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Planning

groberts

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groberts

groberts

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I have previously been using Stellarium & Cartes du Ciel to generally look around and see what might work for viewing and particularly imaging at any given time.  I now see there are some planning programmes that might help this otherwise somewhat random approach. My concern is that they are maybe too detailed i.e. overkill. 

Are they useful / any good?

Astro Planner v Deep-Sky Planner?     

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NotSoSuperNova

NotSoSuperNova

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If you have a particular field you're interested in (DSO in my case) then by having a look at what you're physically able to see could help and almost do the planning for you by working down in magnitude / order of interest. If you just want to look at stuff in general then the book Turn Left At Orion has the seasonal "top picks" as what's on offer. I've seen the messier list broken down into easy, medium and hard finds a few times as well, that would certainly give you a broad education working through that. 

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nicoscy

nicoscy

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I use SkyTools3 myself and it does help me plan my observing sessions, print star charts with naked eye views, views through finderscope and views through the eyepiece on the same chart, find details about DSO, get warnings about interesting events (occultations, eclipses e.t.c.) and generally be more organized. 

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groberts

groberts

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Thanks everyone, I particularly like the look of DSO Browser + it's free!  So no thoughts on Astro Planner & Deep Sky Planner?

I have poor sight lines form my location so it is important to pick my spot, if you see what I mean. At the moment I am trying to pursue imaging DSO objects and the ability to overlay the camera's FOV would also be useful in planning.    

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PorkyB

PorkyB

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the ability to overlay the camera's FOV would also be useful in planning.    

The "Oculars" feature in Stellarium lets you do just that.  Enter details of your scopes, eyepieces and cameras, then you can see what any object will look like through your kit.  I find this especially useful when planning an imaging session as I can see how an object fits in the frame. 

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Tinker1947

Tinker1947

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Neat...

 I must be missing something, this program is just the same a Stellarium, CdC, put in your location and it shows you what's on view as a list not a map, for a more defined looking print out "Whats Up " has a much better layout with filters to sort out just about anything...

http://www.whatsup.ricksastro.com/

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