Create and Use a Horizon File in NINA, Stellarium, and Cartes du Ciel
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- Horizon Files are a simple yet effective way to make sure you are optimizing your target selection and imaging processes for astrophotography. In this video, I will show you how to create a customized horizon file using both a smartphone application as well as manually (by hand). I will also show you how to use this file within NINA, Stellarium, and Cartes du Ciel. One you have the file up and running, you will immediately be better at making targeting decisions, and if using NINA, can even apply overnight imaging loop decisions automatically without interaction on your part.
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Software Used in this Video:
NINA: nighttime-imaging.eu/
Cartes du Ciel: www.ap-i.net/skychart/en/start
Stellarium: stellarium.org/
Theodolite iPhone App: apps.apple.com/us/app/theodol...
For more of my Astrophotography related content, go to:
www.PatriotAstro.com
/ patriot_astro
-------CHAPTERS-------
0:00 - Introduction
0:40 - The Problem
1:00 - Get the data with Theodolite
2:19 - Get the data by hand
4:33 - Clean up the data
9:19 - NINA
14:45 - Cartes du Ciel
17:23 - Stellarium
23:01 - Wrapping Up
You do an excellent job of describing how to do this process in an easy to follow manner. Much appreciated.
Great video, extremely useful. Although I've enjoyed AP for 4 years, I only recently discovered (and joined) your channel. You do an excellent job presenting, detailing and assuming very little (if anything) for all levels of experience. The NINA series is hands down the best I've seen. You are quite an asset to our AP community and I for one (and surely, only one of many), truly appreciate the extraordinary amount of time you spend sharing your experience and knowledge in such a professional, yet personable way. Thank you so much!
Got to say, your videos are great and full of really good information. Keep it up!
Will do! :) I’ve slowed down over the past 2 weeks while I get some of my kids back to college, but it’ll pick up again soon.
Probably one of the most useful videos I've encountered in my AP journey. This will save me so much time when choosing my targets and allow me to make the most of my visible sky. Thank you!
It is so helpful in making the best use of your available skies! Glad I could help.
I must say that you have the best tutorials on NINA that I have found. The horizon file is great and very well explained. Also your explanation of the advanced sequencer is second to none. Thanks and PLEASE keep up the great work.
Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad to help out where I can just as others have helped me along the way. More is coming, I just need the clouds to part... :)
Wow, thank you for that tip on adding the Horizon to NINA, hugely helpful when planning the nights session. I have two locations that I typically image from, one has great visibility and the other has basically Zenith and West but nothing to the east. Can see the horizon being hugely helpful when planning for that location.
The horizon will help you a lot, not just target selection and knowing what is even available... but in NINA 1.11, being able to automatically wait for it to rise into your visibility or stop imaging when it sets below what is visible is extremely useful. With extremely limited skies like you mention, you can take advantage of these capabilities and now shoot automated sequences of back to back targets (2 or more) as they pass through your viewing area. You can still make use of the entire night.
This video is amazing! Very useful and informative! You are an incredible content creator. I am so grateful for everything I have learned watching videos from you. Thanks
Without doubt the most comprehensive well presented astro tutorials anywhere on the web...thanks Chad.
Thanks so much. I have a way to go, and hope to continue to improve. Right now I try to focus more on the content and delivery. Glad I can help people out. This hobby has a steep learning curve that I hope to level out as much as I can. :)
Thank you for this! Super informative video, and all your other videos are amazing!
I was waiting all day yesterday for this upload ;) (it was me who sent the email) :D
You just had really good timing with that request. :-) It was about ready to go out the door if I could find the time to finish it.
Having only just started using NINA I have been searching for some well presented and informative tutorials. This series is undoubtedly at the top of my go to list. Fantastic work and really helpful - this one has even revolutionised my use of Stellarium! Thanks for putting them together.
Great to hear!
Great video! I live in suburban St. Louis with a lot of large trees. I kept thinking that I wish I could edit a planetarium program to mimic my skyline. Thanks for doing this video! I’m now subscribed.
This will definitely help you out. I have similar issues in a couple viewing areas too. Let me know if you have any questions.
Just really great work on your videos. Best discussion on custom horizons I have found.
Thanks! I really tried to think through the real issues I personally had when going through it the first 1 or 2 times. :)
Great video again Chad, very useful and very well explained, thank you !
Glad you found it helpful - I know horizon files were a game changer for me!
This video has solved so many problems I have! Thank you so much!
Nice job, Chad! I actually used SkySafari+ to pull off az/alt #’s. Really learned a lot from many of your videos.
