How to set up an observations planner for your own list of objects

Instructions

1. Right-click this link and choose to Save target to a convenient location on your hard disc:

Planner.xls spreadsheet

2. Open the Excel spreadsheet you have just saved.
   

3. Enter the list of objects you want to look at on the sheet named data (as shown on the tab at the bottom).

   For each object (maximum 200) you should enter the its name, its RA and its Dec, as a minimum. You can also enter its magnitude, size in arcminutes, distance in kly, and further information if you wish.

   The RA and Dec should be entered as decimal hours and decimal degrees respectively. To quickly convert from hours, minutes, seconds and degrees, minutes, seconds you can download one of these two tools and save it to your hard disc:

   Conversion from RA in hrs, mins and secs and Dec in deg, mins and secs

Conversion from RA in hrs and mins and Dec in deg and mins

4. Click on the slots tab at the bottom to view the sheet showing which objects are visible on any given date and when. You will need to enter the date at the top and whether you are using Summer time in the UK.

   (Your objects are automatically sorted into the order in which they reach a suitable height above the horizon for the telescope to view them - normally taken as 30 degrees - but you can change this, and other parameters such as the telescope location, on the settings sheet.)

   If you want to see the UT times of rising, setting, transit, reaching the chosen height, and sinking below this height for each object, you can look at the sheets named details 1 and details 2, which refer to the two telescopes (in Hawaii and Australia respectively). This also gives the sidereal times of these events.
   

Richard Beare    12th October, 2004