Tonight’s stargazing window
Helps users scan the horizon at their location to find the best short meteor-viewing window, direction, and visibility.
Helps people who decide at the last minute to watch meteors find the short windows from their current location that are actually worth looking up for.
Standing on a balcony, in a yard, or at a campsite, users rotate their phone to scan the horizon; the app combines obstructions from buildings and trees, cloud cover, moonlight, and the meteor radiant, then shows the best 20 minutes, direction, and a visibility score on the first screen.
If conditions are poor tonight, it clearly says "not worth waiting now" and compares nearby observing spots that users can reach and return from within their free time. Before the window begins, the screen switches to a dim guide that retains only the direction, countdown, and light sources to avoid.
Rather than publishing one stargazing forecast for an entire city, it recalculates whether the user can see anything using the actual horizon in front of them.
Why now
The 2026 Perseid meteor shower entered its active period on July 17; as of July 18, 2026, 00:33 UTC, "perseid meteor shower tonight" remained an active search in the United States, with about 2,000+ searches in the past 168 hours and a recorded increase of about 200% S1. The concentrated search for "can I see it tonight?" and the period leading to the August 12 to 13 new-moon peak night make this a suitable time to meet demand with an immediate assessment based on the user’s location and actual obstructions.
Target user
People who decide at the last minute to watch meteors but will not stay up for a vague forecast. They open it after dinner, at a campsite, or before driving out to quickly decide whether to wait, where to look, or whether to change locations.
Minimal entry point
Start by assessing whether the user’s current location has a worthwhile 20-minute window tonight: have users manually trace the obstruction profile along the real horizon, use Open-Meteo cloud-cover forecasts and Astronomy Engine moon positions, then combine them with a public meteor-shower calendar to show the time, direction, and "worth waiting / not worth waiting".
Punching above its weight
Build indexable same-night assessment pages around "Perseid meteor shower tonight + city name," and let users share result cards with location, time, and direction in local astronomy groups, camping groups, and community forums.
Competitors & gaps
- PhotoPillsGoogle
- Already calculates meteor-shower intensity, moonlight effects, and radiant paths by location, and also offers AR, but it mainly serves photography planning. The gap is to incorporate the user’s on-site scan of building and tree obstructions directly into a 20-minute viewing assessment.
- Stellarium MobileGoogle
- Excels at identifying celestial objects when users point a phone at the sky, making it useful for answering "what is that?" The gap is to answer whether it is worth waiting right now and which direction an ordinary user should face.
- Clear OutsideGoogle
- Provides hourly cloud cover, moon phases, and periods of darkness for stargazing weather. The gap is to combine weather, the meteor radiant, and the on-site horizon into one clear conclusion.
How it makes money
Free for tonight’s basic assessment; an annual subscription unlocks short-window alerts, nearby observing-spot comparisons, and saved locations.
The case against
The strongest case against this is that phone compass errors, changing local cloud cover, and incomplete obstruction scans could make a seemingly precise 20-minute score create false confidence.