to use the App will be at least $4 more.

Top rate astronomy weather app!. I have found this app to be just what I need to anticipate weather breakthroughs here in the rainy Pacific Northwest. There is a bit of a learning curve to figure out the meaning of the symbology, but once figured out, the app displays great “at a glance” usability. Once I had learned my way around, I downloaded all the in-app purchases. I couldn’t be more pleased. By mid afternoon the app had alerted me to clearing skies in three of my favored location settings. What a treat! Kudos to the developer!

Great. Great app to plan your sessions.

Neat handy app. Gives a quick overview of astronomically significant conditions for multiple locations.

Very buggy. Not happy with the app. Very buggy and crashes periodically.

A must have!. When my weather app and this app disagree I always trust scope nights!

Total waste. Somewhat less accurate than THE WEATHER CHANNEL & NOTABLY less accurate than local TV weather. Base any plans on information from this app at your own peril! When I first installed it, the app indicated “GOOD” conditions and it was RAINING outside - really inspires confidence.

Great app.. Great app. Sometimes the external forecast services it relies on fail, but the app itself is solid. 😊

Just worth it. It works like it should. That’s it.

Nice app. A very good app to help the budding astronomer determine the evening's conditions. Worth the admission fee.

Bad Data - unreliable. I don't know what weather service provider is being used by this app, but it is almost always incorrect. I even upgraded to all the bells and whistles in the app. Every weather service I can find is showing clear skies for tonight at "The Plains, VA", yet ScopeNights is showing mostly cloudy and poor conditions. There isn't a cloud in the sky and likely won't be tonight. Same thing last night and conditions were actually excellent although ScopeNights showed the opposite. The app is useless if the underlying data is bad..... I am starting to see a trend with bad forecasts. I almost did not attend the Cherry Springs Star Party this year based on ScopeNights. Thank god I did my own research and the other weather services showed good conditions. ScopeNights showed poor to fair, even a couple of hours before dark each day and the other weather services all showed clear skies and good conditions. It turned out to be some the best weather ever seen at CSSP.

Great useful app. Love to stargaze and astrophotography. This app is very useful and accurately predicts good to ideal conditions. Check it several times per week.

Nicely Executed Concept. Well done Martin! A very unique app indeed. I use it regularly.

Great core Astro utility. Great little Astro app for your iPhone so you can keep tabs on when a good observing nite is coming up. This may not be a big deal if you're blessed to live in the Southwest US but for those of us in the rest of the country (and much of Europe), getting one good nite a week is doing good. Knowing about it a day or two in advance will help ensure you keep you schedule open! It will be interesting to see how it compares in terms of accuracy with the Clear Dark Sky Clock website. This app has the advantage of using your specific location - not just the closest designated site. The enhancements mentioned by the previous two reviewers would be most welcomed! For the developer; you have a nice little app now but if you keep enhancing it, you could wind up with an extremely useful app that would appear on the IOS devices of every amateur astronomer in the world (well, at least a lot ;-). Peace & blessings...

This App Is Broken. I constantly receive dozens of pop up notifications stating “Scope Nights Global Forecast Unavailable For….” basics every location that I have searched. Literally every time I open the app, I have to clear a dozen or so notifications.

Waiting for it to be accurate. So far it says every night will be bad and has made me lose two trips to my dark sky site. Regret having bought it.

Great App. Easy to use and very accurate.

too much bugs. too much bugs, repeated sites added

Nice IOS 11 update. The inclusion of moon rise/set information is incredibly useful. Thank you!

Excellent App. Very helpful.

Was great while it lasted.... Sadly, this app no longer works in iOS 14.2

Outstanding app for amateur astronomers. This is the most useful amateur astro app I've found yet. Using location (either manually entered or acquired from location services) it acquires relevant weather forecast information, which it analyzes to determine those qualities relevant for astronomical observing over the following 10 day period. The information is is provided in detail or via a fever chart (green/amber/red) for the three most important quantities qualities identified: temp, relative humidity, & cloud cover during the dark hours. Fever chart thresholds are customizable. The exceptionally well written and complete documentation provides excellent guidance for customizing for your equipment (e.g., dew zapper, dew shield, no dew mitigation aid). The UI is very clean and easy to use. This app gets my highest recommendation!

