Set your location

Nova starts with demo data, so you can explore right away. In this first step you make it yours: add your observing site with coordinates, elevation and timezone, optionally your sky quality (SQM/Bortle) and a horizon mask, and switch off the demo locations. From then on, every altitude, transit and dark-sky window on the dashboard is calculated for your sky.

Example: St. Gallen in Styria, inside the Eisenwurzen International Dark Sky Reserve.

Add your gear

Tell Nova what you image with. Add your telescope and camera, then combine them into a rig, including an off-axis guider and guide camera if you use one. Nova instantly works out your image scale, field of view, a dither recommendation for your guide camera, and whether your sampling suits your typical seeing.

Example rig: Askar FRA500 with a ZWO ASI585MC Pro, guided through an OAG with a ZWO ASI220MM Mini.

Add your targets

Nova comes with hundreds of popular deep-sky objects, but your next target might not be among them. Type a catalog ID and Nova looks it up on SIMBAD, filling in coordinates, constellation, type and magnitude. Give it the name you know it by, add private notes like framing ideas, and it’s on your dashboard. Whole catalogs (Messier, Caldwell, Sharpless) can be imported in one go.

Example object: LBN 777, the Baby Eagle Nebula in Taurus.

Plan tonight

A quick way to find tonight’s best targets. Filter the dashboard for a minimum observable time, sort by maximum altitude, and when the moon is more than half full, add a minimum moon separation. In seconds, a long list becomes a short, realistic shortlist for the night.

By type and season

Looking for a particular kind of object? The Properties tab lets you filter by type, for example HII regions and planetary nebulae, and by the months when objects are at their best. Combine both to find a whole season’s worth of nebulae to plan around.

Plan ahead

See the coming months at a glance in the Heatmap, then let the Outlook rate the upcoming nights for your pinned targets, moon included. Click a night to open its altitude chart, or turn on Simulation mode to see the whole dashboard (moon, darkness, altitudes) as it will be on that date.

Chart & framing

Go from a five-star night in the Outlook straight to the target’s chart: altitude, moon, darkness and your local horizon show your imaging window. Then open the framing tool with your rig’s field of view already on the sky. Switch to the NSNS True Color survey to see the nebula itself, rotate the frame and drag the sky to centre your target. The RA, Dec and rotation angle can be used directly in the ASIAIR to frame exactly this shot at the telescope.

Plan a project

Every target in Nova has its own journal. Open the object, start a project with a name, status and goals, and plan the first night: date, location, and the rig you’ll use. The guiding setup comes along automatically with the rig. Save it as a draft, and your plan is waiting for you when the night comes.

Example: NGC 4449, a Magellanic-type irregular dwarf galaxy in Canes Venatici, planned as an LRGB + Ha project with a Celestron EdgeHD 11 and ZWO ASI2600MM Pro.

Log the night

The morning after, the Journal tab can show just what’s still in planning, so the planned session is one click away. Move the project to In Progress, then record what the night actually delivered: seeing, sky quality, guiding, filters, subs and exposures, gain, sensor temperature and a rating. Finally, upload the ASIAIR and PHD2 logs from the night, and Nova analyses them for you.

Analyse and show off

Your finished projects come together in the Gallery, with target, rig and total integration time, and one click takes you straight into each project’s journal. Open a night, and its logs tell the whole story: exposures, dithers, autofocus runs and the meridian flip on one timeline, every plate solve and how accurately the mount centred, guiding from your PHD2 log, and dithering and autofocus run by run. The Project Report then sums up the whole project: every night, every hour.