Privacy Policy for Night Astro Planner

Last Updated: November 11, 2026

Night Astro Planner ("the App"), developed by Jeremiah Pierucci, is designed with a strict privacy-first architecture. We do not collect personally identifiable information, do not track users across other apps or websites, and do not sell or monetize personal data.

This Privacy Policy explains how data is handled when you use Night Astro Planner on Android.

Location Data

The App requests foreground access to your device's location (ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION and ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION) strictly while the App is in use to provide astronomical calculations and local observational planning. The App never requests or accesses your location in the background.

• Astronomical Calculations & Historical Climate: Real-time celestial coordinates, altitude/azimuth paths, moon phases, sunrise/sunset, astronomical darkness windows, and 365-day historical cloud climatology (via our bundled 20-year ERA5 reanalysis grid) are computed 100% locally on your device.
• Weather & Atmospheric Forecasts: To provide local 7-night cloud cover, transparency, seeing, and wind forecasts, geographic coordinates are transmitted securely over HTTPS to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET Norway Locationforecast 2.0 API) (api.met.no).
• Light Pollution Maps: Local Bortle class and Sky Quality Meter (SQM) evaluations use an on-device regional skyglow grid supplemented by high-resolution nighttime radiance tiles requested over HTTPS from NASA EOSDIS GIBS (gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov, NOAA-20 VIIRS Black Marble) corresponding to your region.
• Interactive Maps & Geocoding: Satellite location inspection and interactive map overlays utilize the Google Maps SDK for Android, governed by the Google Privacy Policy. Place and address lookups use the device's built-in Android Geocoder with a rate-limited fallback to OpenStreetMap Nominatim.

Your location is never shared with advertising networks, telemetry brokers, or third-party marketers. You may also decline location permissions and use the App by searching or pinning observing locations manually.

Astronomical Database Searches & Imagery

• Celestial Target Search: Common deep-sky objects and solar system bodies are resolved locally on-device. When searching for extended catalog targets, queries are transmitted over HTTPS to scientific astronomical catalogs, including the CDS SIMBAD Astronomical Database, CDS Sesame, and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). These requests contain only the queried celestial identifier and no user identifiers or personal data.
• Survey & Reference Imagery: Astronomical survey cutouts and reference photographs are streamed on demand over HTTPS from public scientific repositories, including the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, Pan-STARRS 1, NASA AllWISE / 2MASS, ESASky / CDS hips2fits, and Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons.

Data Storage & Android Backup

• No Account Required: You do not need to create an account, sign in, or provide an email address to use Night Astro Planner.
• Local On-Device Storage & Android Auto Backup: Your custom saved locations, saved target lists, and equipment profiles are stored locally on your device in an app-private database (Room / SharedPreferences). If you have standard Android Auto Backup enabled on your device, Android may back up your app preferences and saved lists to your personal, encrypted Google Drive backup container so they can be restored if you switch devices. The developer has no access to your local device storage or your Google Drive backup data.

Purchases & Billing

App purchases, subscriptions, or in-app transactions on Android are processed directly by Google through Google Play Billing. The developer does not receive, process, or store your credit card information, bank details, or billing address. All billing records are handled in accordance with the Google Play Terms of Service and Google Privacy Policy.

Third-Party Analytics & Tracking

Night Astro Planner contains:

• No third-party advertising frameworks.
• No behavioral tracking SDKs or data brokers.
• No usage of the Google Advertising ID (AAID) or cross-app tracking identifiers.

In accordance with Google Play's Data Safety standards, no personal data is sold, and approximate/precise location is used strictly in the foreground for core app functionality.

Data Retention & Your Rights (Data Deletion)

Because all your data is stored locally on your device (and optionally in your personal Android Auto Backup):

• You can modify or delete your saved targets, observing locations, and equipment profiles at any time directly within the App.
• You can clear cached forecast and imagery data or wipe all local App storage at any time via Android System Settings → Apps → Night Astro Planner → Storage & cache → Clear storage / Clear cache.
• Uninstalling the App from your Android device permanently removes all local App data.

Children's Privacy

Night Astro Planner does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13 (or under 16 in the European Union).

Contact Information

If you have questions or feedback regarding this Privacy Policy or data handling on Android, please contact:

• Email: climbbike+radar@gmail.com
• Support: https://nightastroplanner.com/support/