Why should I move from APT to Nina? - Forums

Topic starter

Aug 15, 2022

I see huge numbers on here who are using Nina as opposed to APT. I just wondered if anyone had made the move from APT to Nina and why?

I'm personally really happy right now with APT: Platesolving of old captures and Goto++ to get me bang on target again. Image sequences are all pretty straightforward. Autofocussing works like a dream. All my kit is fully supported. PHD2 and Stellarium integration work fine.

Am I missing something?

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Rodrigo Quiroga

Aug 15, 2022 · Edited: Aug 15, 2022

Hi @Andy Wray !

To be honest with you , on my perspective NINA is much user friendly and intuitive. I used since I begin on deep sky imaging with no idea about this kind of software and I just saw a couple of videos for the initial settings and works like a charm! Settings and configuration of your devices is simple and straight forward, setting up your sessions take a couple of minutes and have several tools to make it fast and easier. Add to the top of that that is FREE and open. There is a big community and also have a discord server where the community is giving constant feedback to the programmers to continue improving. For sure there are room for more upgrades but the software is improving constantly. I saw several times people struggling on field configuring APT so SGP but I never saw anyone struggling with NINA. I just saying this based on my personal experience but I'm very pleased with NINA and the overall performance of it. I strongly encourage you to give a shot and test it just for fun !

I hope you found my comment useful.

I wish you clear skies!

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Daniel Renner

Aug 15, 2022

Nina is the future of capturing program. It keeps getting better and better and you will never go back once you've tried it.
Its super easy to learn and it's free. Any questions/problems u have will be answers within minutes if you ask it on nina discord or Facebook group.

Pavle Culum

Aug 15, 2022

Honestly, it's the advanced sequencer that sold me on NINA and got me to switch from APT. Its insanely customizable, and once you get used to the UI it's very intuitive.

I had no issues with APT, but I do find NINA easier to use and navigate now that I've switched over.

mackiedlm

Aug 15, 2022

I use APT and see no reason to move over at all. If it does everything you need and you are comfortable with the UI why would you give yourself the headache of learning something new. Because lots of others use something else?

At one point the argument was that APT did not have a usable autofocus system. Thats resolved now and i set up and started using two autofocusers without any issues just last week.

As to the future, APT is developing fast and the APT forum gives great rapid support. NINA is free? To my ming the cost of APT is so low as to be irrelevant.

Why should you move to NINA? I can't think of a single reason.

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Aug 15, 2022

I have APT and I have NINA. Overall NINA is a better program with a better UI.

Andy Wray

Topic starter

Aug 15, 2022 · Edited: Aug 15, 2022

andrea tasselli:
I have APT and I have NINA. Overall NINA is a better program with a better UI.

Andrea, I know you are really experienced on here and that you know your stuff. What single big thing would you suggest as a reason to move from APT to Nina? I ask, because I have so many other things I am trying to learn at the same time (mainly collimation/allignment and post-processing with PixInsight). Is it THAT much better than APT?

In case it makes a difference to your answer: I image in the backyard and typically may get two or three nights consecutive clear skies if I am lucky before I have to bring the equipment in.

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andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Aug 15, 2022

Andy Wray:
Andrea, I know you are really experienced on here and that you know your stuff. What single big thing would you suggest as a reason to move from APT to Nina? I ask, because I have so many other things I am trying to learn at the same time (mainly collimation/allignment and post-processing with PixInsight). Is it THAT much better than APT?

The way I use it, yes it is much better. I use APT only when using a DSLR, for which it is signficantly better than NINA. When used in nearly all automated acquisition workflow I find the UI is so well integrated together than setting everything up is a breeze compared to APT's UI. But then much is a matter of personal tastes so YMMV. What I'm saying is, in the end, give it a try and see of you like it. If you don't then go back to APT. In the end they pretty much do nearly the same thing.

Andy Wray

Topic starter

Aug 15, 2022

Thanks all!

Given the feedback I'm going to install Nina (over the next two weeks whilst the clouds are in) and make sure it can control all my equipment correctly. I'll spend a little bit of time learning the UI and thinking about how easy it would be to transition.

One of the advantages of cloudy skies I guess

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Arun H

Frequent contributor

Aug 15, 2022 · Edited: Aug 15, 2022

A big advantage I see to NINA is the open source nature which allows rapid development and addition of capabilities.

