Thank you for this! I have done a lot of messing around editing a background image for stellarium. I downloaded a theodolite app and generated a much more correct version in about a half an hour. My view is heavily obstructed (over 60%) but I guess that is the price you pay for Bortle 3 skies.
Thanks for watching, Michael! Wow. 60%?! The local horizon feature in Stellarium is very handy. I finally got tired of slewing to a target and wondering why there were no stars---only to find out the scope was pointing at the back of my house. The horizon takes the guess work out of it.
I am very late to this party. LOL I have Stellarium v.0.22.1 I successfully created the polygonal type and like you I was not happy with the opaque horizon. So I attempted to create the Spherical type but had no luck with it. Spent at least a couple of hours trying this, that and the other thing. I went back into Stellarium/landscapes and selected my polygonal version. Then I noticed at the bottom on the right side the following option: "[ ] Draw only polygon" Guess what that option does. There is also an option to turn up or down the brightness of the polygon. Hope this will help others and save them some time.
Great video! I want to build a table of alt/Az to create my horizon line like you’ve done. You mention at around 3:00 that you can use SkySafari to point towards a location and get the alt/Az information. How can I do that for points along my horizon (along the mountain range in my horizon, etc.) with SkySafari? Or do you have to select a celestial object to get that info?
There are several options: 1. Use Skysafari. There is a mode where it tracks how you're holding it. If you tilt it up, it shows the sky in that direction. I just held it at arm's length and raised my arm and pointed the center of the screen at the horizon and read off the altitude. 2. There the a "surveying" app you can get for cell phones. I used Dioptra for my android. It will displace the tilt angle and azimuth. 3. (most accurate and most trouble). Install your wide(ish) angle scope on your mount and manually slew to different points along the horizon. APT displays the alt/az for wherever you're pointing. If you do this during the day, watch out for the Sun! Thanks for watching!
@@Aero19612 thanks James. So I created a text file with alt/Az, saved into the Geneva folder under the landscapes folder (just trying step one from your video) then edited the landscape.ini file to replace the default txt file name with my file name, but when I tried to save/replace the .ini file, it says I do not have permission to open that file? Sorry to be a pain, LOL...
Sounds like you need to have administrator privilege to make changes. Try creating a "custom" directory and put your landscape.ini and horizon.txt files in it. You will probably still have to have admin privilege though.
@@Aero19612 Thanks. I'm "new" to Windows environment having been on Macs for quite a long time now, I'm on a Windows machine I have now because I'm considering using this windows based laptop for AP. (I still remember when floppies were floppy, etc.) I opened Notepad as administrator and made my edits, no problem. Using the Geneve lanscape I found that Stellarium does not interpolate the input data along the azimuthal grid, so for example if you have a flat horizon view of 10 degrees from, say 0 to 90, you need to put in the repeating data for many points in between 0 and 90. If you just put in "0 10" and then "90 10", then the horizon will rise up well above 10 degrees on the azimuthal grid then back down to 10 again at the endpoints 0 and 90. Thanks for your help1
I'm glad you got it sorted. Welcome to Windows. Recommend you look into scheduling updates to a non-AP time period. I've started imaging sessions only to wake up to a blue screen because (dumba$$) Windows decided to install updates at 2 AM. Infuriating.
Very helpful, thank you. Unfortunately when I click the box for pointer coordinates "load at set-up", it does not activate the configuration button, so I cannot install that plug-in. I wonder if you are using some special Stellarium upgraded version that allows additional features?
I'm not using any special version. You might try updating your version. When you go to the Configuration tab and click "Load at Startup" for the Pointer Coordinates plugin, you have exit Stellarium and restart it. Then go back to the Configuration tab and select the Pointer Coordinates plugin. The configuration button should be active. Press the button and check "Show plugin button on toolbar" and/or "Enable display of coordinates at startup". Good luck!
I don't really use SkySafari during imaging sessions, so I haven't put the horizon in it. If you go to their website, you'll find instructions on the "Support" page under "Horizon and Sky Help". Basically, you need to create a png image 2048x1024 pixels with your horizon from altitude -90 to 90 and azimuth 0 deg (north) to 360 deg. Good luck!
