Viewpoint

Alignment planner

Know the exact day and time the sun, the moon, or the Milky Way core will sit right behind your subject — a lone tree, a lighthouse, a mountain ridge, a city landmark. The alignment planner searches the next 90 days for every window where the body lines up with your chosen subject, computed entirely on your device.

How it works

The planner walks you through it on a full-screen map. You aim by dragging the map under a fixed centre crosshair — so you place one point at a time and they never overlap.

  1. Place your subject (step 1). Drag the map so the crosshair sits on the landmark you want the body behind — a tree, a tower, a ridge. Tap Next.
  2. Place your camera (step 2). Drag the map to where you’ll actually be shooting from. Your subject stays pinned. Tap Next.
  3. Pick a body. Sun, moon, or Milky Way core. Set a subject height in metres if it rises above the ground (a tower, a peak) — it changes the apparent angle the body needs to reach.
  4. Pick a moon phase (moon only). Any visible (any lit phase — the default) or narrow it to full / gibbous / half / crescent / new. Switch the map style (standard / terrain / satellite) with the layers button, like the other maps — it follows your Settings default.
  5. Tap Find alignments. The planner scans 90 days and lists every matching window. Tap Back any time to re-place the subject or camera.

For the Milky Way core, the planner only returns passes that happen in astronomical darkness — when the sun is far enough below the horizon for the core to actually show — so every result is a window you could really shoot.

What each result tells you

For every alignment you get the date and time (in the spot’s local time), the body’s compass direction and height above the horizon at the moment of closest line-up, the moon’s illumination (for moon searches), and the distance from your spot to the subject.

Tap “Plan this” on any result to open a shoot plan pre-set to that moment, your subject, and its height — ready to fine-tune and save.

Works offline

All of the astronomy is calculated on your device. The alignment planner works with no signal — in the field, far from anywhere.

Availability

The alignment planner is part of Viewpoint Pro.