People have brought up the advanced sequencer, which allows for some scripting and conditional workflow. But IMO, just as important are other add ons. There is a very nice add on that allows you to diagnose and correct tilt. Yet another, that I have personally found very useful, that allows you to do very accurate PA using your main scope and camera without needing to have Polaris in sight. All in all, the attraction is that it isn't just very capable acquisition software, but an integrated package that covers multiple aspects of imaging. Moving over from SGP, it was a fairly quick learning curve and I found it to be much easier to adapt than another (paid) software I was evaluating.

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Jared Holloway

Aug 15, 2022

I still use APT when shooting with my Canon EOS Ra. I started using NINA when I got my ZWO asi2600mc because APT feels limited while using a dedicated camera. I like both, but I do agree that NINA is probably better overall, depending on your circumstances. I'll say though, if APT does what you want and need, there is no need to switch.

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dkamen

Aug 16, 2022

I switched to NINA from EKOS because hardware support considerations forced a switch to Windows from Linux. One thing I do miss is support for planetary target acquisition and capturing, which I believe is present in APP (not reason enough to switch again though as I prefer viewing planets in the trad way).

Pam Whitfield

Aug 16, 2022

I switched from SGP to NINA for my main rig with a mono CCD, autofocus and all that good stuff.
However, in a similar fashion to Andrea I still lean towards BackyardEOS now and again for my portable setup as the Canon DSLR support in NINA is less than ideal - as an illustration I use the old Ascom DSLR driver for my Canon in NINA rather than the official SDK.

I'm happy with NINA for my main setup (apart from them occasionally temporarily breaking the support for older cameras). There were a few features they introduced that were attractive enough to make the learning curve worth the trouble. If there isn't a feature in NINA that catches your eye I wouldn't stress about moving away from APT (I never used APT myself but never heard anything terrible about it…).
There's no harm giving it a try if a few hours of clear skies show up but not worth losing a full night over if something messes up.

Clear skies
Pam

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Dimitris Kavallieratos

Aug 16, 2022 · Edited: Aug 16, 2022

I have tried Voyager/APT/SharpCap/N.I.N.A. and SGP Pro for DSO imaging.

By far, N.I.N.A. is the most easy to use and with a great UI and as a software developer I greatly appreciate the support/customization and UI that N.I.N.A. has. Also it is free, but as others have said the cost should not be a parameter if the software is robust and carefree…

All the other acquisition software seems monolithic and archaic-from an UI perspective- to me

That's my opinion for all that matters, I am a newbiew after all!

Clear skies
Dimitris

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Pam Whitfield

Aug 16, 2022

I have tried Voyager/APT/SharpCap/N.I.N.A. and SGP Pro for DSO imaging.

By far, N.I.N.A. is the most easy to use and with a great UI and as a software developer I greatly appreciate the support/customization and UI that N.I.N.A. has. Also it is free, but as others have said the cost should not be a parameter if the software is robust and carefree...

All the other acquisition software seems monolithic and archaic-from an UI perspective- to me That's my opinion for all that matters, I am a newbiew after all!

Clear skies
Dimitris

The NINA UI is very good once you get used to it but functionality beats any UI in my book - with my DSLR at least it tends to fall a bit short

Dimitris Kavallieratos

Aug 16, 2022 · Edited: Aug 16, 2022

Pam Whitfield:
The NINA UI is very good once you get used to it but functionality beats any UI in my book

Agreed , functionality and stability also.

Pam Whitfield:
with my DSLR at least it tends to fall a bit short

That is a good point, have not tried it with DSLRs only with my astro camera. Nice to know...

Leonardo Landi

Aug 16, 2022

I moved from APTto NINA mainly for the ftraming assistant. With the new update, that makes everything available offline without loading it's even more amazing. This feature alone worth the effort to learn a new UI. The possibility to create your own base template for session, imaging ecc, and a ist of target, makes NINA extremely powerful. You can prepare your session during the day or even when you're already imaging, and reuse it whenever you want. Start a session when you have all your templates available, makes the prep time extremely short. In 2 minute you have your session up and running. Push play and forget it. Next morning you'll have your data stored and your equipment parked.

