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East Lansing

42.737° N   84.484° W  ·  262 M
75 /100
PEAK
A genuinely good night — 7 hours of clear, dark sky from 23:00.
BEST WINDOW 23:00–06:00 · ASTRO DARK 23:00–05:00 · MOON 0%
Transparency
0.41
Seeing
1.00
Cloud
0%
Moon
0%

Excellent tonight

Hour by hour, local to East Lansing. Colour encodes the score and nothing else; every other measurement is luminance.

Sky state
Lighter = daylight and twilight  ·  unshaded = astronomical dark
Score
21
22
23
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
0
42
75
73
68
47
44
47
38
7
0
BEST WINDOW
Low cloud
4%
3%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Mid cloud
2%
2%
0%
0%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
4%
High cloud
0%
1%
0%
0%
6%
58%
65%
59%
73%
56%
31%
Transparency
0.43
0.41
0.38
0.34
0.28
0.25
0.23
0.22
0.25
0.26
0.26
Seeing
1.00
0.98
1.00
0.98
0.97
0.93
0.99
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
Moon clear
0%
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Inspect

Cloud tracks show clear sky — a longer bar is better. The figure inside each track is the raw measurement.

Why this hour scored what it did
21 Clouded out · 0/100
Starting from
100
Cloud
−6
Transparency
−22
Seeing
−0
Moonlight
−0
Darkness
−73
Score
0
CLOUD 6% LOW 4% MID 2% HIGH 0% SUN -3.4° MOON 0.2° / 0% WIND 2 TEMP 24°
Excellent 75+ Good 55+ Fair 35+ Poor 15+ Not worth it Seeing is estimated from surface wind — see how we score.

What are you doing tonight?

The same forecast, weighted for the target. Planetary work barely cares about moonlight; long exposures die on high cloud a visual observer would never notice.

SET UP 22:30 · OBSERVE 23:00–05:00 · 6H · MEAN 58

Darkness and moonlight dominate. Faint fuzzies need a genuinely dark sky more than they need steady air.

212301030507
ASTRONOMICAL DARK FROM 23:00
SET UP 21:30 · OBSERVE 22:00–07:00 · 9H · MEAN 64

Seeing is everything and moonlight is irrelevant. Bright targets punch through twilight, so darkness barely counts.

212301030507
TWILIGHT BEGINS 07:00MOONLIGHT IGNORED FOR THIS TARGET
SET UP 21:30 · OBSERVE 22:00–03:00 · 5H · MEAN 55

Tolerates soft seeing, but high cloud wrecks a wide frame and moonlight raises the background everywhere.

212301030507
MOON SETS BY 22:00
SET UP 22:30 · OBSERVE 23:00–02:00 · 3H · MEAN 59

Needs conditions to hold still for hours. Sustained transparency matters more than any single good hour.

212301030507
ASTRONOMICAL DARK FROM 23:00CLOUD RETURNS 02:00
SET UP 21:30 · OBSERVE 22:00–05:00 · 7H · MEAN 56

Naked eye, whole sky. Total cloud and moonlight are the only things that count.

212301030507
MOON SETS BY 22:00
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The next week of nights

Tonight · 12 Aug
75
Excellent
MOON 0%
23:00–06:00
Tomorrow · 13 Aug
36
Fair
MOON 3%
23:00–00:00
Friday · 14 Aug
67
Good
MOON 7%
23:00–03:00
Saturday · 15 Aug
72
Good
MOON 15%
02:00–03:00
Sunday · 16 Aug
0
Clouded out
MOON 23%
Monday · 17 Aug
57
Good
MOON 32%
02:00–03:00
Tuesday · 18 Aug
47
Fair
MOON 42%
02:00–03:00
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Nearby locations

About this forecast

Conditions for East Lansing, Michigan, United States are computed from the MET Norway forecast model for these exact coordinates, combined with sun and moon positions we calculate directly. The score weighs cloud cover by layer, atmospheric transparency, estimated seeing, moonlight and how dark the sky actually gets. Read the full method →