ShootWindow

For landscape · astro · outdoor photographers

Know the night
worth driving for.

ShootWindow watches the weather models, the moon, the galactic core and the aurora forecast for your exact spot — and tells you the hours they line up. Stop refreshing five apps. Get pinged when it's worth packing the tripod.

Check your spot — free 48-hour outlook free · no account

Three steps, zero refreshing

01

Pin your spot

Search any town worldwide. We compute for the exact coordinates — sun, moon, galactic core, hourly weather.

02

Pick your conditions

Milky Way, aurora, dramatic or clean golden hour, morning fog, clear night. Each is a real recipe with honest thresholds.

03

Get pinged in time

A pass watches your dates: evening digest of upcoming windows plus a heads-up the day before each one, by email or Telegram.

The recipes

No AI vibes, no “70% chance of nice”. Every recipe is a deterministic rule over forecast and ephemeris data — you can read exactly why a window scored what it did.

Milky Way

Galactic core above 15°, astronomical darkness, moon down or under 20% lit, cloud under 25%.

Aurora

NOAA Kp forecast strong enough for your geomagnetic latitude, dark and clear enough to see it.

Dramatic golden hour

Low sun with a mid/high cloud canvas to catch fire — and a low-cloud ceiling that stays out of the way.

Clean golden hour

Unbroken warm light for portraits and product work. Sun in the golden band, sky basically clean.

Morning fog

Saturated, calm air around sunrise — the inversion mornings that make forests and valleys.

Clear night

Cloudless astronomical darkness for star trails and timelapses, moon state reported.

Pay for the trip, not a subscription

Trip Pass €9 — one spot, up to 21 days of full 10-day outlooks and alerts. Season Pass €29 — five spots, six months. Both one-time. Nothing renews.

See pricing

Questions photographers ask

When can I photograph the Milky Way?

The galactic core must be above the horizon during astronomical darkness with little moon — at mid-northern latitudes that means roughly March to October, in the dark hours, within a week or so of new moon. ShootWindow computes the exact hours for your coordinates and combines them with the cloud forecast.

What Kp index do I need to see the aurora?

It depends on your geomagnetic latitude: Tromsø sees aurora at Kp 1–2, Edinburgh needs roughly Kp 5–6, and central Europe needs a major storm (Kp 7+). We compute your threshold and only alert when the NOAA forecast crosses it under workable cloud cover.

How far ahead are the forecasts useful?

Hour-by-hour detail covers about the first three days; beyond that the model steps to 6-hour resolution and we mark windows as provisional. We recheck every 6 hours, so a provisional window firms up (or dies) as the date approaches — that is exactly what the alerts are for.

Which weather data does it use?

Hourly forecasts from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (ECMWF-backed, global coverage), space weather from NOAA SWPC, and sun/moon/galactic-core geometry computed from standard astronomical algorithms — the same math used in ephemeris tables.

Is it a subscription?

No. A Trip Pass is €9 once, for one spot and up to 21 days. A Season Pass is €29 once, for five spots and six months. When it expires it just expires — nothing renews, nothing to cancel.