Astrophoto Planner

How well does a deep-sky object suit astrophotography tonight at your location – and how much usable exposure time is left for it?

City, postal code or GPS coordinates

GPS coordinates as latitude, longitude (decimal degrees) – e.g. 47.07, 15.44

Date Rates the night of this day – from evening after sunset until the following morning.

Target object optional Catalogue designation or name – suggestions appear as you type. Leave empty to see the best targets tonight.

What are you shooting with?

Smart telescope (standard mode) 10 s per frame · automatically controlled · 15 % margin Smart telescope (EQ mode) 30 s per frame · automatically controlled · 15 % margin Camera on a fixed tripod 2 s per frame · no dithering · 25 % margin Camera on a star tracker 30 s per frame · no dithering · 25 % margin Telescope with tracking/guiding 120 s per frame · dithering every 5 frames · 15 % margin Cooled astro camera with guiding 180 s per frame · dithering every 3 frames · 15 % margin Custom settings Set all capture parameters yourself

Filter optional “No filter” is a good start – after the calculation SkyGrade suggests the right filter.

Capture window Plan the whole usable night Set a custom window

Advanced capture settings

Exposure per frame (s)

Pause between frames (s)

Dither every … frames (0 = off)

Settle time after dithering (s)

Expected reject rate (%)

Minimum altitude of the object (°)

You only need to choose location, target and capture system – SkyGrade computes the rest with sensible defaults.