Timelapse: a dropped frame no longer ends the run — If the camera fails to take one frame during interval shooting, the run now carries on and the end-of-run report counts the miss, instead of the whole timelapse stopping there.
Bluetooth cameras: clear guidance when pairing is lost — When a camera has dropped its Bluetooth bond, the page now tells you so and explains how to re-pair, instead of failing without a word.
The front-page Moon in its real orientation — The Moon drawn on the front page now shows its surface the way it actually appears in your sky, matching the 3D Compass and AR.
Astro Calendar: the date stays in view — In the Day event list, the date label now stays pinned at the top while you scroll.
Location prefers GPS — When both are available, the app now favors the GPS fix over the less accurate network fix, so times and directions are computed from where you actually stand.
Improved stability — The AR controls now stay clear of the time slider, and several camera-communication guards stop rare errors from ending a session.
Shutter Release: control several cameras at once — The camera page can now hold more than one connected camera: switch between bodies with each one keeping its own settings, or fire them all together with one tap — for a two-rig setup shooting the same scene wide and long.
Timelapse report — When an interval run finishes, a report now sums it up: frames taken versus planned, elapsed time, interval and hold, start and end times to the second, and whether the run completed or was cut short — so you know before packing up whether the timelapse is complete.
Moonrise and moonset corrected — Moon times now come from the same solver the Sun uses and follow the top-of-disk convention every almanac uses. The calendar's Moon view lists each event on the day it actually happens — a late moonset no longer slides onto the next day's row — and pairs each moonset with its rise, including across polar spells.
Improved stability — Fixed a crash when a place-name lookup finished after you had left the page, a crash when mountain-peak data was missing (it now ships with the app), quieter handling of a denied location permission, and several camera-connection fixes: a double-tapped Add camera no longer starts two connections, and an error right after a capture no longer ends the session.
New: Shutter Release — control your camera from the app — Plug your camera in over USB and shoot from the new Shutter Release page in the menu: live view with tap to focus, shutter / aperture / ISO wheels, a manual-focus wheel, video recording, and interval shooting for timelapses. Bluetooth connections offer shutter control only, and Wi-Fi support is coming in a future update. Sony, Nikon, and Canon bodies are supported; Fujifilm, Panasonic, and Olympus/OM System cameras are likely compatible but not yet tested — the full model list is on the page.
Camera reports — If a camera misbehaves, tap the report button in the upper-left corner of the camera preview to send us a diagnostic log. That is how support improves for bodies we cannot test ourselves.
Panorama: separate horizontal and vertical click-stops — The Panorama tool now lets Horizontal and Vertical rotation use different click-stop increments — for example, your panorama head's azimuth detent for Horizontal while leaving Vertical free — with each axis's steps rounded to its own increment so every row still closes the full circle.
Polar Alignment: more accurate and easier to read — Guide-star positions now account for precession, removing an offset of up to about 0.5°, and the single-star routine's altitude guidance now corrects in the right direction when the mount's reading is off. The clock position switches between decimal and hour:minute formats with a tap and ticks along by the minute, and planets that are washed out in daylight are no longer offered as targets.
Crescent visibility on the Astro Calendar — Around new Moon, the calendar's day detail now includes a Yallop crescent-visibility assessment: whether to look after sunset or before sunrise, the best observing time, and how visible the thin crescent should be — from easily visible with the naked eye to needing optical aid.
AR sky now follows you as you walk — In AR, the sky and everything drawn on it — the Milky Way, stars, the Sun and Moon, their tracks, the direction grid and every overlay — now stays centred on you as you move. Previously it was pinned to the spot where AR started, so walking far enough let you drift off-centre and eventually step outside the sky altogether.
Fixed the Moon's shape during a lunar eclipse — Earth's shadow now falls across the Moon from the direction it really does in the sky, so the eclipsed disk keeps the correct limb bright and the shadow swings around the disk as the eclipse progresses. Previously the shadow was always drawn from the left, which could put the bite on the wrong side.
Wind speed follows your unit system — Switching between US and metric units now carries wind speed along with it (mph ↔ km/h), the way every other unit already does. m/s and knots stay as you set them.