Thanks! Glad to help where I can!
Perfectly done. I can't thank you enough for all the time you have saved me and the experience gained. I subscribed simply because of the utility and excellent course of steps you presented. I had some issues with the .hrz file. Eventually, using .txt, but no biggie.
Glad it helped! sometimes, based on your text editor. The .hrz becomes .hrz.txt and you don't notice because windows is 'hiding' the file extension. It doesn't matter though if you have it working anyway!!! :)
You have the knowledge and can convey it very well. I tend to not bother below 30 degrees but if I ever want Andromeda, it sits at about 22 degrees above my horizon here for an hour or so at its highest so, one day I might try this. Thanks.
Perfect use of the horizon file. Andromeda sounds like it would be a difficult one for you, but enough data here and there over time, and you may eventually get a great shot out of it!
Another great tip and one I'll be trying in my own garden later today. I have to say that you are putting out some of the most interesting and informative astro videos lately. Not just the same old subject covered by others and presented in a clear and easy to follow way.
Thanks so much! I've had a few requests to cover all sorts of things. From the very basics, to hardware, to software, to other advanced concepts. I'm sure it will all start to mix in over time. For now, I'm just trying to cover things I haven't found covered or covered well. In all fairness, some of this is likely out there, some channels just don't get the exposure if the person making the content doesn't put out content regularly. I guess it is an ongoing battle with RUclips's algorithms. :)
@@PatriotAstro Yes some NINA topics are covered by others, but your thoughtful organization of the content into a logical sequence is really what puts your videos at the top of the class. The selection of subtopics and the order in which they are presented are absolutely critical to building understanding. Effective educators, storytellers, and public speakers all know this.
Thanks so much!
I asked for an explanation of hrz file creation and you delivered. Most excellent! thanks
Maybe even a little too thorough at times... But, heck - If I'm going to do it, I might as well do it right!
@@PatriotAstro more info is better. I can't get confused with too much info but i can if a small part is missing GreatJob!!
Excellent video. Always struggled getting a decent horizon.. thanks for putting this together
A good horizon is so helpful. I’m glad I could help you on the path to getting one for your own location.
Awesome. The tip on Theodolite is brilliant!
Glad it was helpful!
Amazing. Thank you so much for the effort you go to to make this information available.
Glad it was helpful!
OMG ! it's amazing ! when I see some tutorials with some very complex methods, I always wonder how did you learn that ? anyway, big big thanks to share things like this with us ! I know how a making a tuto vid is time consuming . I suscribe .
No problem! Glad I can help! Thanks for subscribing :-)
This was awesome! I actually have a custom landscape set in Stellarium but with an actual image of my backyard where I image instead of the horizon lines. However, this has been VERY helpful to set the horizon lines in NINA. I have a few hours of clear skies tonight so I'll be going through and doing a LOT of configuring in NINA. Thanks again! Epic Video!!
I feel like my channel just got picked up by NetFlix... Someone is binge watching! :) LOL
@@PatriotAstro HAHAHA! I told you! Seriously though, I love the way you structure your videos. VERY informative, and easy to understand. Much like Nico Carver from Nebula Photos and Cuiv of course. I often will watch videos several times so I can absorb all the info I can. Thanks again!
@@justindame Glad to help. If you ever have ideas or suggests, let me know.
Very well done video, covers everything! Thank you!
Glad you found it helpful! Thanks!
THANKS! for this process, and for finding an iPhone app that worked! I tried to do this for 2 years with the photo approach, but could not get it to work in Stellarium. this did first try. Suggest people turn up the number setting to 5 when using the "draw only polygon" option in view settings in Stellarium. The ap is 9$ but saved me so much time!
Thank you so much for this! Note for 10Micron users: The HRZ file also works for Model Creator. You just need to replace the spaces with semicolons.
Great info! Thanks!
Fabulous video. Instantly useful. I purchased Theodolite (which I think I'll use for a bunch of things) and made the horizon file, loading it into NINA and Stellarium. Just a few comments: if you export the Theodolite file using email, you get a .csv attachment. So you can skip the part where you put the data into columns. If you use Excel, you can save the edited csv file as a "space delimited file" directly (again saving you a minute or two). Note, if you run Stellarium on a Mac, you find the landscapes folder by going to Applications, option click on the Stellarium application icon, then "show package contents". Then open Contents/Resources/Landscapes
Great!!! Thanks a lot from Spain. It's exactly that I'm looking for.
Happy to be of help! Clear Skies!
