So why NINA? - Forums

A lot of people on astrobin refer to NINA.

As far as I can work out this is image acquisition software. So given that we already have APT and SharpCap, what (if anything) does NINA add to that?

Am I making a category error here, or is it purely a matter of personal preference between NINA, SharpCap and APT?

Bear in mind I am new to this, so just asking a genuine question to try and learn something. Please feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

Thanks

Options are good

I tried a few different acquisition software suites including APT. I ended up choosing NINA. I felt the UI/UX and functionality were very well presented. With the 1.11 nightly builds, there is an abundance of new features including plugins. It pretty much does everything I want in a way I find easy to use.

Options are good and I have played with a few different programs. It is a matter of preference but also what you want to do. I have only tried NINA a few times and it seems nice and a lot of folks like it. Like you, I use SharpCap which at its beginning was primarily a live viewing software. Over the years it has matured to be a decent AP acquisition program. It can do a lot of what NINA, SGP, and other acquisition programs can do but NINA has more ability to do full automation. NINA also has a nice support network.

You will get lots of opinions based on personal preference. You may want to just try some of the free ones and those that give you a free 30 day trial period. Nothing wrong on experimenting.

If you don't consider personal preferences, it is difficult to answer because it has do to with functionalities. NINA has a lot more options than SharpCap (And I must say that I like SharpCap a lot, and I will keep getting my licence no matter what). Now, why is difficult to answer ? because it depends on what you want to get from the software that controls your equipment and, the ability to handle third party components as well as plugins.
So, not knowing the use, my recommendation is keep the simpler one that has all you need, but, as it was already said, you don't loose anything moving around with free software or using other ones for the trial period.
Look for the additional aspects, like handling external devices and possibility of flexible programming of your work.

The major factor that got me into NINA was the ability to focus mid-sequence. Which APT did not have.

The NINA UI (to me) is also more organized.

also the rate of development of NINA is very fast and the new scheduler and plug-in system are going to open a whole new world.

It's a nice program. It's logically laid out. It does what many people need. The developers are attentive and support it.

(Moreover, in a world where people are loath to pay for software, the fact that it's free is a major attraction.)

Stuart Taylor:
A lot of people on astrobin refer to NINA.

As far as I can work out this is image acquisition software. So given that we already have APT and SharpCap, what (if anything) does NINA add to that?

Am I making a category error here, or is it purely a matter of personal preference between NINA, SharpCap and APT?

Bear in mind I am new to this, so just asking a genuine question to try and learn something. Please feel free to correct me if I have misunderstood.

Thanks

Sharpcap and NINA can't be put in the same category. With NINA you can run an automated sequence and go to sleep. Sharpcap does not even have auto focus. APT is crude, though it has gotten better over time. I would compare NINA and SGP both of which are better and more advanced for remote and automated photography. Sharpcap and firecapture are more comparable. I use sharpcap to polaralign and do lunar/short exposure untracked imaging. Outside of that it does not have the capability to be a full fledged astrophoto program and it never will. To be honest a quick google search will tell you everything you need to know.

Nina is a full-fledged and quickly evolving ecosystem with actual programming language for acquisitions as AdvancedSequencer. It has now plugins that are evolving and new ones are being written.

It's on a different level. Takes a bit of time to grasp but once you do, there's no going back. It's the power of open source.

NINA stands out above the other for me because of the rapid development, very active community around it. Also the introduction of the new plugins makes that Sharpcap will no longer be needed. Have used the PA routine in Sharpcap next to NINA for a while but with the Three Point Polar Alignment plugin no longer needed. For planetary I will still keep it.

Also the further the get into this hobby the more customization you want to do I feel NINA offers a lot of this especially with the advanced sequencer

Hi Stuart,

I try to answer this question without reading the comments from other users (will do it afterwards).

I started with Backyard EOS. It was really great for my EOS cameras. But it missed some functions and so I switched to APT. This worked really well, but the user Interface was not made for my logical thinking. I always had to look for different functions. Also the amount of open windows was really frustrating if you use an imaging Laptop with a small screen resolution.

I also own Sharpcap Pro for different reasons but I never aimed to use it for my imaging sessions.

For a while I tried to use a Raspberry Pi with KStars and Ecos. The Raspberry could easily be mounted on the Telescope itself, which allows for easier cable management. But after some problems, I switched back to my windows Laptop. I still use it as Backup system and to log different weather data or to check the equipment with a webcam.

Then came NINA. I first heard about it on Youtube. It seemed to offer all the things I need, has a really great user interface, is intuitive and is also free. So why not try it?

I did and it was awesome. It was really easy to get into the program. It handles so much hardware easily and has a lot of stuff that is really helpful to speed up the imaging sessions. It is customizable in many ways and I never saw it crash (and I use the nightly builds). Another big thing are the plugins that are available in the nightly versions. They are awesome to customize your observatory, to alarm you in case of emergency or help you to correct your polar alignment (nearly as SharpCap does). The advanced sequencer offers so much possibilities… - you get what I try to say here

I am happy with NINA and its growing functionality. It is a relativly new software that learned from the problems of other programs. It is structured very well and new functions were added at the right interface position. There are some minor things, that I think the program should offer. But this is for my use cases only. I guess, that all other users may be fine with the current state of the software.

