I am just starting to use SkyTools and have begun to get my round most of it.
I use Voyager (Advanced) and that does all the scheduling. All I need is a total number of shots per exposure per filter when I've calculated whatg I want for a target. Then all I need to do is plug that into Voyager. I cannot find anywhere in SkyTools wherfe a summary is given.I can see total time per filter, I can see how it would want to split across multiple nights but all I want is a summary as above.
2026-10-03, 09:06 PM (This post was last modified: 2026-10-03, 09:10 PM by theskyhound.)
Hello Paul,
You need to use the SkyTools Scheduler for that (this is its purpose). It will tell you when to start imaging in each filter, when to stop, and what the sub exposure time should be. That is expressed as the number of exposures which is what you asked about (but its really the number needed to reach the end time of the schedule). You can print it out and enter that info into Voyager. Or just do it from the screen. But consider, those three pieces of info: start, exposure time, end, are what scheduling really is. That's why other software calls it sequencing, because it lacks the critical start and stop times that make it a schedule. There are big advantages to getting those right.
I haven't looked at Voyager in many years, but hopefully you can insert the SkyTools schedule into it. As I said, the start and end times are critical to get the most out of your imaging and they are based on the results of the model for each filter (something Voyager can't do).
I tried to work with the Voyager author to provide a way for SkyTools to send its schedule directly to Voyager, but he never seemed to understand what SkyTools did and chose to write a (minimal) scheduler himself instead, which sounds like its actually a sequencer. I asked for nothing in return, and it likely would have driven customers to his product, especially at the time because NINA hadn't yet become a thing. I had a lot more customers than he did. It was a big opportunity that he passed up. I'd bet there would be many more Voyager users today if he had.
Anyhow, I really liked Voyager, and its unfortunate that you can't just submit your schedule to it. You might consider asking him to do that. I am happy to work with him, as its can be nothing but a win-win for both of us. Today, SkyTools already produces a file that could easily be read by Voyager.
Thanks, had a suspicion this may be the case after finding an older post. The Voyager "scheduler" is actually quite advanced - you plug in taget, camera parameters, desired shots, other (numerous) parameters such as priority, moon distance, altitude/azimuth, and many, many more. It then sorts out the targets based on priority, progress, availability and parameters.
Voyager (base) works for my equipment and then the scheduler (Advanced) works seamlessly. Unfortunately I utterly hate NINA. It says something that I've spent money on a product rather than use a free one. Voyager works for me though and the scheduler integrates well.
I can't see it being possible to directly import SkyTools "scheduling" into Voayger as it internally does the calculations itself. Effectively SkyTools iand Voayger (scheduler/advanced) are doing similar things. Hence me after just summary output. This is, I accept, not making use of SkyTools scheduling as I see, for me, SkyTools doing 2 things after a target is chosen - decide on optimal integration parameters and then to schedule this. I can only really use Voyager for the latter, hence me just needing a summary.
What I have done is draw up a spreadsheet that l enter the frame parameters (length, binning, etc) and then calculates the totals and allows me to adjust the output whilst keeping the same ratios etc. This was very successful for my last project which is the best I've ever seen one of mine, this was down to SkyTools giving me the right exposures etc for what I wanted. I am not suggesting my results are groundbreaking (especially living in The UK) but for my setup the shot planning has significantly improved; quick and dirty results included as I've not completed all shots not taken yet.
I fully understand you only wanting SkyTools as a target planner, exposure calculator and scheduler but I think that a summary would be helpful and I feel that some of the things in my spreadsheet would actually be helpful. I'd be happy to discuss what I've included in my calculations as if in SkyTools, even if using the scheduler, would have been useful.
I think something I wrote has been misunderstood. I wasn't suggesting that you stop using Voyager, nor was I suggesting that you use SkyTools to control your equipment.
In fact, I answered your original question in the first paragraph: the SkyTools Scheduler provides the number of exposures you are looking for, along with the start and stop times. You can simply take that information and enter it into Voyager, which can then control your equipment exactly as it does now.
The point I was trying to make about scheduling was something different. SkyTools and Voyager are not doing the same calculations. The important distinction isn't how many constraints a scheduler supports, but the difference between scheduling by user-specified constraints and scheduling from a physical model of the expected imaging results.
Constraints are necessarily estimates. The user has to decide what constitutes an acceptable altitude or airmass, Moon distance, and so forth. But the optimum values depend on the target, imaging system, filter, sky conditions, and how all of those factors interact. Even something as basic as acceptable airmass can be quite different for blue than for red. Same for narrow band filters. How can you know how close to the moon you can image at different altitudes and phases... unless you can calculate the brightness of the sky at the target directly? Nobody can realistically account for all of those interactions by choosing a set of constraints.
SkyTools gets around that problem by modeling the expected SNR for your specific imaging system, target and filter as conditions change throughout the night. Rather than asking you to guess what constraints will produce good results, it directly calculates the expected quality of each expousre. It can therefore determine when it is most productive to image in each filter, including the appropriate start and stop times.
That's why I emphasized those start and stop times. A constraint-based scheduler without access to the SkyTools model cannot know the optimum boundaries for each filter. If it rearranges the exposures, much of the optimization SkyTools performed is lost. The result is either more imaging time required to obtain the same data, or less useful data from the same amount of imaging time.
I'm certainly not suggesting that Voyager doesn't work well for controlling your equipment, and your image is very nice. I'm only trying to explain what SkyTools is doing with the scheduling information and why I recommend preserving it when transferring the plan to Voyager.
And yes, I'd be interested in seeing what you've done with your spreadsheet. There may well be additional summary information that would be useful to expose directly in SkyTools.
Again, I feel it would benefit every user of Voyager greatly if the SkyTools schedule could simply be imported. Its actually a very easy thing for the developer to do.