Hey Damian, Not specifically on those topics, but there is some related material at about 20min into: ruclips.net/video/8VaEncw9RMw/видео.html And also 18 min into: ruclips.net/video/tk0A33gZrqQ/видео.html See if that answers some of your questions Thanks for watching!
@@Aero19612 much appreciated! First I have a ticket into Stellarium because my Stellarium crash as soon as I try to enter any data in any field in the Sensor data area 😞 Mac OSX Catalina.. uninstalled, restarted, RE-downloaded, no luck 😔
I've had weird experiences with Stellarium as well. I usually re-install and older (previously working) version until the bug is found and fixed in an updated new version. I'm still on version 19.3.
Great tutorial, thanks James. I was already using an horizon line but like you, I like to be able to see up & coming targets and had tried for ages to work out a system to allow a transparent background. I had been resorting to switching the landscape on & off but this becomes tiresome after a while. What I have found and this may help out others, is the system Stellarium uses for coding the colours, i.e. [horizontal_line_color] In the Wiki it states RGB but infact they change it around a little: 0 (zero) is still Black & can be input as either .0 or 0.0 however 1.0 is White, not 255 all colours inbetween have to be above 0.0 but below 1.0 So, for a true Red line as RGB(255,0,0), Stellarium should be coded as: horizontal_line_color = 0.996, 0.0, 0.0 where 0.996 for the Red channel is derived from the RGB value of 255 divided by the 256 possible shades from 0 to 255 I found that this gets a little messy dividing by 256 and is not really necessary, I just divide the RGB values by 255, so for a Red line I code as: horizontal_line_color = 1.0, 0.0, 0.0 Myself, I actually use an Orange line, which is RGB(255,165,0) or: 1.0, 0.647, 0.0 in Stellarium speak Cheers, Kirk
Hi there James, I have never done anything like this before :( but I have been trying to do this for the last 4 years and still have not succeeded then came across your video, but when I try to download the Dioptra app it says it cant do it because my version of android is too new, is there another app the same ? your help would be really appreciated as I have just got my scope up and running again after being down for 4 years :(
Hi Carl. I looked in the App Store and didn’t see a work-alike alternative to Dioptra. If you have one of the fisheye lenses that ZWO provided with early model cameras, you can try this approach: ruclips.net/video/vMXtlzGA808/видео.html&feature=share This is what my current horizon is based on. Good luck!
Perhaps known, or not. For the last part of the video: For Stellarium, you can "place a marker" at the location of the mouse pointer using -Left-Mouse-Button. You can remove the marker using -Right-Mouse-Button This creates "marker 1" as an item in the sky, and it will show JNOW and J2000 coords.
Follow up. I had to dig back through the comments to find this one. I just thought of a great application of this feature. Skies will be cloudy for the next week or so, but once they clear I'll try it out...video to follow! Thanks again for the tip!
Hi, I did an spherical landscape succesfully and also the ini file and the landscape appears to me in stellarium but when I click it the program just close, what can I do?
Hey Sergio. Wow. That hasn't happened to me. First, you might want to compare your ini file to the Stellarium example and make certain your version of their line is "ok". Then, you might experiment (save a copy of the ini file first) by eliminating lines from the ini file to see if you can figure out which line or set of lines might be causing the problem. I'm just guessing here. If there's a line in the ini file that calls out a filename for a an image file, make sure that file is present and the file name is spelled correctly. Good luck!
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
James thanks for taking the time to compile and share your video/s. Most helpful.
You bet, Charles! Thanks for looking in. Clear skies!
James you come to the rescue once again - great presentation.
Hi,
We asked for that... and you did it !
Thank’s a lot.
JM
Wow James, another spot on precise video with information that I need to master this hobby. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Glad it helped some!
Another brilliant video! Thank you so much for your contributions! 😊
Thanks, Claude! Crude but effective approach. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for this! I have done a lot of messing around editing a background image for stellarium. I downloaded a theodolite app and generated a much more correct version in about a half an hour. My view is heavily obstructed (over 60%) but I guess that is the price you pay for Bortle 3 skies.
