Discover the amazing and unexpected world of clouds with

CloudSpotter

Contact / Frequently Asked Questions

Please read the FAQ before you get in touch with our support - your question might already be answered here. Should you be in further need of assistance, click here to send the CloudSpotter team an email. Make sure you include your user name, if you already have a CloudSpotter account.

If you want to change your password or email address or delete your account, please follow the "Login" link at the top to manage your CloudSpotter account.

For media inquiries please contact us and download our media kit.

Using CloudSpotter

Can I upload photos from my camera roll?
In order to give all CloudSpotters the chance to fairly compete with each other, all spottings must be photographed from within the app itself. Otherwise, it would be too easy to just snag a photo from somewhere and upload it as your own. ;) If you don't have internet coverage (such as on an airplane), the upload of your spotting is automatically queued and can be retried later.

How do I log out of my CloudSpotter account to create a new one, or log into another account?
From your iOS home screen, open Settings, locate CloudSpotter, set the "Log out on next Launch" option to ON, and start the app. You will be back in the registration / login screen you saw when you first installed and opened the app.

My location isn't displayed with the spottings. How come?
CloudSpotter uses your device's built-in location services to determine where your photo was taken. Please go to Settings > Privacy to make sure that Location Services is turned on, and that access is enabled for CloudSpotter.

Feature requests

Can I delete spottings from my collection?
Not yet, but our next feature update will allow you to delete spottings that you don't need anymore, such as that one in which you mistakenly photographed your foot. (Oops.)

Can I zoom in with the camera to focus on a particular area of the sky?
This, too, will be possible in the free 1.1 update of CloudSpotter. Stay tuned!

My photo came back unverified. Can I re-submit it as another cloud or optical effect type?
This is currently not possible, but we might implement that feature in a future version. Keep the unverified photo in your collection if you might want to re-submit it in the future.

Photo verification

Who is verifying all the CloudSpotter photos?
Our team of cloud experts goes through every single spotting for verification. The team includes the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society and app creator Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

My photo is waiting for verification. How long will it take?
We try hard to verify every photo within 24 hours, and we are usually much quicker than that. At times of extreme activity however, please allow for up to 48 hours for us to verify your spotting. Spot some new clouds while you wait!

I think you made a mistake in not verifying one of my spottings.
Our team of experts is very careful and thorough, but mistakes can happen. :) If you feel sure that we got it wrong, please send us a message, and we will look into it.

I know a lot about clouds and love looking at cloud photos! Can I be a moderator and help with the verifications?
Perhaps! We are always happy to recruit new volunteers to help the CloudSpotter community. :) Send us a message letting us know about yourself and we will get back to you.

Privacy

Why do I have to register to use the app?
We need to identify you with a user name to be able to store your spottings, verify them and show you in the Rankings and CloudStream. We will not use your email address for anything but to reset your password, if requested. If you do not want to use any of CloudSpotter's interactive features and, you are free to sign up completely anonymously with a disposable e-mail address. You'll be missing out on the fun, though. :)

Is my personal information shared with NASA or anyone?
We will never share your personal information such as your user name or email address with anyone. All statistical cloud data that we share with scientific researchers is completely anonymized. For details see the Terms of Use in the app.

Known issues

I show up twice in the Rankings, or my Stars / Badge count hasn't updated.
This issue usually fixes itself after some time, or can be fixed manually by quitting and restarting the app, or logging out and back in as described in the "Using the app" section of the FAQ. We will issue a bugfix for this in one of the next versions.

I have updated to version 1.0.2 and CloudSpotter immediately quits after launching.
Please delete the app from your device and reinstall it from the App Store. This fixes the problem. You can find more information on how to do so here.

My spotting upload has stalled.
This can happen in rare circumstances. Please force quit and restart the app. Read this Apple support article to learn how to do this. You can then retry the upload of your spotting by opening it in your Collection and tapping the upload button in the top right corner.