Using Deep-Sky Planner 9 with Starry Night
This article describes some recommendations for using Deep-Sky Planner 9 with Starry Night 6, 7 and 8 on Windows 10 (32 or 64 bit) or Windows 11 (64 bit).
- Starry Night Enthusiast or higher edition is required for the Show Chart interoperation feature to work in Deep-Sky Planner 9.
- Deep-Sky Planner communicates with Starry Night through a plug-in that ships with Deep-Sky Planner. The plug-in can be installed automatically in most situations, or manually otherwise. You can also do a manual installation of the plug-in any time if you do not install the plug-in into your Starry Night installation when you install Deep-Sky Planner.
Automatic Plug-in Installation
The Deep-Sky Planner 9 installer can copy its plug-in into the default Starry Night plug-in directory2 if you choose to do so. If you do not choose the option, or if your Starry Night installation location is NOT at the default location1, you will need to install the plug-in manually.
Manual Plug-in Installation
- Locate the plug-in file DsSN90.plug in your Deep-Sky Planner 9 installation. If you installed Deep-Sky Planner with the recommended settings, this should be C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Knightware\Deep-Sky Planner 9\DsSN90.plug where <username> is your Windows user account name. Copy the file DsSN90.plug to your Starry Night plug-ins folder2.
- If you use Starry Night 8 (actually 7.6.4.1436 or later) change the name of the Deep-Sky Planner 9 plug-in in the Starry Night plug-ins folder from DsSN90.plug to DsSN90_Win32.plug
Deep-Sky Planner can start Starry Night for you when attempting a Show Chart command. If you have problems connecting to Starry Night from Deep-Sky Planner, the problem is most likely one of the following:
- Starry Night is not installed in its standard location1. In this case, start Starry Night before using it with Deep-Sky Planner.
- Starry Night did not load the latest Deep-Sky Planner plug-in. Check Help | About Plug-in | Deep-Sky Planner in Starry Night and verify that you are running the correct plug-in for your version of Deep-Sky Planner 9. If this menu item does not appear, Starry Night has not loaded the correct plug-in successfully. Is the plug-in present in your Starry Night plug-ins2 directory? Did you rename the plug-in for Starry Night 8? For Deep-Sky Planner 9 or earlier, the plug-in should be v 9.0.0.0.
- Did Starry Night pause at start up and ask you to update its files? In this case, allow Starry Night to apply updates before using it with Deep-Sky Planner.
Notes
1 The default location for Starry Night 6, 7 or 8 installations is one of the following. Substitute your Starry Night major version number (6 7 or 8) for #. If your Starry Night installation is in a different location, you must install the Deep-Sky Planner plug-in manually.
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Starry Night Pro Plus #\ (on 64-bit Windows)
- C:\Program Files\Starry Night Pro Plus #\ (on 32- bit Windows)
2 The default location for Starry Night plug-ins is one of the following. Substitute your Starry Night major version number (6, 7 or 8) for #. If your Starry Night installation is in a different location, you must install the Deep-Sky Planner plug-in manually.
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Starry Night Pro Plus #\Sky Data\Plug-ins\ (on 64-bit Windows)
- C:\Program Files\Starry Night Pro Plus #\Sky Data\Plug-ins\ (on 32- bit Windows)
3 If you are having problems communicating with Starry Night from Deep-Sky Planner, you should make sure that the Deep-Sky Planner plug-in used by SN has been installed in the Starry Night plug-in folder. If you continue to have problems, please be sure that your firewall is not blocking traffic from Deep-Sky Planner to the TCP connection that you have configured for Starry Night at Options | Star Chart Programs. By default, this is 127.0.0.1:50000.