Not applicable for where I live just get error messages. Doesn’t work for where I live in Hawaii. I just get codes that say information for my area is unavailable.

Would be great if it worked well. The app tells you decently accurate cloud coverage and all that. But consistently state that weather information is unavailable.

Handy app. Good at what it’s meant to be / do

A useful tool for planning my expeditions. Handy and informative. I use it frequently.

Don't bother with this app. When you buy this app, you do not get any of the advertised features that come with this app, such as the dark sky map, without paying a bunch of money in upgrades. In addition, you can only get the weather at one time from 2 locations without upgrades: Your present location and 1 other. Even the default weather app can beat that. Although their ratings of "good", "poor", and "fair" can be helpful, most people are capable of judging the weather forecast's meaning for astronomy themselves. In addition, it often gives incorrect forecasts that differ significantly from the National Weather Service and other apps' predictions. Don't waste your money on this app. Googling the Clear Dark Sky Chart for your location is much more effective, detailed, and is also free.

Great app. Getting to know how to use this app. Very useful

Great app. This is definitely one of my “go to” apps for planning my observing sessions!

No longer load weather data. Used to work great, now it just errors every time I open the app and doesn’t load weather data. Completely deleted and reloaded the app and the same thing happens. Save your money.

Stopped working. Seems with iOS 14 this app no longer works. It was my go to astronomy weather app. It was so useful. Please update the app to make it useful again.

It won’t load forecasts for my locations. Used to work fine, but now it shows error messages when it tries to load my local forecast.

Simple and Excellent. Nights with good seeing, clear skies, and dark skies are few and far between, especially nights where the sky will be dark early enough to share the experience with my kids. I used to check iCSC, a weather app, and ephemeris app, which isn't something I'd take the time to do every day when life gets hectic. This led to many missed nights. With this app, you get a one-click 5-day forecast that includes seeing conditions, weather conditions, sundown/sunrise, and moon phase on a single screen. It's so quick that I'm now in the habit of checking every day, so I won't miss any more perfect nights with my kids and my scope.

Very good. It’s accurate 85% of time.

Great developer response. The developer has fixed the issue I was experiencing. It now works perfectly.

I use this application as my main source for planning. I'm historic user of the clear sky chart now I've decided to use this application as my main way to plan my observing site sessions in the Santa Cruz mountains in California. I found this application to be very reliable and the new improvements this month to be significant enhancements. I would like to see an enhancement for "seeing". That would be a great upgrade but other than that this application is really working great for me now.

Save your money. Much better apps and websites available, most at no charge. This app doesn’t display much data and appears to not be very accurate and charges for the privilege.

Best astronomy resource. The best way to know when to go out

Addresses an important need. Being able to check the overnight conditions at a glance is great -- and much easier than having to drill down into hourly forecasts on weather sites that tend to hide the information you really want. I hope the author continues to refine and enhance this app. A universal version with retina and ipad support would be great... as would notification badges when there's a good night coming up.

Looks Great, but Not Accurate!. At first I really liked this app., however, its accuracy is only approximate. Many times it shows stormy nights that are rarely ever correct! I am not impressed and find it virtually unusable as far as pinpoint accuracy is concerned. Just updated app. It shows lows for my city that are not even close to being accurate!!! This in an improved update?!?!? Just bought a new iPhone 6 and app will not work anymore. Like other reviewer, it keeps telling me to check Wi-Fi connection!!! I even checked to see if there was an update to fix bugs but to no avail!!!!

Very accurate. I use it all the time

Pretty accurate. I rely on this program to plan my scope nights. It’s rarely been off much

Scope Nights. Great app. One of my go To Astro tools.

Great App. Great app for anyone who is a stargazer.

Nice app full of bugs. The app is good, and there is no alternative in the market. However, the app is full of various bugs which makes it unusable. The search function is very primitive. The favorite site list keeps dropping earlier saved spots. The list keeps going.

Graphically brilliant.. The most accurate tool I rely on to plan my evening astronomy activities.