Thanks for watching, Michael! Wow. 60%?! The local horizon feature in Stellarium is very handy. I finally got tired of slewing to a target and wondering why there were no stars---only to find out the scope was pointing at the back of my house. The horizon takes the guess work out of it.
I am very late to this party. LOL I have Stellarium v.0.22.1 I successfully created the polygonal type and like you I was not happy with the opaque horizon. So I attempted to create the Spherical type but had no luck with it. Spent at least a couple of hours trying this, that and the other thing. I went back into Stellarium/landscapes and selected my polygonal version. Then I noticed at the bottom on the right side the following option: "[ ] Draw only polygon"
Guess what that option does. There is also an option to turn up or down the brightness of the polygon.
Hope this will help others and save them some time.
Interesting. This may be a newer option that wasn't available when I created my horizon with that version of Stellarium. Thanks for pointing that out.
Great video! I want to build a table of alt/Az to create my horizon line like you’ve done. You mention at around 3:00 that you can use SkySafari to point towards a location and get the alt/Az information. How can I do that for points along my horizon (along the mountain range in my horizon, etc.) with SkySafari? Or do you have to select a celestial object to get that info?
There are several options:
1. Use Skysafari. There is a mode where it tracks how you're holding it. If you tilt it up, it shows the sky in that direction. I just held it at arm's length and raised my arm and pointed the center of the screen at the horizon and read off the altitude.
2. There the a "surveying" app you can get for cell phones. I used Dioptra for my android. It will displace the tilt angle and azimuth.
3. (most accurate and most trouble). Install your wide(ish) angle scope on your mount and manually slew to different points along the horizon. APT displays the alt/az for wherever you're pointing. If you do this during the day, watch out for the Sun!
Thanks for watching!
@@Aero19612 thanks James. So I created a text file with alt/Az, saved into the Geneva folder under the landscapes folder (just trying step one from your video) then edited the landscape.ini file to replace the default txt file name with my file name, but when I tried to save/replace the .ini file, it says I do not have permission to open that file? Sorry to be a pain, LOL...
Sounds like you need to have administrator privilege to make changes. Try creating a "custom" directory and put your landscape.ini and horizon.txt files in it. You will probably still have to have admin privilege though.
@@Aero19612 Thanks. I'm "new" to Windows environment having been on Macs for quite a long time now, I'm on a Windows machine I have now because I'm considering using this windows based laptop for AP. (I still remember when floppies were floppy, etc.) I opened Notepad as administrator and made my edits, no problem. Using the Geneve lanscape I found that Stellarium does not interpolate the input data along the azimuthal grid, so for example if you have a flat horizon view of 10 degrees from, say 0 to 90, you need to put in the repeating data for many points in between 0 and 90. If you just put in "0 10" and then "90 10", then the horizon will rise up well above 10 degrees on the azimuthal grid then back down to 10 again at the endpoints 0 and 90. Thanks for your help1
I'm glad you got it sorted. Welcome to Windows. Recommend you look into scheduling updates to a non-AP time period. I've started imaging sessions only to wake up to a blue screen because (dumba$$) Windows decided to install updates at 2 AM. Infuriating.
Very helpful, thank you. Unfortunately when I click the box for pointer coordinates "load at set-up", it does not activate the configuration button, so I cannot install that plug-in. I wonder if you are using some special Stellarium upgraded version that allows additional features?
I'm not using any special version. You might try updating your version. When you go to the Configuration tab and click "Load at Startup" for the Pointer Coordinates plugin, you have exit Stellarium and restart it. Then go back to the Configuration tab and select the Pointer Coordinates plugin. The configuration button should be active. Press the button and check "Show plugin button on toolbar" and/or "Enable display of coordinates at startup". Good luck!
@@Aero19612 It worked. Thank you.
Great!
Hi James…thanks for this video…practical….would you be able to do a similar video specifically on SkySafari Pro please?
I don't really use SkySafari during imaging sessions, so I haven't put the horizon in it. If you go to their website, you'll find instructions on the "Support" page under "Horizon and Sky Help". Basically, you need to create a png image 2048x1024 pixels with your horizon from altitude -90 to 90 and azimuth 0 deg (north) to 360 deg. Good luck!
