Planning tools; suggestions

Hi  Jeff! I often use Stellarium to choose and plan in advance what to shoot. But I struggle any way, like you every time I have to decide what object to shoot. The worst is when I choose an object that than, when I’m out, it reveled to be too low anyway and the back up plan too. When I did not plan in advance I use Stellarium too, but also Star Chart (on my Iphone). I of course get suggestions looking what others shoot on Astrobin.

Another good option is https://dso-browser.com it will tell you what is in the sky at your location tonight, or any date in the future.

Oh very good that you mentioned the Ocular plugg-in, I forgot it! It is a great tool!

Jeff,

I tried various techniques before I decided to go all-in with Astroplanner.  I am glad I did.  It took a while, but it has some great  and robust features once you get to know the program.  In addition to the normal sorting by transit time, moon distance, object size, etc., I have various filters set up so that I can custom highlight objects in different ways - for my current optical train, for my assigned priority, and for objects I have not yet imaged.  I have input 700 objects from any source I can get my hands on - Astrobin, magazines, books, etc.  Each night I have a plan of objects to image throughout the night, plus a backup set of objects in a different part of the sky in case there are clouds.

Gary

Jeff, what I do partly is to download object catalogs from the internet such as The Sharpless Catalog of HII Regions and the DWB catalog of HII regions
around Cygnus X to name a few, Also I find that Astrobin itself is a good source of new material, GOOD LUCK!

I prefer to look for targets rarely imaged, that way I’m less likely to be disappointed when comparing my results to someone’s far better results Starry Nights (PP7) is a great source for locating and framing obscure targets. For example I’ll select a random galaxy, then select PGC catalogue, zoom in and oodles of surrounding unknown galaxies will appear as tiny oval outlines on my screen. My FOV is accurately represented, and if I find a nice tight group of ovals that fit in my FOV, I’ll get the info off the screen and search the internet for info on that particular ARP/NGC/UGC group or galaxy. If there are few images of it and it looks doable, I’ll give it a shot.

Derek

I use Astrobin a lot for ideas of new targets, it is also very helpful if equipment, filters and length of exposures are stated.  I then go over to Stellarium, find where it is in the sky on a given date.  I keep a sort of "Target Planning Calendar" for targets that are not currently suitable and then go to my "target planner" as those months come around.

I find Astrobin a valuable resource for choosing new targets.

One thing that would be very useful for some lesser known targets, is to have the co-ordinates recorded along with the other info, not sure whether Astrobin can work these out automatically, but I sometimes struggle to find the correct co-ordinates for some targets, and am now starting to record them on my own website for my own future use (if need be) but for other's to google and find as well.  I use a handset and that only has M, NGC and IC targets in its data base.

Have made a note of Imaging Toolbox (referred to above), this looks like another useful tool to try out as I normally use 12Dstring for my FOV but some of the targets are not really easy to identify.

Carole