This might be a silly question, but I often see targets here on Astrobin that I'd like to photograph. I bookmark them, but then I need a way to organize them by time of year so I can schedule them. I tried using NINA, but it lacks a dedicated tool. How do you organize your to-do list?
How to arrange a to-do list of targets
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You can sort your bookmarks by RA (ascending or descending)
CS, Dan
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I faced the same challenge with a three-step process. First, make a list of your bookmarked targets. Second, download the iPhone app Observer Pro. Enter each target, one at a time. Observer Pro will tell you which months are optimal for your location for each target. Third, make a graphic spreadsheet with months across the top and a list of months down the left side. For each target, highlight in black the months it’s optimally visible.
Or you can go old school. List your targets by RA (hour angle), grab a star atlas (I use the S&T Pocket Atlas). It’s easy at that point to locate and order objects. To fine tune things and to keep the scope busy all night I’ll take the candidate objects and use NINA’s sky atlas to see what the meridian passage times are and sequence accordingly.
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Just doing RA and Dec is not the most effective way, as it is challenging then to figure out when it is actually high in the sky. My own organization is very manual in Excel. I have a group of rows in Excel for each target. When I see a target on AB or elsewhere, I generally go to Telescopius, which is free with a donation suggested, to find when a target is best placed for me. Telescopius allows you to even put in a custom horizon, so you can see when you are blocked by trees or houses, etc. And it shows you your FOV, so you can plan your FOV placement.
Below is an example for M97 which I’m imaging now. From Telescopius I put in a start date when it is high enough in my sky, and a finish date when it is too low. In this case I can start late on Feb 1, ending June 1, with a maximum of 4 hours on both sides of the meridian. I often use 45 degrees for many targets as the minimum, but those in the northern sky I can’t start until about 60 degrees altitude due to trees. For low lying fruit in the south, I try to setup the altitude so I can get 2 hours each side of the meridian. Here for M97 it is a maixum of 4 hours each side of the meridian, but by June 1, I noted my capture ends at 12:25, so only 2 hours is possible. I put a D for a dusk start, T for a transit, etc. so I understand what is the limit. I copy images from AB into Excel as best examples, along with relevant info so I know how difficult a target it is, what conditions/filters I might need, and what a great image looks like.
I simply organize each target in Excel first by Start date an end date. I start my table in January and work through the start dates to order them. If many targets have the same start date, I put the one with the earliest end date first. It is very easy to slot a new image in, once I know the start and end dates.
Note Telescopius can put the moon in as well, and tell you when it is okay to image around the moon with various filters, so I do check that before I go out to image.
I also add other info, like what filters I might need, and other information as needed. This includes information on my own image of the target, so I can see what I need to do to add to it, or if I’m happy with what I have.
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So if I want to start on a certain date I scroll to that start date and look at what I might want to do, and when that ends. I then look at what I might do next, to make sure I have something to fill in, generally I need 2 to 3 targets to fill a full winter night, and also backups in case of a moonlight issue.
It is manual, though one could create groups and do fancy auto organization in Excel. The advantage though is that I’m not caught doing a target that is sub-optimal.
Rick
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