Sky events · for the people you know
Friends’ Skies
See what’s worth looking up at, for where your people are. Save a few towns, and this page works out when the Moon, the bright planets, meteor showers and eclipses are worth a text: in each person’s own time, which way to face, and how high to look.
Your friends are under interesting skies too
Add someone’s city to see when the Moon, planets, meteor showers and other sky events are worth telling them about.
Saved places stay in this browser. You do not need their contact information.
Add people and places
Town search runs on this page, against a list of about 36,000 places that comes with the site (from GeoNames, CC BY 4.0). Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Worth looking up for your people
Edit, reorder or remove saved places
Saved in this browser only. Clearing your browser’s site data, or using “Delete everything” in Settings, removes them too.
How Friends’ Skies decides
What counts as an event. The Moon’s phases and its thin evening and morning crescents; the Moon passing close to a bright planet; two planets together; Mars, Jupiter and Saturn at opposition; Mercury and Venus at their best; meteor shower peaks from the International Meteor Organization’s calendar; and eclipses from NASA’s eclipse canon. Positions are calculated in your browser and checked against NASA JPL’s DE421 ephemeris; see how the numbers are made.
Visible from there, not just happening. Every event is worked out for each saved place on its own: is it above the horizon, is the sky dark enough, how high, which way. A Moon-and-Venus pairing needs both up in twilight; a meteor shower needs a dark sky and a high radiant, and a bright Moon costs it; an eclipse needs the Sun or the Moon up at the right moment. Something that is not visible from a place is not offered for it.
Weather is not included. This is geometry. Every suggestion means “worth a look, weather permitting”.
Their time, not yours. Times are in each place’s own time zone, daylight saving included, and “tonight” means their night. When your clock differs, your time is shown beside theirs.
Telling them. “Tell them to look up” writes a short message you can send however you like. Nothing is ever sent for you, and you never need their number or email.
No notifications, yet. This website does not send alerts or ask to. A future phone app might remind you when it is time to tell someone; nobody on your list would ever hear from us.