Nightobs: Astronomy Logbook

Nightobs is an observing log built for the dark: a paper-feeling ledger that counts what you have actually seen, with the Astronomical League's observing programmes already inside it.

THE PAGE BECOMES A RECORD
A night out produces a page of scribbles. Nightobs turns it into something a club officer will read: date and time, site, instrument, aperture, magnification, seeing, transparency, how the object was found, and what you saw. Every entry is kept against the object it belongs to, so the count and the progress toward a certificate take care of themselves.

FIVE PROGRAMMES, WITH THEIR OWN RULES
Each programme page carries the rules it is judged by and the fields it asks for, not one generic form:
- Messier Club - 110 objects, 70 for the certificate. Free, in full.
- Honorary Messier Club - all 110.
- Binocular Messier Club - 50, binoculars only, and the app refuses a telescope entry.
- Caldwell Club - 109.
- Herschel 400 - 399 of the 400 named, and the app says so in plain words rather than counting a list it cannot complete.

TONIGHT, WITH NO SIGNAL
All 556 objects are bundled in the app. Nightobs works out which of them are above your horizon through the dark window at your own site, shows the gaps - the objects on your lists tonight can actually fill - and then logs the ones you saw. No network, no account, no sync.

MADE FOR THE EYEPIECE
Field mode is red on black, with nothing on the screen that glares. Night mode is warm charcoal, day mode is paper, and system mode follows the phone. The type is set to be read at arm's length in the dark, and the figures you set a circle by are on the first screen.

A PACKET THAT STANDS UP
Export the programme as a PDF drawn on the phone - the entries, the counts, the rules, the site and the instrument - and hand it over or keep it. A JSON backup exists too, and it is the only way your record leaves the phone.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
No account, no sign-in, no ads, no analytics, no crash reporting, and no location permission at all: you type the coordinates of your site, which are more accurate than a phone's own position. Nothing about your night leaves the device unless you export it.

THE DATA
Object positions, sizes and magnitudes come from OpenNGC under CC BY-SA 4.0, with the Caldwell and Herschel memberships joined from the public list tables. That attribution is stated in the app's Settings.

Nightobs is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or approved by the Astronomical League. The League's own programme rules govern, and its list wins wherever the app's reading of it differs.

THE PRICE
The Messier Club is free and complete: all 110 objects, the log, the sites, the instruments, the packet.

THE LAUNCH OFFER
For the first three months after release, one payment unlocks the other four programmes, and it is yours for good - on every phone signed into the account that bought it, with no renewal and nothing to cancel. The price on the paywall is Google Play's own, in your currency.

AFTER THE LAUNCH
The four programmes continue as subscriptions, monthly or yearly, each priced by Google Play in your currency and each renewing until you cancel it in Play. A launch purchase never expires; the subscriptions never pretend to be one.