Something I did was made a photographic panorama of my backyard for use in Stellarium. Then I created my horizon file by checking my visibility every 5 degrees of azimuth in Stellarium. Since my Panorama is a photograph made on a tripod at the exact location and height of my telescope, the horizon file ends up being pretty accurate.
Makes perfect sense. Accuracy is becoming more and more important as we move from using horizon files from just visual planetarium planning on to things like triggers in NINA that start and stop image processing.
Amazing - done with such clarity! Thank you Chad!
My pleasure!
Just loaded my new horizon files into both Stellarium and NINA - working great, and really helping me visualize target availability. I think I will be adding a horizon file for each site I go to to build up a library. Thanks again!
@@gregorykeating4195 Great! and not a bad idea at all!
Another outstanding ground breaking Video like all others. Thanks !
Thanks!
@@PatriotAstro I could manage to create a Horizon in NINA on the first attempt ! Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel took several iterations. But success at the end. Thank you for being a good Guide with precise instructions and a good friend for sharing your knowledge and efforts.
Very helpful. I am very new to astrophotography. I have a 10" scope and I have decided to build a permanent pier. I was looking for the best place to build the pier to maximize viewing. This video has been very helpful. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
That is awesome, I still need to fine tune my horizon line (Mask) and intend to use it also for modeling! Thanks for the video!
Glad it helped! Thanks for watching!
@@PatriotAstro Do you know how to make it work on Stellarium for Mac?
@@phmuller I haven't done it on my Mac since I don't use that for imaging or prep BUT it should be the same. The trick is that you need to find Stellarium in Finder wherever you placed it after extracting the app locally. Then right click on it and select "Show Package Contents". The landscapes are in the Contents > Resources > Landscapes folder within the installed Application Package.
Great tid-bit - have already put in play in Stellarium! Cartes du ciel next...
Thanks!
Yes, VERY Helpful. Thank you
My horizon worked in NINA and Stellarium but did not in Cartes du Ciel... Love the step by step and otherwise this is incredible!
Great! Let me know if you sort out the last planetarium package. I'm sure it is something simple in the file that it needs that the others are ok without.
Works great! Thanks man!
thanks! I will have to do this, as i am severely limited by my house and trees in the way..
btw, around the 8:40 mark when you want to show the file extensions, you don't need to go that deep into the options menu.. there is a checkmark "file name extensions" two icons left of the "options" (below "item check boxes" and above "hidden items" which does the same thing..
Glad to see it will help you. I know the horizon really helped me have more productive planning and imaging sessions! Good to know about the windows setting as well, thanks!
Yes, this is superb feature.
Very useful. Keep up the great work 👍
Thanks so much!
Fantastic. Thank you so much. Subscribed!
Awesome, thank you!
As always great video and very clear explanations. Great Job! see you on Discord
See you there!
Thanks for the instructions. Really finding your explanations easy to follow. You mentioned in your video there were other apps that can be used. Do you mind listing them?
There are actually quite a few of them. If you go into the iPhone App Store, just search for Theodolite. It’ll come up with the app I used but if you scroll down you’ll see several that are very similar… Typically related to GPS and compass type systems. For android, the only one I know of is dioptra. But I’m sure there are a bunch of others there as well.
Fantastic tutorial, Chad!
Glad to help. :)
So helpful. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent, thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
Very helpful! Thanks
Great! Let me know if you end up with any questions.
Thank you for the excellent Tutorial. S!
Glad you find them helpful! I'll be working up a few more soon.
Very usefull ! Thanks
It's worth using the "Auto logging" feature. You can set it to record a data point every 5 degrees. This makes life slightly easier, as all you have to do is to follow the line of your horizon in the crosshairs and it records everything for you :-)
Yes, it can definitely make it a bit easier. :) I was trying to keep it similar to doing it manually just for illustration purposes (and to keep the data points down a bit), but you are right for sure.
That's awesome thanks a lot 😁
No problem
1. Thanks very much for this great video. Couldn't have paired Stellarium with Theodolite without your help. 2. Do you know if this can also be done with SkySafari? Thanks, Ed
Good Job! THANKS. 👍 Above all, it is necessary to Stellarium that the azimut data is increasing in the file, if not it will not work!
Super video as are all of your videos. Quick question, I have 2 spots in my backyard that I use. The first is with a standard tripod with the scope about 4-5 feet off the ground. The 2nd is permanently sitting in my dome with the scope about 8 feet above the ground. Do I need to generate 2 separate horizon files each based from the point of view (center) of the telescope? (hope that makes sense).
Thanks!
