Firstdark: Milky Way & Aurora
Dark sky & astro planner
Only for iPhone
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
Firstdark is live. Free to try — see tonight's verdict for your own coordinates before deciding whether the $19.99 Pro unlock is worth it.
You already know roughly when the core is up. The question that actually costs you something is whether tonight is worth the drive.
Firstdark answers that one. It works out when the sky is genuinely dark where you are standing — not sunset, not civil twilight, the real astronomical dark — then checks the moon against it, and the cloud across those exact hours, and tells you in a sentence.
"Go. The sky says yes."
Then it tells you which nights this month are the good ones, so you can plan a trip around the moon instead of guessing.
AND WHEN THE AURORA IS OUT
Kp 5 is a great night in Minnesota and nothing at all in Texas. The number means nothing until you know what your own latitude needs — and that depends on geomagnetic latitude, not the one on the map. Firstdark computes your threshold from your coordinates every time, and never reads it off a table of cities. If aurora cannot reach you at any Kp, it says so rather than selling you a forecast that will never fire.
WHAT IT DOES
• Tonight's verdict in one sentence, with the hour-by-hour clear sky across your real dark hours • The galactic core: when it rises, how high it gets, and which way to face • Four weeks of nights, so a trip can be planned around the moon rather than guessed at • The shots actually worth taking, ranked — with where to point and what to start the exposure from • An aurora threshold computed from your coordinates, every time — never read off a table of cities • Every lunar and solar eclipse to 2050, with what you would see from your own position • A printable report: twenty-eight nights, the reasoning, and where each number came from
IT TELLS YOU WHAT IT DOESN'T KNOW
Cloud runs out at sixteen days and Kp at three. Past that, Firstdark says the sky is unknown rather than clear, and marks a 27-day recurrence estimate as the guess it is. It will not dress a guess up as a forecast.
BUILT FOR THE FIELD
Red-light mode swaps the entire palette — no white or green pixel survives it, so you can check the hour bars at 2am without losing your night vision.
Sun, moon, twilight and the galactic centre are computed on your device and need no signal at all. Cloud and space weather are cached with their age shown honestly. There is no blank screen in a dark car park.
CHECKED, NOT ASSUMED
Astronomy that plans a night should be worth trusting. Sunset and twilight land within a minute and a half of the US Naval Observatory; moonrise within twelve minutes; moon illumination within one percentage point. Solar eclipse timings reproduce NASA's own published circumstances to within two seconds.
No account. No advertising. Nothing to log in to.
Your coordinates go to the weather service to fetch cloud — and, only if you turn alerts on, to Firstdark's own server, so it can tell whether it is dark and clear where you are before waking you. Nothing else is collected.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
The developer, MEENAKSHI KOUL CHOWDHURY, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
- Location
- Identifiers
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- MEENAKSHI KOUL CHOWDHURY
- Size
- 34.4 MB
- Category
- Photo & Video
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 15.1 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 15.1 or later. - iPod touch
Requires iOS 15.1 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 12.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Firstdark Pro $19.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Meenakshi Koul Chowdhury