# Stellarhound > Free stargazing intelligence for any location on Earth. Stellarhound scores each of > the next 7-16 nights from three-layer cloud cover, moon phase/altitude and light > pollution, and recommends nearby DarkSky International certified sites ranked by > darkness combined with the best upcoming night. No account, no paywall, no tracking > of individual queries. ## Core promise and honesty rules - Every displayed number is traceable to a data source. When data is missing we show "unavailable" with a reason — we never invent or interpolate a score. - Bortle class is an approximation derived from zenith brightness, explicitly labeled as such, not a field measurement. - Cloud cover is a weather forecast and inherently uncertain; accuracy falls off beyond ~7 days. We do not forecast atmospheric seeing in v1 and say so. - User locations are used in memory only and are never stored or sent to analytics. ## Pages - [Stargazing forecast](https://stellarhound.com/): main tool. Enter a city, use browser geolocation, or type coordinates; get 16 per-night score cards (score, three-layer cloud breakdown, moon illumination and up-fraction, one-line verdict), the best window of the week, and the top 5 nearby dark-sky sites. - [Light pollution map](https://stellarhound.com/map): tap any point for an approximate Bortle class and tonight's score; all certified dark-sky places are marked. - [Sky events 2026-2030](https://stellarhound.com/events): calendar of meteor showers, solar and lunar eclipses, planetary oppositions and the Apophis flyby, each with visibility regions and an authoritative source. Detail pages with a live per-location peak-night forecast: [Geminids 2026](https://stellarhound.com/events/geminids-2026), [Asteroid Apophis 2029](https://stellarhound.com/events/apophis-2029). Archived records of past events: [Perseids 2026](https://stellarhound.com/events/perseids-2026), [Total solar eclipse 2026 (Iceland & Spain)](https://stellarhound.com/events/solar-eclipse-2026-spain-iceland). - [Meteor showers](https://stellarhound.com/meteor-showers): when the next meteor shower peaks — every major peak for the coming years with peak-night moonlight, the annual shower calendar (activity windows and ideal-sky ZHR per IMO), and how to watch with the naked eye. - [Guides](https://stellarhound.com/guides): reading cloud forecasts (including how cloud cover is measured in oktas), the Bortle scale, the Moon phase, and planning a smart-telescope (Seestar) session. - [Stargazing by city](https://stellarhound.com/stargazing): in-depth guides for major cities (New York, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland) with local darkness, escape direction and a live seven-night forecast. - [Privacy](https://stellarhound.com/privacy): what is and isn't collected. ## Sky event calendar 2026-2030 (citable data) Dates and geometry below are summarized from the linked authoritative source per event (NASA or the International Meteor Organization); where a figure is model-dependent it is described as uncertain, never asserted. Full machine-readable calendar with source URLs powers the /events pages. - Geminids meteor shower peak — night of 13-14 December 2026, the year's richest shower (ZHR up to ~150 under ideal skies). A ~21% crescent moon sets during the evening, leaving the main hours dark. Source: International Meteor Organization. - Perseids meteor shower peak — night of 12-13 August 2026 (past), Northern Hemisphere. Coincided with a New Moon. Source: International Meteor Organization. - Total solar eclipse — 12 August 2026 (past). Totality over western Iceland and northern Spain; partial across much of Europe. First totality over mainland Europe since 1999. Source: NASA. - Total solar eclipse ("eclipse of the century") — 2 August 2027. Long totality (over six minutes) across southern Spain, North Africa and the Middle East. Source: NASA. - Total solar eclipse — 22 July 2028. Totality crosses Australia including Sydney; New Zealand edge. Source: NASA. - Total lunar eclipse — 31 December 2028, visible from Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia (not North America). Source: NASA. - Asteroid 99942 Apophis close approach — 13 April 2029. Passes closer than geostationary satellites (~31,000 km), briefly ~magnitude 3 and naked-eye; best from Europe, Africa and western Asia. No impact risk (ruled out for at least a century after 2021 radar). Source: NASA. - Total lunar eclipses in 2029 — 26 June (well placed for eastern North America) and 20 December (excellent for North America and Europe). Source: NASA. - Mars at opposition — 19 February 2027 and 25 March 2029, visible worldwide. Source: NASA. - Geminids meteor shower — peak 13-14 December 2028, near-moonless. Quadrantids — peak 3-4 January 2030, moonless. Eta Aquariids — around 5-6 May 2027, best for the Southern Hemisphere. Source: International Meteor Organization. ## Public API (v1) The website is a client of a small public JSON API. Coordinates are query parameters; responses carry full attribution and uncertainty notes. - `GET https://stellarhound.com/v1/conditions?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&nights={1..16}` Per-night score cards with factor breakdown (cloud/moon/darkness), best_window, light_pollution header (approximate Bortle), and attribution. - `GET https://stellarhound.com/v1/dark-sites?lat={lat}&lon={lon}&limit={1..8}` Nearby certified dark-sky sites ranked by darkness × best upcoming night, each with distance, approximate Bortle and best-night score. ## Data sources and licenses - Cloud forecasts: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). - Light pollution: David Lorenz, World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness 2024, based on EOG VIIRS data (CC BY 4.0). - Ephemeris (twilight, moonrise/set, illumination): computed locally with Skyfield and the JPL DE440s kernel (public domain). - Dark-sky places: DarkSky International certified locations, each linked to its official page. ## Scope (v0.1) Not included: accounts, email, seeing forecasts, satellite passes, telescope reviews, paid features. The design goal is a low-maintenance, honest tool. ## Programmatic access (for AI assistants) - [Stellarhound hosted MCP server](https://stellarhound.com/mcp): Add this URL to Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client for live tools: per-night stargazing scores, tonight's observing agenda, dark-sky site recommendations ranked by drive-worth, aurora outlook and light-pollution estimates for any coordinates. Streamable HTTP, read-only, no key, no tracking (same privacy promise as the site). The URL doubles as a human-readable docs page in a browser. Tools take lat/lon directly — assistants already know city coordinates; ~2 decimals is plenty (scores use a ~20 km grid).