How to use the Northern Sky Narrowband Survey in Stellarium to aid planning and framing of targets - Forums

Topic starter

7 days ago

I use the DSS (colour) survey in Stellarium to plan my targets and their framing. I also use the DSS (red) survey to help with NB or Ha imaging, but it is very low resolution and not very sensitive. I had been researching how to add the Northern Sky Narrowband Survey to Stellarium, when I discovered a post on, I think, a Facebook page, that they were already built into Stellarium.

So if you didn’t know they are part of the Stellarium Sky Surveys, or don’t know much about using the Sky Surveys in Stellarium, this is how you access and make use of the survey’s.

1. To begin, you need to have the HIPS button active on the Main Toolbar:

📷 Stellarium menu bar crop.jpg

2. If the HIPS button is not present, then go to Configuration, Extras tab and make sure HIPS is checked. Then close the Configuration dialogue.

📷 Stellarium Configuration crop.jpg

3. To see the survey’s, right-click on the HIPS button on the toolbar. This will bring up the Sky Surveys dialogue box:

📷 Stellarium Sky Surveys.jpg

4. Click in the “Filter” search box.

5. Type NSNS. This will filter the surveys to just the Northern Sky Narrowband Survey’s.

The ones of interest are NSNS DR0.2 Ha (8-bit), NSNS DR0.2 [OIII] (8-bit) and NSNS DR0.2 [SII] (8-bit). Though you can test the other survey’s as well.

6. Now select the NSNS DR0.2 Ha (8-bit) survey and close the dialogue box. The survey will be displayed showing all the Ha detail.

This makes it very easy to see the targets you are interested in and to frame them accurately. Or to see which targets are abundant in Ha, Oiii or Sii.

Here is an example of a target I was planning on imaging with my Samyang 135mm lens: Sh2-216 and Sh2-221. Below are the DSS colour and DSS red images of the target:

📷 Stellarium - DSS2 Red.jpg

You can see Sh2-216 is visible, but you cannot see Sh2-221 or anything else that might be in the frame.

Now, here is the same area with the NSNS DR0.2 Ha (8-bit) survey activated, followed by the Oiii survey and Sii survey:

📷 Stellarium - NSNS DR0.2 Ha 8 bit.jpg📷 Stellarium - NSNS DR0.2 Sii 8 bit.jpg

As you can see, all the Sharpless objects in the frame are visible so you can now plan your framing for the imaging session very easily.

I hope this little tutorial will be of use to somebody.

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iva

7 days ago

Wow, I haven’t used Stellarium for a long time but this post made me curious (I normally use Cartes du Ciel and NINA).

So easy and incredibly fast, almost instantaneous, to see the full sky for areas of interest… and the 3 surveys you mentioned are only a part of an incredible long list, wow 😮

Many things have changed and improved in the last 10 years for us astrophotographers, thanks a lot for making me discover this!

Engaging Supportive

Paul Puntin

Topic starter

7 days ago

Thank you, Iva, you’re very welcome. I’m glad that you found this article useful. That was the whole point in writing it.

And, yes, the software tools and equipment we use for our hobby have changed and improved immensely, especially over the last few years.

Well Written Respectful

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

6 days ago

If find Stellarium terribly slow, especially with any survey displayed, to the point of it not being useable. Luckily you can get the survey's results independently.

Paul Puntin

Topic starter

3 days ago

If you haven’t tried Stellarium for a while, Andrea, you might want to give it another try. I think they incorporated some sort of graphics accelration a while back. The DSS is still painfully slow but, these 8 bit surveys load instantaneously, as is panning around them, and my computer is 7 years old, so no spring chicken!

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Richard Carande

3 days ago

I find these surveys as hosted in Stellarium, to be incredibly useful for finding new targets. Another post on this forum asked about “running out of targets.” For me these surveys open up a new world of possibilities and have allowed me to look deeper.

As an example, I recently found this area in Gemini to image, and spent four days (~30 hours total) imaging it to produce the image referenced below. Not only does it contain Ha signal and a reflection nebula never posted to AB before, it also has a (known) planetary nebula that, to my knowledge, has never been imaged before. (I used SetiAstro’s WhatsInMyImage script, another great tool we have these days, to “discover” the names of these objects)

This is from the NSNS DRO.2 -Ha survey in Stellarium, with my scope’s FOV overlaid. 📷 screenshot_3837.pngAnd an annoated screenshot of my image:

📷 screenshot_3839.pngMy AB post can be seen here: https://www.astrobin.com/ktwzs7/

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iva

2 days ago

Richard Carande · Jan 25, 2026, 03:16 PM
I find these surveys as hosted in Stellarium, to be incredibly useful for finding new targets. Another post on this forum asked about “running out of targets.” For me these surveys open up a new world of possibilities and have allowed me to look deeper.
As an example, I recently found this area in Gemini to image, and spent four days (~30 hours total) imaging it to produce the image referenced below. Not only does it contain Ha signal and a reflection nebula never posted to AB before, it also has a (known) planetary nebula that, to my knowledge, has never been imaged before. (I used SetiAstro’s WhatsInMyImage script, another great tool we have these days, to “discover” the names of these objects)
This is from the NSNS DRO.2 -Ha survey in Stellarium, with my scope’s FOV overlaid. 📷 screenshot_3837.pngAnd an annoated screenshot of my image:
📷 screenshot_3839.pngMy AB post can be seen here: https://www.astrobin.com/ktwzs7/

Very interesting, thanks!

Took a look of some of your other pictures and I love the ones with additional data that pops up when you move over them… lots to learn, you have a new follower!

alpheratz06

1 day ago

Paul Puntin · Jan 20, 2026, 04:46 PM
I hope this little tutorial will be of use to somebody.

Sure it will. For less-than-conspicuous targets this is like a gold mine!

Thanks a lot and clear skies !

Paul Puntin

Topic starter

1 day ago

You’re welcome. I glad some people have found it useful.