I am now approaching the point where I wish to start planning imaging runs; specifically target selection for my location and tastes.
So I live 14 km from Sydney city in suburbia; I wish to image galaxies, nebulae and certain targets of interest - what can best assist me? If I say come up with a list of 20 - 50 Messier or NGC or IC targets I would like to image between say 8pm and 2am - what software would folk recommend to optimise target selection and / or recommend subs duration by camera and/or filter?
I have not looked into this before but a quick Google search will list choices like ACP Planner, CCDPlanner, Skytools 1.4, Astroplanner, even Stellarium and a Excel spreadsheet! I am very interested in what advice people can give me here - noting do these recommendations integrate with SGP (and/or The SkyX) in any value adding ways!
Hoi, I am phasing the same issue here. You see that there some improvement can be made in SGP. I mostly run 2 or 3 objects during the night. Fully automated including flip and focussing. I need to schedule every night a session separately. I use in side SGP the framing tool to frame the objects and use the planner function to start and stop sequence. Outside SGP you need to do some calculations how many frames you can shoot before the sequence is completed to avoid parking. You also check for overlapping objects seq/times so calculated when you start and stop different objects. I have script for calculating the amount of exposures GitHub - calberts/SGPXExposure: SGP Planning Amount of exposure. I use SkySafari to estimate when the objects are/become visible for my location, see below picture, for that I play with the time in SkySafari. Example the picture below of SkySafari, that’s round 23:30. I have I phone app to create the horizon for SkySafari. Today while everything is automated, this is the hard work ;-). but on the other hand, also nice to do! The objects I select over period mostly checking via astrobin. The blue circles are object as part of the observing list you can create in SkySafari. I still struggling with some issue. stopping the sequence while it is not complete I have not the feeling I am in control there yet. But that is also lot trial and error. Please some else can also explain his procedure so Matthew can pick up what the best works for him, anyway hoop that this helps.
Also I stumbled across this last night (for target selection options)
Seems a lovely way to browse possible targets. For target planning (shot durations - including filter timings based on local weather) and target sequence optimisation per night / week /month) Astro Planner 4 looks rather interesting?
As folk say - I am trying to develop good habits before bad…
My personal favourite is Astroplanner which has all the necessary info and more. With my local horizon easily added to software and links to your favourite planetarium software it covers a lot of ground and exports entries to the SGP target list. This means you can build a list for the night, and in my case this can reach 20+ targets from dusk to midnight ( I need my sleep after that at my age!). The icing on the cake is that you can do list production by scripting all your requirements - in my case I keep away from the Moon, to handle my guiding scope location on the mount I image to a modified horizon depending on which side of the meridian - I also include cadence selections, handle different exposures based on target name etc etc. I have found that whatever you want as selection citerion you can build into the script. My current astroplanner target list 300+ objects - mostly variable stars in my case but the same principle applies whatever your interests. As the year rolls around the targets are selected as they become visible.
Hope this helps but in the end it is what works for you
I use Stellarium as the main tool for my image planning. I move time forward to a day and time when imaging will start, or later in the night for rising targets. My process:
Find upcoming targets where I will have the most imaging time.
Find early and late targets for a long imaging session, including alternative targets.
Use the camera and Off-axis Guider oculars to set the rotation for composition and to find guide stars before and after a meridian flip.
For a given target, I move time forward in Stellarium to put the target at the meridian. I built a spreadsheet to determine camera/OAG rotation relative to the horizon and to the equatorial rotation. I set with the oculars view, assuming that my OTA is horizontal when the target is at the meridian. You can also use the angles tool in Stellarium to get the horizontal angle of rotation.
Find comets and locations to put into SGP just before imaging.
I also use SkySafari 6 Pro on an iPhone for planning and to get comet position as well as RA and DEC change rates for PHD2 if guiding on the comet itself.
I use the wonderful SGP Framing and Mosaic wizard to search for the target, set the composition and the camera equatorial rotation. Since I have determined camera/OAG rotation, I can move them in the field before calibrating PHD2. I use plate solving in SGP to slew to and center the target.
I can pre-plan for an entire season and set up an SGP sequence with multiple targets and their camera rotations. I also include bright stars for alignment or focusing, star-rich regions for initial autofocus runs and positions near the equator (if needed) to calibrate PHD2 as SGP targets. I built an Excel spreadsheet with a list of all my targets, the optics used, the equatorial camera rotation and my on-scope rotation values. I can pick a target over multiple nights and set the camera, then have SGP run the sequence.
I too use Astroplanner. I used it for many years for visual observation planning and recording, and it seems to work very well for planning astro-imaging sessions as well. I just started with imaging last year. The latest version allows you to export your list in a format easily importable by SGP.
