2022-11-29, 09:40 PM
Hello.
I am new here and I am considering buying SkyTools, but am somewhat confused of which version to get.
I have a rather unusual workflow, I’ll try to explain it here.
I do EAA. So my workflow is kind of a hybrid between visual and imaging I would say.
I have an eVscope by Unistellar, which I control with an app on the tablet. I can slew to an object in the app’s database or enter coordinates manually. When I am on the object I do “live stacking” and observe. Sometimes I take a picture of what I am seeing. I log my observations in sky safari app.
I do this all from my highly light polluted backyard. I live in an apartment building on the ground flor, and I have an atrium which is surrounded by other buildings, so there is much obstruction.
My biggest challenge is finding out when is what up, based on the obstructions and my solution to that was to create a custom horizon file (another app called observer.pro), which exports an overlay image to sky safari so I can see if an object I am trying to observe is obstructed or not. But that is very limiting as you can imagine.
I watched the youtube video on using the real time observing tool and that pretty much covers my needs.
What do I need/expect:
I think SkyTools with real time observation tool would be the best fit for my workflow. Am I right?
Would I be able to do all that I listed in my expectations above?
Which version of sky tools would cover all my listed expectations or come closest to them?
I read other posts here and understand that there is an add-on in development for supporting EAA workflows.
How is that doing? Should I wait for that? If I don’t have patience to wait for that which version of sky tools should I get, so that I can later upgrade to that add-on?
Do you have any other suggestions or remarks regarding my workflow and which version of sky tools to get?
I know this was a long post, thank you for reading all this, and thank you in advance for all the answers.
I am new here and I am considering buying SkyTools, but am somewhat confused of which version to get.
I have a rather unusual workflow, I’ll try to explain it here.
I do EAA. So my workflow is kind of a hybrid between visual and imaging I would say.
I have an eVscope by Unistellar, which I control with an app on the tablet. I can slew to an object in the app’s database or enter coordinates manually. When I am on the object I do “live stacking” and observe. Sometimes I take a picture of what I am seeing. I log my observations in sky safari app.
I do this all from my highly light polluted backyard. I live in an apartment building on the ground flor, and I have an atrium which is surrounded by other buildings, so there is much obstruction.
My biggest challenge is finding out when is what up, based on the obstructions and my solution to that was to create a custom horizon file (another app called observer.pro), which exports an overlay image to sky safari so I can see if an object I am trying to observe is obstructed or not. But that is very limiting as you can imagine.
I watched the youtube video on using the real time observing tool and that pretty much covers my needs.
What do I need/expect:
- Plan my session in advanced based on my location and my custom horizon
- When planing I would like to filter by size, by altitude in given observation interval, by brightness, and if I already observed it.
- I should be able to see only those objects that are visible from my location in the specified observing interval based on my custom horizon
- The plan should include a common name for an object in the results and J2000 coordinates which I need for input for the slew.
- When observing I want to know which object in the plan is best to observe right now, i want to mark it as observed for this session and as observed globally (so I can filter out unobserved when preparing another plan)
- Slew control (I’ll do that manually, with the app, thank you very much)
- What eyepiece to use
- To know when is the best time to photograph an object
- Anything filtering out based on the weather, event if there is a light fog, or some clouds, through live stacking I can still observe the object, so I really don’t need objects filtered out based on weather or seeing conditions or similar not in planning phase nor in real time observing phase
I think SkyTools with real time observation tool would be the best fit for my workflow. Am I right?
Would I be able to do all that I listed in my expectations above?
Which version of sky tools would cover all my listed expectations or come closest to them?
I read other posts here and understand that there is an add-on in development for supporting EAA workflows.
How is that doing? Should I wait for that? If I don’t have patience to wait for that which version of sky tools should I get, so that I can later upgrade to that add-on?
Do you have any other suggestions or remarks regarding my workflow and which version of sky tools to get?
I know this was a long post, thank you for reading all this, and thank you in advance for all the answers.