🔭 Astrophotography Session Planner

Pick your gear from the dropdowns — equipment specs auto-fill. Plan exposures, frames and calibration based on conditions.

Your input / pick Auto-filled from selection (editable) Calculated Warnings
FAINT NEBULA
IC 1396 — Elephant Trunk
L · single filter
— × — = —
★★★☆☆ Good Bortle 5 · Moon 20%
Telescope
—
Camera
—
Mount
—
Plan
—

🔭1. Equipment

Setup
Show advanced gear specs (auto-filled, editable)
DSLR / mirrorless RN: from Photons-to-Photos community measurements.

🌙2. Sky Conditions & Time

Yellow = you enter  ·  Blue = auto-filled (still editable if you want to override)

Target — pick to auto-fill the rest
Where & when — required
Sky — auto when object set
Session time
Environment

📊3. Recommended Light Frame Plan

Recommended for these conditions
—
Sessions needed for full target
—
Project total — logged across all sessions
—
Mount max sub (binding)
—
Stack strategy
—
▸ Show how the recommended sub is calculated
Base sub exposure
—
× Camera multiplier
—
× Filter multiplier (sub length)
—
Sky-glow rejection (light, not frames)
—
Bortle multiplier (raw)
—
Bortle multiplier (after filter)
—
Moon multiplier (raw)
—
Moon separation factor
—
Moon multiplier (after sep & filter)
—
Target sub exposure
—

🧪4. Calibration Frames

TypeRecommendedCalculated Per-filter?Notes

⚠️6. Notes & Warnings

🗓️5. Session Frame Planner — pre / during / post

Pre-session Lights (during) Flats (end) Post-session
StepType Count Exposure (s) Match Total (min)
During-session length (lights + flats) → —
Total incl. pre + post calibration → —

Pre-session (off-site, anytime): bias and darks — camera capped, indoor. During session (at imaging site, in time order): lights, then flats just before teardown — DON'T break optical train. Post-session (off-site, anytime): dark flats matched to each filter's flat exposure.

Can flats be done next day? Yes — IF nothing in the optical train moves between lights and flats: camera position & rotation, focus, filter-wheel slot, tilt, even dust. Practical guidance:

· Portable rig you tear down each night: flats must be done before teardown.
· Backyard rig left fully assembled outside: next-morning sky flats work great.
· Permanent observatory (mount on a pier): can be days later, but dust still shifts — weekly flats recommended.

📡7. ZWO ASIAIR Settings — transcribe straight into Plan Manager

Camera tab — ASIAIR → Camera settings panel
Profile Gain Offset Cool to (°C) Bin Format USB speed
Plan Manager — ASIAIR → Plan Manager → Autorun. Paste each row in the same column order.
# Type Filter Exposure Repeat Bin Sub-folder Auto-focus Dither
Settings page — ASIAIR → Settings → Image / Guide

💡8. Quick Tips

  • Calibration frames must match light frames in temperature, gain/ISO, and (where applicable) exposure.
  • Bias may be skipped if you use dark-flats — modern cooled astro cams handle this naturally.
  • Flats: aim for an exposure that fills the histogram to ~33–50% (avoid clipping).
  • Re-shoot flats whenever you rotate the camera, change focus, or alter the optical train.
  • For narrowband from a city, sub exposures of 300–600s are normal even at Bortle 8.
  • Always dither between subs (3–5 px) to allow sigma-clipping to remove hot pixels and walking noise.
  • Mono with EFW: typical LRGB time split = L 50% / R 17% / G 17% / B 17%.
  • Typical SHO narrowband split = Ha 40% / OIII 30% / SII 30%, or Ha:OIII = 1:1 for HOO bicolor.

🗓️9. Year-at-a-Glance Target Visibility

Hours each target sits above the altitude floor during astronomical darkness, at your latitude. Click a cell to plan that target on the 15th of that month. 0h 1h 3h 5h 7h 10h+
— computing —