So I am done now with my thoughts and now will read the comments above.

Clear skies…

So I switched to N.I.N.A a few months ago, and the least I can say is that I don't regret it. What works really well with N.I.N.A is integration with various hardware in a single piece of software: imaging camera, focuser, rotator (even if I'm using the _manual_ rotator which is pretty awesome already). But what really convinced me is the sequence preparation, with framing preview, then automated centering and sync'ing.

The "profile" aspect is also very interesting when you switch often between setups like me (with/without hyperstar).

All in all, it works really well and the only thing I regret is that it's only for Windows: I would love to see it on a raspberry (or similar).

I worked over a year with APT, and as our weather is not the most stable thing on earth, there were always several weeks between capturing sessions.
And in those weeks, I always had to relearn the use interface again, which is not very logical. Sometimes I had to search 10minutes for features I knew I had already used in APT.

So i heard about NINA from a friend of mine, and as it's free, I insatlled and treid it. The usability and user interface are so much superior to APT (at least for me), I never touched APT again after the first NINA session.

CS

Markus

I have used APT for years before I met NINA.
I was very unhappy with APT for multiple reasons:
- Lack of integrations with third party softwares (PHD2, platesolvers)
- Previews (stretch function) were really bad back then (don't know if they fixed this)
- Only ASCOM drivers for cameras
- UI not clear. It's hard to access features during sessions
- Crashes (so much …)

Before trying NINA I tried the Ekos suite with INDI but it was not a good moment :p
Now with NINA, I have absolutely all I want from an astroimaging software.
- Possibility to prepare sessions (The framing assistant is a must have)
- Everything is very clear in the UI (Imaging panel has all in one screen and is able to help during test sessions)
- Fast image downloading using the native camera drivers (save about 30 minutes imaging per night)
- Incredible and deadly accurate autofocuser (possiblity to adjust focus on almost every parameter: temperature, HFR, time, filter change, etc)
- PHD2 integration (you can see your graph and dither commands within the imaging panel)
- Handle multiple setup configurations (one of the best and essential feature in an astroimaging software)
- Clever platesolver (multiple platesover with very nice integration)
- Native driver also allows to dynamically change the gain and offset parameters !!
- Very stable software. Few crashes only because of hardware driver issues. Now this is solved, I've not experienced a single crash in a heck of a long time.

Finally as other said, the community is very reactive and listening. The soft evolves rapidly taking astrophotographers concerns in account.

I have only used Nina and I would recommend it for its ease of use, sequencing, and most importantly the 3 star polar alignment. Its very fast, n it actually works (at zero cost).

I have read through all the above comments and agree completely with virtually all of them. NINA is *really* good.

I started with APT, then went to SGP, and now NINA. Nina has allowed me to image super fast and comfortably. It runs on a mini PC mounted on my scope which I can TeamView into from my bedroom PC. When I image I pull off the cover, remove the lens caps, plug in my pier and walk into my house. NINA's plate solving and online astro catalog is great so I never bother star aligning, just home my mount and then pick a target in NINA and click slew. Of course it will be off the first time but then plate solving kicks in automatically and gets me centered perfectly. NINA makes it too easy.

I never get connection problems to cameras, focusers, CPWI or PHD2. Being able to see my guiding graph in NINA is outstanding as I am not alt-tabbing between applications. Meridian flips are one-click easy and customizable. Creating sequences is simple, and it you can do multi-target sequences to capture targets as they come into view.

While NINA is free, it is created primarily by one guy, Stefan Berg, with help from contributors. Astrophotography is not the cheapest hobby so NINA can help those getting started on a tight budget. When you've reached the stage of having a few scopes and cameras you may want to say thanks to Stefan, as I have, with a donation and an appreciative message. It'll help keep food on his table and updates to NINA coming to us. You can do that here: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/donate/

I don't have experience with APT and with SharpCap only a little. But I would say, NINA is my favorite. I like the concepts, which are used by the NINA developers (open source, C#, program design, …

and it is enormous functional with a nice operating idea. NINA 1.10 already kept me almost desireless; but 1.11 … I mean, this is outstanding (even if the new sequencer is a matter of taste; I like it very much). What an effort that went into it…
However, currently I am switching over to KStars and Ekos, because of using a Rasberry Pi. On Windows I will stay an absolute fan of NINA.

I had some problems with NINA. Its a good program, but stability wasnt good for me (disconnects or even crashes during the night).

Now i switched to Voyager. You have much more flexibility there, can react to any problem automatically and it even provides an Online Dashboard for you to see the status or even execute commands.

As a novice and working in this hobby for only 3.5 years, I found NINA very easy and very helpful. SQpro did not seem as advanced as NINA. I transitioned about a year ago thanks to the help of many of the folks I follow who love the app. The night builds worry me a little because I don't want the app to get too far ahead of me and the developers warnings about the night builds. Every session I find new things the program can do. Glad I switched. Steve Perry

I used APT since I started in 2017.
Last year I bought an EAF.
With an electronic focuser NINA is a must.
NINA let's me go 100% automated.
Plus I love NINA's object framing tool.

