Planner?

I am going after all the Messier objects. I have Starry Night backyard, and it works ok, but my question is, is there a planner out there the will suit my needs. Is it worth the upgrade to SN pro? I just came back from a vacation from semi dark skies and was able to bag some messier's that I haven’t been able to see from my light polluted house. After coming back home and going to the computer, I realized that I probably could have done better if I had some kind of plan. I missed a lot of objects just not knowing what to expect at the eyepiece. I took my travel scope (ed80) and left the 9.25 at home. I had my atlas 2000 and some charts I printed from SN backyard. I guess what I'm looking for is something that can tell me what messier's to go after for the time of year, and what magnitude the objects are so I don’t skip over them like I'm sure I did. I caught m3, 94, 51, 65, and 66 the other night with no problem. It was 101, and the grouping abound m80 I had trouble with. Ursa minor was not visible to the naked eye, but Kocab and Pherkad were visible. Well, maybe not so dark sky, but better than where I live. I’m using Pentax ep’s, 10.5, 14, and 21 with a 2.5 powermate and a 9x50 CI Orion finder. I also have some Ultima’s 18, 35, and 42. I was at Eagle Crest Resort with the wife and kids, just a few miles from Redmond Oregon. The nights were clear, don’t know quite how to judge transparency and seeing yet. Still trying to get a feel for judging magnitude as well. That’s why I mentioned ursa minor. Thanks Dave

Take a look at SkyTools.

http://www.skyhound.com/skytools.html

Jim

Stary Night Pro 4.5 has a nice planner. I like it.
Floyd

David, check this one out...
It is called AstroPlanner, it is free, and it might do what you want...

http://www.ilangainc.com/astroplanner/


Clear skies!


Ivan

David,

I've been loading everything into Excel, including Magnitude, RA, Dec, and Constellation. My list is still a little thin, but if you are comfortable with filters it is pretty simple to get a view list for the night (filter by magnitude, max/min RA, ...). I also double up with The Sky software and tag things, then filter on the tag and print. I call the tag column "View" - pretty creative, huh!

I don't mind sending it to you as a start, but it will need some work to become "yours". You can build from scratch pretty quickly if you are familiar with excel.

Ed York

David,
For what it's worth, I too am going after all the Messiers. To track my progress and assist in my planning I used "The Ultimate Messier Object Log" (TUMOL). I found it fairly comprehensive and a great help in overall tracking, plus it's free.
It can be downloaded from the following location:
www.davidpaulgreen.com/tumol.html
Hope this helps...
Chris