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kuechlew

Aug 16, 2022

As a beginner I just want to add that NINA is very intuitive and quick and easy to learn. There are a lot of good youtube videos out there, Cuiv the Lazy Geek - who contributed as a developer - and Patriot Astro are a good start. Getting started with NINA is a breeze, you just try it out and it works, no issues so far.

On the other side the advice to stick with APT if it works for you is quite valid. Main argument for a switch is in my opinion the very active developer group which contribute interesting plugins. Hocus Focus has recently been discussed here in the context of analyzing tilt, Patriot Astro discusses a number of them on his youtube channel.

I believe there is some virtue in keeping the setup constant for a time and just build up a routine of using what you have. After 1 year of slowly getting my rig to work I'm very happy that I now finally reached a "production rig" which I will keep untouched at least until galaxy season next year.

Clear skies
Wolfgang

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Andy Wray

Topic starter

Aug 16, 2022

OK, the move to NINA looks like it will be fairly easy for me. I installed the software at lunchtime and:

1) It found all my devices automatically, I just needed to enter my scope focal length
2) I just needed to change a few settings to get Stellarium as my default planetarium and ASTAP as my platesolver. PHD2 automatically selected for guiding
3) I had to redo my filter names, but not exactly arduous
4) Platesolving of old images and slewing seem to be working fine
5) Nice to see that autofocuser Overshoot mode is there which means I can replicate what's worked well on APT

I now just need to learn how to set up a sequence properly, but I can already see that I can automate a lot more than I could in APT.

I believe I will be making the move pretty quickly as the above only took me a few hours to setup and learn.

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Andy Wray

Topic starter

Aug 16, 2022

Last comment from me for anyone thinking about making the move to NINA:

I've only spent 5 hours playing with it during the day and have no way to test it for a week under clear skies. Despite that, I have concluded that it will be a significant improvement for me over APT and I will be making the move.

Tested so far:

* Equipment control (everything works)
* Integration with PHD2 appears to work and Stellarium certainly does
* Platesolving and slew to targets based on platesolving works great
* Sequencer looks fantastic
* I love the framing tool
* I can't wait to try the 3 star polar alignment so that I don't have to worry about having a clear site of Polaris.

It's not like trying to start from scratch as ASTAP, PHD2, Stellarium server enablement and ASCOM setup were all done previously and worked off the bat. Also, having all the SkyAtlas stuff available in the same tool is great, showing when a target is above the horizon etc..

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Sean van Drogen

Aug 16, 2022

Hi Andy,

Few things I would immediately as well install the following plugins, not sure if anyone has mentioned them already.

Hocus Focus (great alternative to the regular focus algorithm)
Orbuculum (get some cool additional triggers for when to move from one to the other target)
Darks Customs (great to calculate your filter offsets if you want to work with those)

Also get your custom horizon setup, assuming you roughly setup in the same position every time.

CS Sean

Douwe79

Aug 16, 2022

I tried NINA and didn’t find it really user friendly or intuitive at all, but perhaps I’m not smart enough for it :-) If you don’t have an auto-focuser like me, the manual focus assistent features of APT are nice. Also, before APT I used Backyard EOS, which has a comparable UI so the transfer to APT wasn’t that big. Once I figured out it’s plate solving function I was good to go.

CS!

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Andy Wray

Topic starter

Aug 18, 2022 · Edited: Aug 18, 2022

OK, I got all of 10 minutes between clouds tonight and decided that all i could do with Nina was an autofocus test using Hocus Focus. I used my parameters from APT (Autofocus step size of 50 and 200 steps overshoot inwards). I only had one shot at it and guess what? Nina and Hocus Focus nailed it. I just need more than ten mins of clear skies now.

This really was only a 10 minute window in the clouds, but I did get to test (despite not having polar aligned my scope):

* Slewing and centering on a target
* Manual focus to get close to focus
* Autofocus routine

When I get more clear skies I will do the 3 star polar alignment to see how that compares to SharpCap, tweak my autofocusser parameters and hopefully run a sequence against a target.

So far, so good.

Sadly, I don't think I will be returning to APT even though it has been a faithful and reliable tool for years.

For anyone else considering the move: this has been a 48 hour learning curve which was far less than I expected and that includes getting most of my brain around the advanced sequencer.