Really great stuff James. Do you a comprehensive video showing how to set up Stellarium? Cameras, scope, guide scope, ocular stuff, etc?
Hey Damian,
Not specifically on those topics, but there is some related material at about 20min into:
ruclips.net/video/8VaEncw9RMw/видео.html
And also 18 min into:
ruclips.net/video/tk0A33gZrqQ/видео.html
See if that answers some of your questions
Thanks for watching!
@@Aero19612 much appreciated! First I have a ticket into Stellarium because my Stellarium crash as soon as I try to enter any data in any field in the Sensor data area 😞 Mac OSX Catalina.. uninstalled, restarted, RE-downloaded, no luck 😔
I've had weird experiences with Stellarium as well. I usually re-install and older (previously working) version until the bug is found and fixed in an updated new version. I'm still on version 19.3.
Great tutorial, thanks James. I was already using an horizon line but like you, I like to be able to see up & coming targets and had tried for ages to work out a system to allow a transparent background. I had been resorting to switching the landscape on & off but this becomes tiresome after a while.
What I have found and this may help out others, is the system Stellarium uses for coding the colours, i.e. [horizontal_line_color]
In the Wiki it states RGB but infact they change it around a little:
0 (zero) is still Black & can be input as either .0 or 0.0
however 1.0 is White, not 255
all colours inbetween have to be above 0.0 but below 1.0
So, for a true Red line as RGB(255,0,0), Stellarium should be coded as:
horizontal_line_color = 0.996, 0.0, 0.0
where 0.996 for the Red channel is derived from the RGB value of 255 divided by the 256 possible shades from 0 to 255
I found that this gets a little messy dividing by 256 and is not really necessary, I just divide the RGB values by 255, so for a Red line I code as:
horizontal_line_color = 1.0, 0.0, 0.0
Myself, I actually use an Orange line, which is RGB(255,165,0) or:
1.0, 0.647, 0.0
in Stellarium speak
Cheers,
Kirk
Thanks, Kirk! Also, thank you for the comments on defining colors.
Hi there James, I have never done anything like this before :( but I have been trying to do this for the last 4 years and still have not succeeded then came across your video, but when I try to download the Dioptra app it says it cant do it because my version of android is too new, is there another app the same ? your help would be really appreciated as I have just got my scope up and running again after being down for 4 years :(
Hi Carl. I looked in the App Store and didn’t see a work-alike alternative to Dioptra. If you have one of the fisheye lenses that ZWO provided with early model cameras, you can try this approach:
ruclips.net/video/vMXtlzGA808/видео.html&feature=share
This is what my current horizon is based on. Good luck!
Perhaps known, or not. For the last part of the video: For Stellarium, you can "place a marker" at the location of the mouse pointer using -Left-Mouse-Button. You can remove the marker using -Right-Mouse-Button This creates "marker 1" as an item in the sky, and it will show JNOW and J2000 coords.
NOT KNOWN! Great tip. Thanks!
Follow up. I had to dig back through the comments to find this one. I just thought of a great application of this feature. Skies will be cloudy for the next week or so, but once they clear I'll try it out...video to follow! Thanks again for the tip!
@@Aero19612 I saw your video today on how you use the marker 1 and connect to NINA. Glad to help with this seemingly "hidden" feature.
@@sbklb1 Ha. Pretty useful little feature. Before long, there will be more "Markers" in the sky than Starlink satellites.
Hi, I did an spherical landscape succesfully and also the ini file and the landscape appears to me in stellarium but when I click it the program just close, what can I do?
Hey Sergio. Wow. That hasn't happened to me. First, you might want to compare your ini file to the Stellarium example and make certain your version of their line is "ok". Then, you might experiment (save a copy of the ini file first) by eliminating lines from the ini file to see if you can figure out which line or set of lines might be causing the problem. I'm just guessing here. If there's a line in the ini file that calls out a filename for a an image file, make sure that file is present and the file name is spelled correctly. Good luck!