Nova DSO Tracker 5.4.0 released

Ask Nova — AI-Powered Target Selection

The headline feature in 5.4.0 is Ask Nova, an AI assistant that analyzes your object list and ranks the best targets for tonight based on real-time sky conditions, your location, equipment, and moon phase.

How it works

Click the Ask Nova button (star icon) on the dashboard to trigger a ranking.
Nova sends your visible objects with altitude curves, transit times, moon separation, and phase data to an AI model.
The dashboard is re-sorted with a dedicated Nova Rank column — highest priority targets at the top.
Rankings are cached per location and date. Use Restore Nova for instant replay, or Re-ask to force a fresh query.

AI features in the Journal

DSO Observation Notes — generate contextual observation notes for any target from the graph view.
AI Session Summary — stream a comprehensive session write-up (weather, conditions, equipment, targets, notes) directly from the journal form. Uses server-sent events for real-time feedback.

Supported AI providers

Provider	Models	Notes
Anthropic	claude-sonnet-4-20250514, claude-haiku-4-5-20251001	good quality rankings
OpenAI	gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini	Works out of the box
OpenAI-compatible	Z.AI, MiniMax, or any compatible endpoint	Requires `AI_BASE_URL`
Ollama	llama3, mistral, qwen2.5, etc.	Free, runs locally, requires `AI_BASE_URL`

Configuration

Add the following to your instance/.env file:

# AI provider: anthropic, openai, openai-compatible, or ollama
AI_PROVIDER=anthropic

# API key for the chosen provider (leave empty to disable AI)
AI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# Model name — must match the provider's model identifier
AI_MODEL=claude-sonnet-4-20250514

# Base URL — required for openai-compatible and ollama, ignored for anthropic/openai
#   Z.AI (general)     : https://api.z.ai/api/paas/v4
#   Z.AI (coding)      : https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4
#   MiniMax            : https://api.minimax.io/v1
#   Ollama (local)     : http://localhost:11434
AI_BASE_URL=

# Comma-separated usernames allowed to use AI features
# Use 'all' to grant access to all users
# Leave empty to disable AI for all users even if API key is set
AI_ALLOWED_USERS=all

AI features are entirely optional. If AI_API_KEY is empty or AI_ALLOWED_USERS is empty, all AI buttons are hidden and Nova works exactly as before. In multi-user mode, you can restrict AI access to specific usernames.

N.I.N.A. Log File Support

Nova now parses N.I.N.A. (Nighttime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy) session logs alongside ASIAIR and PHD2:

Session Swimlane on the Overview tab — visualizes equipment startup, guiding, imaging, platesolving, flats, and error events as a color-coded timeline.
Autofocus Analysis — AF run cards with success/failure states, V-curve plots, temperature tracking, and drift charts.
Full integration with the existing PDF session reports.

Mobile Companion Overhaul

The mobile interface (/m/) received major improvements:

New Object Detail page — full target info, altitude charts, moon separation, and opportunity dates on mobile.
New Session form — complete journal entry creation from mobile with rig/filter selection.
Enhanced Up Now — sliders and chip grids for altitude/size/magnitude filtering, sort dropdown, result count, and tap-to-navigate opportunity cards.
Improved Outlook — date-grouped cards with click-to-navigate to the altitude chart.
Chart improvements — sticky charts on scroll, fixed twilight blocks, year-view lunar cycle, and UTC date shift corrections.
Framing Assistant page — dedicated mobile page replacing the previous bottom sheet.

Architecture Refactor

170 commits went into restructuring the codebase for maintainability:

Blueprint migration — routes migrated from the monolithic nova/__init__.py into organized blueprint modules (nova/blueprints/core.py, journal.py, mobile.py, projects.py, tools.py, api.py).
New AI module — nova/ai/ package with separate config, prompts, routes, and service layers.
Shared helpers — extracted reusable functions to nova/helpers.py.
NINA log parser — new nova/log_parser.py for structured log parsing.
No breaking changes — all API response shapes and URL patterns are preserved.

Other Improvements

Flask-Migrate support — database schema management with Alembic migrations.
Service Worker (sw.js) — foundation for PWA/offline capability.
Test improvements — new conftest.py fixtures, database upgrade simulation tests, reduced test pollution.
i18n updates — all new AI strings translated across all 6 languages.
Design tokens — tokens.css extracted for consistent theming.

New Dependencies

anthropic>=0.18.0    # AI provider (optional)
openai>=1.0.0        # AI provider (optional)
Flask-Migrate==4.1.0 # database migrations
Flask-Babel>=4.0.0   # i18n framework

AI dependencies are optional — they are imported lazily and only loaded when AI is configured.