Stargazing conditions tonight
Is tonight good for stargazing?
A good stargazing night needs three things to line up: clear skies, little moonlight, and reasonably clean air. Any one of them can ruin the other two — a cloudless night under a full moon washes out all but the brightest stars, and wildfire haze can dim a technically clear sky.
This tool scores tonight for 500 US cities by combining cloud-cover forecasts, the moon's phase and set time, and current air quality, then tells you when true darkness starts. If tonight is a bust, the 7-night outlook shows the next good window.
City lights are the one factor you can't wait out — but a 30–60 minute drive away from the glow transforms what you can see, and your eyes need about 20 minutes in the dark to fully adapt.
Check a major city
How it works
We score tonight's stargazing conditions by combining three factors for your location: how much of the sky is obscured by clouds (60% of the score), how bright the moon is and whether it's up during viewing hours (30%), and local air quality (10%). "Tonight" means the window starting at astronomical twilight — when the sun is 18° below the horizon and the sky is fully dark. Cloud cover and visibility come from Open-Meteo, moon phase is calculated from orbital mechanics, and air quality from Open-Meteo's air-quality model.