Thanks!!
drinking game - every time he says "go ahead"
:)
Thanks this was very useful. I was hoping you are going to leave some ideas on how to PA without a view of Polaris.
Go to my page then to my playlists. I have a playlist on Polar Alignment. There are 2 methods I cover that do not require Polaris to be visible. PHD2 Drift OR the NINA plugin. I prefer the NINA plugin, but both work fine. I am glad to help with any questions.
@@PatriotAstro Thanks, I use PHD2 but find it very slow and was hoping that you had another method. I didn't like the NINA plugin but I believe there is a new one in NINA now. Thanks
Definitely do the update to NINA and the plugin. It works very well and is quite fast. I too didn't like PHD2's method much just because of the time consuming back and forth.
Oh, and make sure to watch my Update video for the plugin - it has newer info.
Thanks. I created the .HRZ file using iOS app and it works perfectly in NINA. But when I tried to use it in Stellarium just as you explained, it didn't show any ground at all. After much fiddling and experimentation, the only way I could get it to work was to copy the entire 'zero' folder, rename it to my location, then individually edit each az and alt value to my measured values. It seems that Stellarium is extremely fussy about precisely how these files are set up. Thanks for getting me most of the way there though!
Horizon Files are easy right up until you are troubleshooting one... I had one like that. I recreated it and all was well. I think maybe a bad ASCII character got in the file through my copy-paste or something... weird!
Had the same problem in Stellarium but using the zero folder in landscapes did not help either. Then I opened the zero_horizon.txt in that folder and it describes that there is some bug when you use edge values in AZ or AL. My .hrz file contained values of 0 and 360 for AZ and 90 for AL. When I changed these to 1 and 359 for AZ and 89 for AL it worked fine with the method Patriot Astro showed. I did not have to retype all the values or use the zero folder at all. Thank you all for the great tips and help !
Is there anything you don't know?? Another great video!! Is there an android equivalent app?
Plenty!!! :) I have heard that DIOPTRA works well on Android but I personally have not used it.
Awesome! Injust got dioptra. I don't think it saves to a log file, i havent looked into all its options yet. It can take a photos with the numbers on it. That'll be easier and possibly more accurate than using the fist method. Thanks!
Nice.
Thanks, hope it helps!
@@PatriotAstro Just took the shots - will let you know!
Great explenation! But i have an obstruction above. So for portion of the sky im unable to image over 45 degrees. How can i map out that? It should be possible but how.
This is fine. Just follow the video and use one of the methods to map the obstruction line. You mention "Above" and "45 degrees" though, but when you say above, do you mean "90 degrees", like straight overhead? If that is the case, I'm not sure the horizon line definition format allows for it. You may just need to block up to 90 degrees for some amount of AZ readings and get as close as you can. (I may have interpreted your question wrong though.) :)
@@PatriotAstro followed the instructions and it works. The thing is that. My backyard is a balcony and I don’t live on the top floor. There is a balcony above me so for some parts of the sky the balcony above obstruct from 45 degrees to 90 degrees overhead. So in that direction my horizon line is at 8 degrees and up to 45 degrees there is a clear view. So I have been trying to find a way to map out the obstruction but not found a good solution.
EDIT : In the meanwhile I've found how to do this, just save settings if Stellarium is in windowed mode 🙂
Hey Chad, I am making my local horizon here at home, but have a question
I see that when you open Stellarium it opens in windowed mode, for me it always opens in full screen mode and than I have to press f11
Is there a setting that it only opens in windowed mode ? Or how did you do this ?
Missed this comment, sorry! Go to your shortcut you use to launch stellarium and right-click and select properties. Where it says target, add a space at the end and then --full-screen=off to the very end. Save it. Then try again. It should launch in a window.
Great Vid! Which app can be used for Android?
I used Dioptra - its a little different - in that you need to take a photo ans the AZ/ALT coordinates are held on the photo (As Azimuth/Bearing) - you would need to create your csv manually - by opening each photo (corresponding to the capture), and entering the AZ/ALT numbers in excel/google sheets/numbers manually - then the import into NINA should be the same
@@paulwills63 thanks!!
I am in the process of shooting a mosaic of Andromeda and I am trying to figure out the set of instructions that I could write to have NINA continue to image through all the panels I have set up until it is dawn. I tried "loop until astronomical dawn" in each panel as a loop condition but that ended up just looping the first panel over and over. Do you have a way around this? Thank you! I want it to basically do a trigger for dawn and end my imaging.
