Sun Surveyor (Sun & Moon)

I teach at Parsons School of Design and use this tool with students. It provide simple and intuitive data for understanding solar geometry in relation to time of day, season and geographic location. This aids students (or practitioners) how to respond with a corresponding design intervention to celebrate direct solar contact or to shade. I find the 3D compass the most helpful tool but have also taken advantage of the “Live View” when on a project site understand seasonal solar conditions and taking screen shots for my documentation. If you work with daylight design or are simply curious about solar and lunar relationships, this is a worthy purchase.

I use this app all the time and for so many things. Of course it’s great for photography planning, but I use it much more for trip planning. What time will the sun be setting in Rome when I’m there next year? Great, I’ll make dinner reservations for half an hour before that. How many hours of daylight will there be for that upcoming road trip? Or what’s the difference in day lengths between solstices in that part of the world?When and where exactly will the super moon come over the horizon into view? Easy peasy. I use Sun Surveyor every time I go camping to pick the spot with the best morning shade. Or to find the best seats at an outdoor concert. Once you have the app, you will find dozens of uses for it. I use it so frequently it lives on the first page of my Home Screen. Excellent app. Enjoy!

I mainly purchased this years ago for helping me visualize sun and moon paths, as well as occasional photography help. The astounding level of information and tool packed into this app have exceeded my needs and expectations, and it continues to improve over the years with regular free updates. Photographers will find this to be an essential tool, and I assume many others as well. But if like me, you're just a nerd looking to orient yourself to the motions of the solar system, this app excels at that too. The best thing about this app is the multiple perspectives it offers— first-person perspective with celestial bodies overlaid on the live camera; the "astronaut's-view" 3D compass; and for a remote-viewing experience, the Street View perspective. There is an astounding level of data about the sun and moon at your fingertips as well. But I mainly like the visualization tools. I can't imagine anything else you'd need in a sun tracker app, and would guess you'll find stuff included you didn't even know you'd want.