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Usually it's the dial
that wants explaining.
The dial answers one question: how much of tonight is genuinely dark, clear of cloud and clear of the moon. Everything below explains how it gets there, and what to do when it disagrees with the sky outside. If yours isn't here, email us. A person answers.
[email protected] · or jump to every way to reach us.
Every ring is answering a different question.
The arc is one night drawn end to end, sunset on the left, sunrise on the right. The legend underneath names each ring in the order they sit.
The arc is one night
Left end is sunset, right end is sunrise, and the times under the baseline say which. The needle marks where you are in that night. Drag the time wheel at the bottom of the screen and the needle travels with you.
The gold band is astronomical dark
The thick line. It runs for the stretch when the sun is far enough under the horizon that the sky has stopped contributing light of its own. In midsummer in the north of the country there isn't any, and the band is missing rather than short. That is the sky, not a fault.
The pale shoulders either side are twilight
The sky draining after sunset and filling again before sunrise. Good light for a landscape with something in the sky behind it. No use at all for anything faint.
The thin line inside the band is cloud
Drawn only over the hours the forecast puts at a fifth cover or more, and it deepens as the cover rises. Where it crosses the gold, that part of the dark is spoken for. A dial with no cloud line at all is the forecast saying the night is open.
The line inside that is the moon
It appears only for the hours the moon is above the horizon during the dark, and only when it is bright enough to matter. The times under the baseline tell you when it sets or rises, which is usually the number you are actually planning around.
The green line outside the band is the ideal window
What is left when dark, cloud and moon have all had their say: the run of the night with a dark sky, no significant cloud and no moon in it. It sits outside the band because it is the answer rather than one of the workings, and its times are repeated in green under the number.
The number in the middle, and the verdict under it
The big figure is usable clear dark: hours and minutes of astronomical dark once the cloudy hours and the moonlit hours have been taken out. Underneath it, the span the dark itself runs to, then the ideal window in green. The coloured dot and the short phrase below are the same figure said out loud, green when the night is worth the drive and amber when it is marginal. Three hours is a night. Twenty minutes is a gamble.
Why a bright moon shortens the night
A moon above the horizon lights the whole sky, not just the part it is in. Astronomically the dark is still dark, but the sky is no longer black, so the app counts those hours out of the usable figure. It is why a clear night near full moon can read worse than a patchy one near new, and why the week strip often picks a night you wouldn't have.
The ones we get asked.
Location, signal, the forecast, the camera, and what the subscription does.
Why does it need my location?
Because everything the app says is true of one point on the earth and nowhere else. Where the sun sets, how long the dark runs and whether the moon is in the way all follow from the coordinate. Solander asks for location while you are using it, does the astronomy on the device, and sends the coordinate to Apple's weather service to ask what the cloud will do there. Mirentha never receives it. Decline, and you set the pin yourself on the Map tab.
Does it work offline?
The sun, moon and twilight maths work anywhere with no signal at all, which is the point of doing them on the phone. The cloud forecast is the part that needs a connection. The last one fetched for that spot is cached, so an offline dial still draws a cloud line, just an older one, and the app tells you when it was last updated. The map needs a connection too, for the same reason any map does. Most useful spots have no signal, so plan to arrive with the forecast already in hand.
Why is the cloud forecast different from my weather app?
Solander asks for one number most weather apps bury: total cloud cover, hour by hour, at the exact coordinate you are planning. A general forecast is smoothed across a town and built around rain and temperature, which is the right answer to a different question. Two forecasts can both be correct and still disagree about a hilltop three miles away.
How far ahead does it forecast?
The week strip shows five nights. The sun and moon figures on it are exact that far out and a great deal further, because they are astronomy. The cloud is the part with a shelf life: tonight and tomorrow are worth acting on, the third night is a steer, and past that it tells you which night to keep free rather than what to expect.
Can I plan for a spot I'm not at?
Yes, and it is how most planning gets done. Open the Map tab, move the map to where you intend to stand, and set the pin. Every tab retunes to that coordinate: the run of light, the dial, the week strip, the Live view. Save it as a shoot and it is waiting when you go.
Why does the Live tab need the camera?
Because it draws the sun, the moon and the stars over what the phone can see, so you can point at a gap in the treeline and find out what will be sitting in it at half eleven. It uses the motion and orientation sensors for the same reason, to know where the phone is pointing. The frames are used to draw the screen and nothing else: nothing is recorded, saved or sent anywhere. The other four tabs never open the camera.
What happens to my shoots if I delete the app?
They go with it. Saved spots, shoots, trips and cached forecasts live on the device and nowhere else. There is no account and no iCloud sync, so deleting the app deletes them and reinstalling starts you empty. If a spot took you a year to find, write the coordinate down somewhere else as well.
How do I cancel the subscription?
In your App Store account settings rather than in the app: Settings, then your name, then Subscriptions. Cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends or it renews, and that applies to the free trial too. Apple takes the payment and handles refunds, at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot cancel or refund for you.
What do I need to run it?
An iPhone running iOS 26 or later. The app is in English only. The Live tab additionally needs a real device with a camera and a working compass.
Things we already
know about.
Listed rather than buried, because a planning tool that oversells itself costs you a night. Found something that isn't here? Tell us about it — it's the fastest way to get it fixed.
Cloud forecasts have a shelf life
Past two or three nights the cover figures are a tendency, not a plan. The sun and moon numbers stay exact; it is only the weather that goes soft.
The Live view is only as good as the compass
It reads the phone's magnetometer, so a car roof, a tripod head, a gate or a magnetic case will pull it off true. If the overlay looks wrong, step away from the metal and figure-of-eight the phone.
No terrain shadowing
Sunset is calculated against a flat horizon. A hill to your west takes the sun ten minutes earlier than the app says, and a valley can lose it half an hour early. Read the ground yourself.
No aurora, and no seeing forecast
It does not predict geomagnetic activity, and it says nothing about atmospheric steadiness or transparency. Clear and dark is not the same as sharp.
Tested against UK skies
The astronomy is general, but the app was built and used at mid-northern latitudes. It has had far less time under tropical or polar skies, where twilight behaves nothing like it does here.
Every way to reach us.
Tell us your iPhone model and iOS version, the spot you were planning, and what the app said. We read every message.
Solander sends us nothing at all, but the full policy is on the Solander privacy page.
71–75 Shelton Street
Covent Garden, London
WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom
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