Because the mosaic is made up of multiple targets, it gets a little tricky. One option would be to have each target/panel loop through a certain amount of images, and then put each target one after the other. Now take all of these targets and drag them into a container that is set to loop until dawn. Basically, the outer container says keep doing what’s inside here until dawn. Then what you have inside are the panels, each with a limited number of exposures, one target/panel after another. This way you loop through each panel and collect a little bit of data for each throughout the evening as you continue to loop through them. Make sense? One argument for doing it this way is that you will get a good blend of each panel at multiple altitudes as opposed to one panel at a higher altitude and others at a low altitude. The downside is that you are constantly slewing and solving to locate each panel throughout the evening which may be inefficient.
@@PatriotAstro that does make sense. I’ll give that a shot! I’ll also poke at the discord and see if they want to add that as a trigger maybe
@@ColeRees I think most people trying to get mosaics (of fainter objects like nebula anyway), treat each panel like a full image which could mean dedicating 1 or more nights to that alone. I'm not sure a mosaic instruction would help too much. Now, if they added more focus on Solar and Lunar, it could be pretty cool since the panels are quickly imaged to completion.
@@PatriotAstro gotcha! This is my first mosaic and it’s honestly more than I should be attempting to start but hey I’m having fun with it. I’ll try shooting the panels for longer that way I’ll be getting better data as well. Thank you for the input!
@@ColeRees Mosaics are probably my least favorite thing to do. I'd rather by a new short focal length scope than have to process a mosaic. :) LOL. Getting the images to blend properly is a tricky thing to perfect. Good and consistent data helps though.
How am I gonna do it as Im living in an apartment using my balcony and not seeing anywhere after some point and with ceiling?
It is a bit of a problem. The file was created to cover a 3D 'dome' using a 2D coordinate system (alt-az). The best you can do is to rotate the 360 degrees as you create the file, and set valid parameters where you do have some amount of seeing (setting values for the lower obstructions). Then, for everything else, block it off with entries where the AZ value is 90 degrees. This still leaves you with a problem for targets almost overhead in the valid directions (where the overhang above you goes out past 90 degrees. I think you will just have to make a mental note of where the altitude of the overhead obstruction cuts off and ignore targets which reach that altitude. Unfortunately, you have a relatively unique problem and I'm not sure we'll get any changes made industry-wide to the typical alt-az file to support this. More often than not, if an astronomer has an overhead obstruction it is something like a tree limb, and they just more their telescope. Obviously, that isn't your case, so I think the best we can do is work around it by using a combination of efforts.
@@PatriotAstro Thank you very much for your reply, I will work on it.
I guess I'm doing something wrong, I can't get the rigid line in Stellarium. it is like a fog. I've turned off the fog same. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
NVR mind I figured it out!! Sorry
Does anyone know of an app like this for Android or a free version of the iOS app? Unfortunately this is an paid app (not sure if it was at recording) and though I'm not against buying apps, it seems silly to do it for just 1 thing when I have a custom landscape that already approximates things. Just it would be nice to import that to NINA
I’d do a rough measurement with your hands, or even just use the mount during the day to slew around and use the alt-az info from the mount itself.
I can't seem to get the thing to be added to my panoramic one. It just never shows it.
Is there also an app for android user like the one you used?
I think there are a couple out there including a webapp now .... i dont have it handy though. Reach out via email if you are still looking.
am not that bothered with accuracy so i put phone in panorama stood where i set up scope took a 360 pic opened in gimp removed sky and added a black band at the bottom and used as a landscape file it did need a bit of tweaking so north was north and house was correct height now i have my garden in Stellarium this was all guesswork but it worked did it 2 years ago
Perfect solution!
A clever fist of friend…
I failed to find an app on Android which also creates .CSV :(
Any other free iPhone app?
Any suggestion for an android app?
I’ve seen people use DIOPTRA but I don’t have first hand experience with it. I’m sure there are others as well.
I used an app called geocam it doesn't make a nice spreadsheet like Chad's but you can manually enter them onto notepad. I think the app was 1.99
@@patricksAstro thanks for the suggestion!
Hello! Nice video but I can't find an equivalent app for android...
I think DIOPTRA is for Android maybe?
@@PatriotAstro I tried it and instead of saving points, I could take a picture! So I could directly create a notepad file, write by hand the AZ and ALT points, it wasn't too long! I use stellarium and it works ! thank you so much!
@@keivanhamidi Very cool! Glad it worked and that you found a functional solution.
Still yet to find one for android. Everyone that does these videos only uses Apple products to do this instead of showing it on Android an apple. le sigh not everyone has apple proprietary junk
ya, sorry. that's all i have. :( Have you tried the horizon creator plugin within nina?