Any recomendations fo simple astronomy planner software

[spaceboy]

As per the title.

I would like to peer out of my window see clear skies and say yep I fancy some double star observing and I see Cygnus is over head and I can still see Bootes above the trees. What I would then like to do is print out a sheet showing the relevant constellations marking out all the double stars that are with in the reach of my chosen telescope that night taking in to account my skies, visibility etc.

Or another night may just see me at perfect skies and I want only to look for faint and fuzzies again taking into consideration the limitations of my scope etc. What I have found with most the programs I have (or my ability to use them) is that you tend to get all the objects and can only control limiting magnitude and not choose which type of object you wish to concentrate on.

Is there such a software program that allows for choosing certain celestial objects to observe while filtering to only show the ones with in the reach of your equipment and skies.??

[ronin]

Have one for Messier objects but nothing else.

Never seen one for double stars but there are a hell of a lot and so I guess the question is where to stop. There are a couple of double star lists on the net that you could convert to a table then reorder the table by the constellation column.

Another question is are galaxies, nebula faint fuzzies or are they seperate, Messier listed them as the same in effect, the table in Wikipedia allows you to seperate them.

Just tried "astronomy planner double stars" in google.

This set appeared - try the last one.

http://appcrawlr.com/ios-apps/best-apps-observing-lists

Several others are in the result.

[RichM63]

In CdC under Setup menu you can filter for desired objects under the Chart Coordinates submenu coupled with criteria.

You will of course have set up the other parameters of Obsy location, etc.

Evidently I am only recently delving into what I can do to use CdC as a 'Control' software. see sig.

[spaceboy]

Thanks guys I will have a look in to them and see if I can figure it out.

I have missed out on a few clear nights because of transparency and figured if there was a software you can filter the harder objects from the easier ones then maybe I will be able to make the best of even those poorer of nights.

[lostpleiad]

Spaceboy - I've been working on my own web-based application and iphone app which I want to do exactly what you describe - ie. help you to browse around and plan the things you want to look at which you could actually see with your set up.

Funnily enough, about four items down my list of things to add is the ability to filter by type and seeing conditions. I'd be happy to build these in and Do you fancy being my user-focus-group?

[Guest]

There are many pieces of software that will let you do exactly  this kind of thing. SkyTools is the best and also the most expensive. Then you have Eye  & Telescope, AstroPlanner and Deep Sky Planner all of which are cheaper. As always with this game you get what you pay for.

Owen

[m.tweedy]

this should work

http://tonightssky.com/MainPage.php

[daz]

Deep Sky Planner from Knightware.

You can filter by object type, visible or not, location, already observed, etc.

You can select from a host of catalogues and print reports, or create a real-time plan. You can also connect to your scope to slew to targets, add images, export to HTML or PDF,

[spaceboy]

Thanks to everyone for your help and recommendations