2025-02-17, 07:17 AM
Hello,
I was using the Nightly Planner to create an observing plan for a Messier Marathon and I noticed that as I changed the Transparency and Seeing settings, the number of objects scheduled for observation would change. It is my understanding that Transparency & Seeing affect the Observation Difficulty rating but I was curious how Nightly Planner uses the Transparency & Seeing settings to filter the number of objects scheduled for observation? My filters were set to Log filter: Any, Any quality, Ignore Difficulty, and Ignore Splitability.
The other thing is that if there is a filtering effect going on, I assumed the combination of Prime Transparency and Excellent Seeing to result in the largest number of objects scheduled for observation. In ST4 with the settings I used, that number was "105 out of 112 scheduled for observation". But when I changed the settings to Prime Transparency and Poor Seeing, that number increased to "110 out of 112 scheduled for observation." Another example that I would not intuit would be
1. Excellent Seeing/Typical Transparency: 83 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
2. Good Seeing/Good Transparency: 88 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
3. Good Seeing/Typical Transparency: 91 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
I would've expected the first two combinations above to result in a higher number of objects scheduled for observation compared to the 3rd.
Settings:
Date: Evening of 3/29/2025
Observatory: Utah Desert Remote Observatory
Telescope: Antares 12 inch Dobsonian
Observer: New Observer
Observing List: Messier
I included a screenshot of the settings I was using and a table of the number of objects out of 112 scheduled for observation as the transparency and seeing settings were changed, also attached to this post:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
I was using the Nightly Planner to create an observing plan for a Messier Marathon and I noticed that as I changed the Transparency and Seeing settings, the number of objects scheduled for observation would change. It is my understanding that Transparency & Seeing affect the Observation Difficulty rating but I was curious how Nightly Planner uses the Transparency & Seeing settings to filter the number of objects scheduled for observation? My filters were set to Log filter: Any, Any quality, Ignore Difficulty, and Ignore Splitability.
The other thing is that if there is a filtering effect going on, I assumed the combination of Prime Transparency and Excellent Seeing to result in the largest number of objects scheduled for observation. In ST4 with the settings I used, that number was "105 out of 112 scheduled for observation". But when I changed the settings to Prime Transparency and Poor Seeing, that number increased to "110 out of 112 scheduled for observation." Another example that I would not intuit would be
1. Excellent Seeing/Typical Transparency: 83 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
2. Good Seeing/Good Transparency: 88 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
3. Good Seeing/Typical Transparency: 91 objects of 112 scheduled for observation
I would've expected the first two combinations above to result in a higher number of objects scheduled for observation compared to the 3rd.
Settings:
Date: Evening of 3/29/2025
Observatory: Utah Desert Remote Observatory
Telescope: Antares 12 inch Dobsonian
Observer: New Observer
Observing List: Messier
I included a screenshot of the settings I was using and a table of the number of objects out of 112 scheduled for observation as the transparency and seeing settings were changed, also attached to this post:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing