A major NINA imaging software update is now available.
As the publisher notes, “It has been a long time since the last full release of a major N.I.N.A. Version. The 2.0 Version has been in the making for basically two years now and the changes are massive. A big thank you for everyone that has been tugging along in the journey to build this new major milestone!”
As the NINA imaging software update changes are too many to include them all here, the publishers have compiled an extensive changelog which contains the most prominent changes of Version 2.0. In summary this version has tons of improvements and almost every aspect of the application has been touched and improved.
NINA is an open-source astrophotography sequencing suite allowing users to set up imaging sessions that contain sequences of hardware control actions and exposures.
NINA stands for “Nighttime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy Software” and it offers a sequencing application to compose an astrophotography session and then drive the session from start to finish. This means one may press “Start” on the sequence and go do other things: watch TV, enjoy visual astronomy through another telescope, or even just go to bed knowing that the application will take care of all the hardware manipulation and data collection and collation itself.
The software operates a to-do list done in sequential order. An example would be to point the telescope to this part of the sky. Select the luminance filter in the filter wheel. Perform a focus routine. Take N exposures at X gain (or ISO) and Y shutter speed. Tell the filter wheel to rotate to the red filter and take another N exposures, perform a dither… and so-on.
It is worth noting what NINA is not an image processing application. The sole purpose of NINA is to operate your astrophotography gear, get you the exposures you desire, and organize that collected data so that you can then import it into image processing software of your choice.
NINA is designed to be accommodating to the new astrophotographer as well as seasoned ones. Full observatory automation is not included however for the vast majority of amateur astrophotographers NINA’s feature set is both powerful and, most importantly, accessible.
You can see the full release notes of the NINA imaging software update here as well as how to learn more about the software suite.
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