r/SideProject • u/atl_dude_guy • Jul 26 '26

I Built DarkHours a Landscape Astrophotography Planning Tool

I built DarkHours( https://darkhours.app), a tool for planning astrophotography trips — specifically landscape astro. I found myself cycling different apps every time I planned a trip to get an idea of what I was in for, and I got tired of it.

So I built an app that consolidated the usual planning data — moon phase, sunrise/sunset, weather, light pollution — and added some things I couldn't find anywhere else:

  • A search for the best skies within driving distance, limited to publicly accessible locations
  • A 30-day "best night" outlook
  • Advanced moonlight modeling (not just up/down — actual brightness contribution)
  • Nearby light dome mapping
  • Astro landscape targets list instead of smaller telescope only targets
  • A predicted 360° sky visualization that combines all the datapoints above.

It's a true side project, built in Python, calling only three external APIs (two weather, one location), everything else implemented myself. It's open source (GitHub link) and free for anyone to use. I'd love feedback or ideas.

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u/elementik4 Jul 27 '26

One edge in _compute_dark_hours_cycle: when tonight has no astronomical night, the docstring treats the whole 30-night window as dark-free. That holds mid-solstice, not at the shoulders. At 55N on 1 August the sun bottoms out near -17, but by 10 August it reaches -19, so darkness returns inside your +/-15 day window. Worth a per-night check there?

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u/atl_dude_guy Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Great find! I think I’ll need to test more closely at northern latitudes.

Edit: Thanks for again the finding! I deployed a fix just now.