Observing Plans

The Observing Plan document allows you to create or share lists of celestial objects with other imagers or observers. Plans are shared among licensed users through the Plan Library in the Deep-Sky Planner Community.

You can add object data manually from any source with the Observing Plan Object Editor, or you can drag and drop objects from other Deep-Sky Planner reports into the plan. The drag and drop feature allows you to leverage the extensive database reporting features found in the deep-sky, star, asteroid and comet reports and quickly build an observing plan.

You can learn how to create and use plans in the Deep-Sky Planner Video Library.

A plan report includes essential information for each object. Information is calculated for a selected date and time, or continuously in real-time. Some of the information in a plan includes: Apparent coordinates for all object types Magnitude, size and surface brightness of extended objects (as applicable) Spectral type of stars Next date & time of minimum or maximum light for eclipsing and pulsating variables The most recent measurement data (year, PA & separation) for double stars Rise, set transit and best time to observe (in respect to the moon) for the selected date Altitude, azimuth and air mass	Plan Report
Manage your view of the plan report with layout presets, or customize the layout to your requirements. There are presets designed for large screens (XGA or larger) and small ones (e.g., netbook).	Plan Presets
Detailed graphical information is available for each object, including DSS images, altitude graphs and observations.	Plan Details
Once you have your plan built, share it online as an HTML report. You can also view HTML reports with smartphones or tablet computers. You can even view a plan on a Kindle by printing your reports as PDF files using an external program such as PDFCreator and uploading the PDF to the Kindle.	Plan Report - HTML
Slew your telescope to an object in the plan (requires a GoTo mount and ASCOM)	Telescope Control
Show a star chart of an object in the plan by centering your planetarium software on the object's coordinates (supports TheSkyX/6, Starry Night, Redshift, Cartes du Ciel 2.76 or later)	Smart Chart Interoperation™
Plan Converter tool allows users to convert a Deep-Sky Planner plan file to other formats for other software. Currently the tool supports conversion to Argo Navis user catalog file format SkySafari 3 (Plus & Pro editions for Android, Mac and iPod/iPhone/iPad) observing list file. The Plan Converter tool is available to licensed owners of Deep-Sky Planner 5 on the Tools page in the Deep-Sky Planner Community Knightware thanks Wildcard Innovations and Southern Stars for their kind assistance while developing support for their products.	Plan Converter

Plan Editor

The Observing Plan Object Editor gives users the ability to enter essential data for any object. The object data can be looked up in the Deep-Sky Planner database, or it can be entered manually from any source.

Enter essential data for an object or look it up among over one million objects present in the Deep-Sky Planner database. A designation lookup engine helps to find objects by common names and designations.

General Tab

Enter Common Names for the selected object - other names by which you recognize the object. Common names are set by the Lookup feature on the General tab.

Names Tab

Choose a Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) image to be shown with the object on the plan. You can select a server, survey (red, blue or infrared) and size for the image. You can also save the image locally to the hard drive for offline access. You can even save an inverted image (black on white) locally.

You can also automatically assign DSS images for every object in a plan and use the DSS tab of the Plan Editor to override the automatic assignments.

DSS Tab

Plan Topics

Observing Plans

Plan Editor