Thank you SO much everyone for this great advice. As usual, the friendly and knowledgeable crowd on astrobin are eager to share their wisdom.

This site really is so great!

EDIT: …and just to add, I am downloading NINA now. You guys seem pretty unanimous!

Stuart Taylor:
I am downloading NINA now

Perfect, from the huge amount of tutorials, this person gives a really straight forward initial way to set it up:
https://www.youtube.com/c/EverydayAstro/videos
Then you can go for the top (in my opinion) series about NINA from Cuiv the Lazy Geek, he has dedicated topic of NINA, so you can select exactly what you need, like meridian flip, or plate solving, and so on, you don't need to watch a full video, you go straight to the point.
https://www.youtube.com/c/CuivTheLazyGeek
Of course, there are many more ver, very good videos about NINA, but thos to start I believe are quite handy.
CS !

For the price, NOTHING beats N.I.N.A.
What I see missing in most of the comments is the incredible power of the plate solving with ASTAP and the absolute best imaging possibilities with auto focus.

As an example of plate solving, I did a full cold start (initialize to factory settings) on my Losmandy Titan 50 mount with Gemini-II controller. Then starting from CWD, I did a GoTo with plate solving for centering to an object. In my field of view of 30 arc seconds, the object was nowhere to be found. After doing just TWO plates solves and recentering, the object was dead center. Following that, I slewed to another object in a different part of the sky and the object was well within the field of view. And then dead center in two recenterings.
Hence, N.I.N.A. correctly reports to my mount the required adjustments for near perfect goto’s. I never bothered to do a Polar Alignment. I followed this with tests to see how long I could expose without needing to guide. I concluded that I could expose for 30 seconds without needing to guide. However, since dithering is an essential part of taking good images, I include guiding with dithering in all of my images as a matter of course.

So my next test with N.I.N.A. when I get a cloudless sky is to use the new plugin for Polar Alignment using just three stars and see how things perform after that.

I also have SharpCap 3.2 Pro and find it useful for very few things. The live stacking feature in SharpCap even falls short of the quality of what I can do with PixInsight. The live stacking feature in PixInsight actually produces a decent enough image to live with. The downside of SharpCap is that it trims my images by 1 pixel. Hence, they are not compatible with images taken with N.I.N.A.

I tried APT trial version and gave up on it the first night.

I have SGP and find it far less easy to use than N.I.N.A.

John R Carter, Sr.:
I tried APT trial version and gave up on it the first night.

I think maybe you are being a little harsh on APT. I know the interface is a annoying, but the plate solving (bizarrely called 'Point Craft' ) works perfectly. It uses two plug-in plate solving programs (Plate Solve and All Sky Plate Solver).

Anyway, I am looking forward to trying out NINA, so thanks again for all the advice.

Claudio Tenreiro:
Stuart Taylor:
I am downloading NINA now

Perfect, from the huge amount of tutorials, this person gives a really straight forward initial way to set it up:
https://www.youtube.com/c/EverydayAstro/videos
Then you can go for the top (in my opinion) series about NINA from Cuiv the Lazy Geek, he has dedicated topic of NINA, so you can select exactly what you need, like meridian flip, or plate solving, and so on, you don't need to watch a full video, you go straight to the point.
https://www.youtube.com/c/CuivTheLazyGeek
Of course, there are many more ver, very good videos about NINA, but thos to start I believe are quite handy.
CS !

Excellent! Thanks for these. I love Cuiv

I had some problems with NINA. Its a good program, but stability wasnt good for me (disconnects or even crashes during the night).

Now i switched to Voyager. You have much more flexibility there, can react to any problem automatically and it even provides an Online Dashboard for you to see the status or even execute commands.

The best thing I can do in Voyager thats impossible in NINA: React to problems like the loss of the guide star.

Every night I create a list of 3-4 targets that are not too near to each other. If there is a problem at one of the targets (loss of guide star due to little clouds, target gets too low or too west, etc.) then voyager sends me a mail and automatically switches to the next target. If it is at the last target it would switch back to the first one and so on - until my defined end condition (end of astronomical night at my location) is true.
Thats soo nice!

Furthermore it automatically shoots Sky Flats (Dawn or Dusk or both) - it also chooses the best exposure time on its own and so on.

Autofocus works also quite a lot better than with NINA (and more options). The best working option (especially for narrowband filters) is that Voyager automatically goes to the nearest bright star that is a really good fit for the autofocus routine and autofocuses on this star. Then it goes back to the set target.
If you dont like that, you can also AF on the current field of view of the target (multiple stars like in NINA).

What I am trying to tell you guys: NINA is great, really (unless you have stability issues). But if you want to spend some (not a lot) money on imaging automation and more/better images per night, then you should really look at Voyager. It is a bit more complex to understand and setup than NINA, but they have a great documentation about it (Wiki) and imo it is totally worth it!

Greetings from Austria

Edit: And if you have a weather station, it can also automatically react to the collected data. You can set thresholds for that.