"P" is for Photo PIlls. 

Photo Pills is an app that helps you plan photo shoots for your best results. I am not going to go over everything that Photo Pills does. That would be a very long post! I am going to touch on the features that I think are pretty straightforward and provide the most value. 

Let's start with Sunset

If I was planning a trip to Death Valley and I wanted to know what direction the sun would be setting at a Badwater Basin, I can enter that location into the tool and it will allow me to see what direction sunset is for that location, date, and time. I can also save this as a Plan in the app so I can refer to it when I arrive at a location. This is especially helpful if you are visiting the location for the first time. 

You can often find recommendations for sunrise and sunset locations on the internet, and even photos to give you an idea of what to expect, but it's rare that the person posting that photo will include the date and time the photo was taken. It can be really disappointing to see a gorgeous image on the internet, only to find that the sun will set in a different location than that internet photo led you to believe. 

Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park

Next, let's look at Sunrise

Photo Pills lets you place the pin anywhere you want so you can determine what direction the sun will be coming from when it rises. In the summer months, the sun rises from the Southeast, but in winter, it rises from the Northeast. That can make a big difference in whether you get the shot you want.
 

Eagle Falls, Lake Tahoe

Let's not forget about  our friend the Moon

Sometimes you can use the rising moon to your advantage in night time compositions. Like sunrise, and sunset, Photo Pills will tell you exactly what percent of the moon will be visible, what time, and from what direction the moon will rise and set. 

T-Rex dinosaur scuplture, Anza Borrego State Park

Next is the Milky Way

The app will show you for any date, what time range the galactic center is visible (if at all), and what angle the milky way is arcing. Sometimes the Milky Way looks best when it is vertical in the frame, like in the photo below. 

Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park

Other times, it looks best when it is arced over a subject. 

Ancient Bristlecone, Milky Way, and Meteor

Photo Pills is very handy for planning out Meteor Shower photos. It has data on every meteor shower for the year, including the peak date, time, number of expected meteors per hour, and direction to look to capture the most meteors. You can pin point an area that you want to photograph to see if your desired foreground will work with the direction of the meteor shower. 

It can help you get photos like this

Perseids Meteor Shower, Yosemite National Park

Last, but not least is Night AR. I love this feature. After selecting a date and time, you can select the Night AR setting and it will show you a live view of where the Milky Way will be, where the North Star is (which is helpful for star trail photos), and what direction the stars will be moving. I use this all the time when I'm scouting photos. It's also kind of fun to see what is going on up in the sky if you aren't able to just look up and see the stars. 

Tenaya Lake star trails, Yosemite National Park

That's it! I hope you enjoyed this short tour of the Photo Pills app. Stay tuned for what "Q" stands for.