Hi Greg and the group. Sometimes I'm kind of slow figuring out how to use SkyTools to its best. I have the Messier list here in front of me. I specify (in Nightly Planner mode) that I want to try this marathon this Saturday night. This will be my fourth year to do the marathon... so I guess I have a bit of an idea of how I'd like to do it. I hope to start as soon as M77 and/or M74 come into view in my EAA screen. That should be around 7pm-ish. I was a fascinated with the idea that the "Generate Observing Plan" mode might keep me organized and on track... 2 minutes to find the next target... 3 minutes to observe, then on to the next target. So I put the hopeful times into the "From... to..." boxes... from 7pm to 7:30am. Then i click "Generate Observing Plan."
First, I just want to make sure I understand the use of the "Altitude" field. With "Generate Observing Plan" checked, what should the altitude be informing me? What do you suppose these numbers in the Altitude field represent... It might be logical to assume that this is the altitude of the object at the time it's recommending i observe it, right?
Otherwise, the good news is... SkyTools is showing me proposed times for 88 of the 110 objects. But, if there is any bad news, it would be that it has completely left out the other objects that it doesn't think I should waste time seeing. So it seems to be leaving out some 22 objects without asking me. But it's a Messier Marathon. I have to try. How do I *force* SkyTools to show me what I want to see - my best chances of seeing the whole marathon??? In a way, this kind of goes back to my same weakness ... the same question I have so far in SkyTools. I can't get it to let *me* be the boss. How do I *force* SkyTools to show me the best case scenario of viewing all 110 objects?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Doug
Hi Doug,
Its good to hear from you again.
I think you are asking the wrong question. Its not about not being forced to do something. Its about seeing as many Messier objects as possible. Right? The better question is, how can SkyTools help me view as many Messier objects as possible? There are unique calculations that SkyTools brings to the table to help you answer this question, and they will work reasonably well even if you kludge things for EAA.
Yes, the Plan feature can be used for a Messier Marathon. No matter how you do it, planning a successful Messier Marathon takes some work.
A Messier Marathon plan is in two separate phases:
1. Successfully getting those difficult objects at the start and end of the night that are hugging the horizon.
2. Moving from object to object in an efficient way, minimizing how far you need to move each time, and not backtracking too much.
The key is to break these into two different planning approaches:
Solving 2: The Plan feature is ideal for the the second phase. I designed an algorithm that will make an efficient path through the sky even as everything moves during the night. What makes this work is knowing how long you expect to be on each target, so choose the slew time and time to view carefully. You will need to experiment with different times to ensure that all but early/late objects are included. You will likely have to use short View times. Set the Find/Slew time to be as short as reasonably possible. Look at the status at the bottom to see how many objects are being included. Adjust the View Time to include as many as possible. At the telescope it will have to be a matter of letting it rule your life during most of the night, by telling you when to move on to the next object. Its necessary to get as many as possible. Its Ok to get ahead, as long as you don't get so far ahead things aren't rising yet. Real Time in Sky Tour mode uses the same algorithm, so you could plan ahead using the Plan feature and then switch to Real Time that night. By the way, did you know that you can right-click on the View Time in the plan to customize if for a specific object? Lets say you wanted to stop and spend time talking about a certain galaxy, then you could allocate more time to it in your plan.
Solving 1: Once you get a good plan for most the night, then treat the objects at the start/end of the night separately. These will be the ones that didn't make it into the plan. You will need to move fast during evening and morning twilight and it is critical to view each one when you have the best chance to detect it. In the evening the sky is getting darker, but the object is setting. There is a sweet spot of a few minutes when the two factors are balanced in such a way as you give you the best shot at detecting it. This will also be the time of night when you will need to spend the least time integrating in order to detect it, which will allow you to move on to another target quickly. The calculation assumes an eyepiece rather than a camera, but in practice, there should be little difference in the best time to go after the object. This is why we spent that time kludging your system. Remember, if you have an obstructed horizon defined, there may be objects you simply cannot view. There may be objects you can't view anyhow. That's just how it is. Its not SkyTools fault.
Here is how I would proceed:
A. Start by creating a new observing list via the New Observing List selection on the List Functions menu. Name it something like "Messier Marathon Edge Cases" or something.
B. Right-click on the red-check mark at the top of the check mark column and select "Check All." Then right-click on any object in the red check mark column and select "Copy To...". Select the list you just created to copy all of the objects to.
C. Open your new list and use the Plan feature on it. Make your adjustments to maximize the number of objects in the plan.
D . Once you have your plan set up, there will be some missing objects. Lets isolate those missing objects in this list, so it is a list of objects missing from your main plan. With the Plan feature checked, Right-click on the red check mark column (at the top) and select Check Displayed. You may need to clear any check marks first. Now turn the Plan feature off. The ones that are not checked are the ones that didn't make it into your plan. It may be there wasn't time for them, so you may want to think about making your View Time shorter at this point.
Once you feel you have maximized the plan, right-click in the red check mark column and again and select "Delete checked entries."
E. Now turn off the Plan feature. You now have a special list of those difficult objects at the start/end of the night that you will need to get quickly at just the right time.
Lets use the Nightly Planner to plan for viewing these objects. Select Reset Filters from the List Menu.
Make sure that you have the Begin, Best, and End time columns turned on. Those should always be turned on. The altitude column, and every other column that depends on a specific time, are all calculated for the Best time, because that is when you should look at the object, for obvious reasons. Click on the Best column to sort. Click again if necessary to sort from earliest to latest.
When you start your session try to be on each of the evening targets on this list as close to the Best time as possible. At the end of the night, do the same.
If you have a lot of objects with long periods of time between Begin and End (often with a green background), this is a sign that you lost objects in the plan because your View Time was too long to include all of them. So you may need to go back and start over if this is the case. You should only have a handful of objects remaining.
For those objects that have dashes, these are going to be the most challenging. SkyTools has determined that you can't detect these. It may be wrong because you are using a camera, but keep in mind that most people don't see every object, and it depends on the date you are looking, so it may in fact be right.
When I did this I had two objects with dashes, both in the morning. My advice is to try these after you get the other twilight objects that can be more readily viewed. Then just go to position of these really difficult objects-the ones with the dashes in the Begin, Best, End columns-and see what you can get.
Be sure to start you plan on time when you move on to the second phase.
Wow - what a thoughtful, courteous, and thorough response! Thanks Greg. I'll try it.
So the altitude column is reporting SkyTools' prediction of the altitude at the "Best" time. That answers that, too.
Ok - I'll try it. It's supposed to be clear tonight, so I'll try practicing with SkyTools tonight - and hope for another clear night Saturday evening. Thanks again!
Doug