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:

• 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
  

Did you feel the breeze?

The CNEOS website indicates that the newly discovered NEO 2022 WM7 made a close approach on 2022-Nov-28 02:24 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.204 LD (78.55k km, 0.00053 AU). H=29.9 magnitude, V relative=11.58 km/sec, 'Rarity' = 0, Condition Code = 6.  This MP was discovered at Pan-STARRS 1, Haleakala on 2022-11-26.

Using MPC's elements for November 28, 2022 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this MP reached a peak brightness of 16.9 magnitude on November 27 at 1930 EST when the NEO was moving through Aquarius at 17"/sec at 1098.5k km distance. Close approach (to the nearest 10 minutes) was predicted to occur on November 27 at 2120 EST (0220 UT) when 2022 WM7 at 18.3 magnitude was moving through Sagittarius at 29.3"/sec, 79.52k km distant, but below the horizon as seen from Columbus, Ohio.  By 2022 Nov 28 11:00 EST it had already faded to 22.6 magnitude & slowed to 43"/min. ST4v predicted that it was not observable with a 13" telescope even at its best.

This was a small one, estimated to be 1-6 meters.

Phil S.

Hi,

I have added my cam manually but when i select my cam i get 0 objects meet visibility camera.
Criteria are set to: sun, moon, planets, any quality, above and below horizon, detectable.
I only get object if i set the criteria to Any SNR.
When i select another camera from the list i get a lot of visible objects.
Maybe it has something to do with the Quantum efficiency settings ?
How do i get the Quantum efficiency settings for this camera?

Thanks,

Robert

CNEOS predicts that this large NEO will make a close approach on 2022-Dec-02 10:07 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.03155AU. H=19.6 magnitude, V relative=28.84 km/sec, 'Rarity'=2 & Condition Code=0. This is a large object, 310 - 700 m, but it's only 18 magnitude according to ST4v while still being 0.2 AU distant.

Using MPC's orbital elements for the epoch 2022 November 17 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this NEO will reach a maximum brightness of 16.5 magnitude on November 30 traveling from Hydrus into Octans at ~38"/min. It will pass through the LMC on November 29 in daylight for Australian observers. This is a southern hemisphere object that ST4v predicts would not be visible in a 13" telescope. The moon will interfere. The iTelescope site in Chile might offer a good view.

Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted path of this NEO from 2022 November 29-December 2 for Brisbane, Australia: [attachment=2582]

Good hunting,

Phil S.

Edit: Yes, the iTelescope Chile site is perfectly located to observe the transit(?) of 2009 HV58 across the LMC on the evening of 2022 Nov 28.

For those interested in these things, the MPC has changed the standard epoch of their MP orbital elements from 2022 Aug 9 to 2023 Feb 25. ST4v began to use the new value several days ago for the downloads of MPC's NEAs at Today's Epoch datafile.

I'm currently downloading MPC's MPCORB data file to update all of the MPs to the new epoch. If I correctly understand how ST4v handles the MP's orbital elements, all of the MPs currently in the database will have the new 2023 Feb 25 epoch. NEOs added by downloading the NEAs at Today's Epoch file will have that day's epoch if they are new discoveries, but current ones will retain the 2023 Feb 25 epoch until after 2023 Feb 25. NEOs that were in the DB before 2022 Nov 16 are included in the 2022 Aug 9 standard epoch 'group' so those objects can have 2 entries in the DB for element epochs & ST4v uses the epoch that's closest to the date of the position calculation. 

This won't matter to most ST4v users. It's just a heads up.

Phil S.

Looks like 29P has had a strong out burst again and is well within visual range.

Today's update to the Current Bright & Interesting Novae & Supernovae in ST4 Visual reports a new supernova in M 33 in Triangulum. The supernova is currently 13.5 magnitude.

This object is currently well placed for northern hemisphere evening viewing.

Phil S.

I was looking into next month and ran by a few near Earth approaches. I ran all of these using precision osculating elements provided by Horizons. These are all near the edge of my 13" and local conditions but are added to my calendar. Since they are close at near pass, I recommend plotting from your locations.

2015 RN35 on December 15, 08:10UT, makes a 1.78LD pass thru Fornax and Eridanus moving NE at just over 1.5'/min around mag 13.6. This big rock rock climbs into a much more favorable location for SE Texas as it reaches 42° and mag 13.3 (improved phase angle) in the predawn hours of Dec 16th. The 50% illuminated Moon is 90° away.

2018 YK2 on December 22, 05:34UT, this big rock makes a 2LD pass thru Lacerta moving NNE at 3.7'/min at mag 14.4. For me, very low in the NW. However, the next 24 hours offers a much higher vantage point (54° & due north - Camelopardalis) and phase angle improvement. Even though the distance doubles to 4LD and proper motion drops to 1'/min, the magnitude slightly brightens to 14.2.

2010 XC15 on December 27, 18:14UT, this very large rock makes a 2LD pass out of Bootes into Corona Borealis moving east at 2.6'/min near magnitude 14.0 when it's poorly placed for SE Texas. If I attempt observations 6 hours earlier, just prior to the onset of morning twilight, the big rock from space should be 63° up moving 2.4'/min in the east and ~mag 13.5. And still only slightly over 2LD away. The Moon is not a factor.

CNEOS predicts that the newly discovered NEO 2022 WA will make a close approach on 2022-Nov-18 06:43 ± < 00:01 UT at a distance of 0.00334 AU. H=26.8 magnitude, V relative=16.21 km/sec, 'Rarity' = 0, Condition Code = 6.  This MP was discovered at Mt. Lemmon Survey on 2022-11-16.

Using MPC's elements for November 17, 2022 00:00 UT, ST4v predicts that this MP will reach a peak brightness of 16.4 magnitude on November 17 at 2100 EST when the NEO will be moving through Andromeda at 318.5"/min at 571.2k km distance. Close approach (to the nearest hour) is predicted to occur on November 18 at 0200 EST (0700 UT) when 2022 WA at 17.0 magnitude will be moving through Cygnus at 398.0"/min, 501.5k km distant 16° above the horizon as seen from Columbus, Ohio. Unfortunately ST4v predicts that it will not be observable with a 13" telescope under those conditions.

Here's an Interactive Atlas chart showing the predicted position of 2022 WA on November 17-18 as seen from Columbus, Ohio: [attachment=2575]

Since this NEO will get very close, parallax will affect the predicted positions, so you'll need to make charts for your location to get accurate positions for this object. Not much warning for this one.

Good hunting.

Phil S.

I think this is strange ask.

I planning another narrow-band mosaic run with the Burke-Gaffney Observatory (BGO) in Halifax. Recently completed one with the Rosette Nebula.

The method I used to position the mount for each panel was offsetting.

The BGO allows centring the mount from a known point--I used a particular star--by providing a horizontal and vertical offset. The offset parameter is a percentage value based on the camera field. For example, if I use OFFSET=-35,0 then I'm saying I want an image 35% of the camera field (long edge) to the west (the negative sign) but at the same declination. After some trial and error, I found the horizontal (RA) offset of 75% gave a decent overlap for the mosaic panels.

I believe that SkyTools can tell me the RA and Dec of the centre of each panel in a mosaic. I suppose I could drive the BGO that way instead.

But I'm wondering if ST4I can calculate offsets for me.

Does it do this? Can I extract offset values for the centres based on a common central star?