Improved stability — Fixed a crash on some Android 14 devices when reading the location's altitude, several crashes that could happen when a location fix or region lookup finished after you had already left the page, a crash when dismissing the update dialog, and two AR-related crashes on iOS.
New Sun views: H-alpha — The Live Sun card adds two ground-based hydrogen-alpha (H-alpha) views from the NSO/GONG network, right after Sunspots — a grayscale chromosphere view and an orange-tinted version — showing filaments, prominences, and flares.
Fixed Moon surface orientation — The Moon's surface detail now stays correctly oriented in every phase, across the front page, 3D Compass, and AR. Previously, waning moons could show the craters and maria rotated about half a turn even though the lit phase and terminator were correct.
Improved stability — Fixed several crashes involving location permissions, sensors, and app resume.
Layout fix — Front-page content now stays clear of the system navigation bar.
Redesigned menu — Refreshed the menu with a cleaner, card-based layout — quick-launch cards for the 3D Compass and AR, plus grouped Schedule and General shortcuts and a settings button in the header.
Jump to any card from the top of the page — Each page now shows shortcut buttons across the top, one for each card, so you can jump straight to the card you want instead of scrolling.
More calendar views — The calendar now switches between Events, Moon, Night, and Aurora views, each with its own per-day indicator and day detail.
Faster sky-event navigation — Added previous and next controls to the time bar, so you can jump directly between sky events instead of dragging through the day.
Calendar access from the time bar — Added a calendar button on the time bar to open the Astro Calendar for the selected day.
Fixed Moon track display — Fixed an issue where the Moon marker could appear off the Moon track.
New free space-weather and aurora cards — Live Sun, History Flare, Solar Wind, Short-Term Kp Forecast, Long-Term Kp (27 Days), Storm Probabilities, Dst Index, NOAA Scales, SWPC Alerts, Solar Wind Forecast, SWPC Model Animation, HUXt Forecast, and Aurora Tonight.
User Interface — Fully supports multiple pages and customizing the order of cards.
AR and Compass — Added rainbow, moonbow, terrain-outline, and light-pollution overlays to help plan shots directly in the live view. You can also aim at a celestial object and tap Calibrate to quickly finish alignment.
Astro Calendar — Added a new way to check upcoming sky events from the menu or by tapping the date in the title.
More planning cards — Added Skyglow Dome for light-pollution planning, Satellite Position and Satellite Pass for satellite tracking, plus Tide Model and Tide Station for seascape planning.
Capture and share from AR (Beta) — Take a photo or record a video straight from the AR camera view. Photos are saved with an info strip beneath the image showing the place, coordinates, aim direction and altitude, plus Sun, Moon, Milky Way Center, lens and time details, so you can remember exactly where and when to shoot. This feature is still in beta and being refined.
External lens setup for AR — Added per-lens external lens setup for teleconverters and ultra-wide adapters, including effective focal length, multiplier, mirror preview, anamorphic desqueeze, and fisheye projection options.
Improved focal-length wheel — The AR focal-length wheel now works better with external lens settings and extends the available range based on the longest effective focal length.
User interface redesign — Refined all screens, with a new font and multiple color themes, for a more consistent visual style.
Removed the five-day limitation — You can now browse any date. Tap the date in the header to open a date picker and jump straight to any day.
Now on HarmonyOS — PlanItLive now runs natively on HarmonyOS NEXT devices.
Real Milky Way in the sky — The Milky Way is rendered as an actual photographic image across the sky dome, correctly positioned for your location, date, and time (replacing the old dot markers), with an optional H-alpha view that emphasizes the nebula regions.
Plan your shot by focal length — A framing overlay shows how the sky composes at different focal lengths in the AR camera view, with smarter detection of your ultra-wide, wide, and telephoto lenses.
Better AR accuracy — Overhauled sky alignment, with a perspective-correct overlay for wide-angle lenses and on-screen direction guides (elevation rings, azimuth meridians, and cardinal labels).
Light pollution & sky quality — Sky brightness (Bortle scale) from the Light Pollution Map, with offline caching and the updated 2025 data layer.
More languages & calendars — Extensive localization updates plus Chinese lunar calendar support.