Easy Way to Change Dates in NINA Framing for planning purposes - Forums

Topic starter

Jul 3, 2024

I have been trying to find an answer to this simple and obvious question in tutorials, and online forums but am striking out. I will brace myself for a "duh!" moment when the first response comes in, but…

This is solely for planning purposes. I want to be able to set a date (for planning, a future date) so that the horizon/elevation graph at the bottom of the Framing window can tell me the accurate position in the sky vs. time of any targets I am planning to image. I find the Framing tool to be wonderful for planning, and if this is a simple answer here, then please help me out! What I am not looking for is answers that involve my changing my computer's system time. I am aware that I can do that, but if NINA does not have this in "tool" mode, then I think it would be a good thing to have, if well implemented. It would also be nice to not have to go to a plugin, which I would do, but to me if a plugin is required, that smells like a patch for an obvious oversight. Not wanting to rant here, since I am sure I have simply missed the obvioius check box on in Framing that lets me do this!

Thanks ahead of time!
Alan

Engaging

noon

Jul 3, 2024

Alan
There is a Target Planning Plugin in NINA by Tom Palmer that works great. He also wrote the Target Scheduling plugin that I love and use. The Target Planning Plugin allows you to pick a target and see the annual graph of its elevation as well as any particular night in the future.

In the Target Scheduling Plugin, I create a project for each season (Galaxy, Summer, Fall, Winter) and load each one with applicable targets that are on my To-Do list. It took a little bit of a learning curve but now I feel like I have it pretty dialed in... or more so anyway. It does a great job of moving from choosing good targets, prioritizing narrowband/targets far from the moon when the moon is high, and shooting them in my desired sky-angle near the meridian. Literally saves me hours each night as I would previously dilly-dally around target decisions. It is smarter than I am and I've ended up with better data because of it.

I frame each target in the Framing Tool and then import them into the Target Scheduling Plugin so I end up with it framed exactly the way I want.

Hope that helps!!
Clear skies
Ryan

Helpful Engaging Supportive

noon

Jul 3, 2024

Here is another screenshot in the "Imaging Season" tab when I placed restrictions on minimum target altitude, meridian window, and moon proximity:

Alan Brunelle

Topic starter

Jul 3, 2024

Alan
There is a Target Planning Plugin in NINA by Tom Palmer that works great. He also wrote the Target Scheduling plugin that I love and use. The Target Planning Plugin allows you to pick a target and see the annual graph of its elevation as well as any particular night in the future.

In the Target Scheduling Plugin, I create a project for each season (Galaxy, Summer, Fall, Winter) and load each one with applicable targets that are on my To-Do list. It took a little bit of a learning curve but now I feel like I have it pretty dialed in... or more so anyway. It does a great job of moving from choosing good targets, prioritizing narrowband/targets far from the moon when the moon is high, and shooting them in my desired sky-angle near the meridian. Literally saves me hours each night as I would previously dilly-dally around target decisions. It is smarter than I am and I've ended up with better data because of it.

I frame each target in the Framing Tool and then import them into the Target Scheduling Plugin so I end up with it framed exactly the way I want.

Hope that helps!!
Clear skies
Ryan

Ryan,

Big thanks for your reply! I will consider this to be a small "Doh!" moment for me. I will definitely be getting those plugins and learning them.

Not having just part of these plugins in the Framing part of NINA seems like an oversight. I normally use the graph at the bottom of the Framing window to estimate/guestimate where the "ideal" part of the curve will, in the future, fall within my particular window, of course having to guess how the twilights will evolve in any particular time. In that respect, I certainly don't need perfection to get close. But for Framing, one might expect there to be a slider or some such dongle affiliated with the graph with axis tick marks for number of months (from 0 to 12 months), post current date/time, and when sliding that, the graph would simple evolve, real-time to display just that information. The makers of NINA may well be aware of such a thing, but opted to allow for the creative minds to make a far more complete and useful plugin for the task. But such a feature within Framing would save an extra step for someone who wants to browse quickly and have a first look experience on one or more targets, while figuring the framing.

I suspect all or most of my needs will be met by Tom's work!

Thanks again!
Alan

Respectful Supportive

Claudio Tenreiro

Jul 3, 2024

I do also thanks for the information, it will certainly be very handy.
CS
Claudio

Brian Watson

Sep 17, 2024

There is a Target Planning Plugin in NINA by Tom Palmer that works great.

Thanks.

I was also glad to see that my custom horizon showed up when I choose "Minimum Altitude" "Above Horizon" then clicked on a detail line.

Dean Ostergaard

Apr 28, 2025

I would also endorse the Target Planning plugin. It's great if you already have a list of targets you're considering.

If you don't already have that list, I would point out that in the NINA Sky Atlas you can enter any date you want and the altitude charts shown in the results list will show the altitude of the targets on that date.And, the search criteria considers the altitude of those targets obove your horizon on that date. This is good if you want to make a list of potential targets especially if you image multiple targets during a night and want to sequence them as they rise and set through the night.

There is a bug though. When you switch back to the target list after viewing any other screen in NINA the altitude charts render the timeline from the current date through the date you selected and the only I have found to fix them is to re-execute the search.

However, when you send a target to the framing assistant the chart reverts to the current date. But, that doesn't really matter for framing so you could still set up your framing and add the target to your target list for use when your planned date comes around.

Helpful