Help

Purpose

Occultation To NINA converts Discord-exported occultation TXT data into daily NINA sequence JSON files. It also builds planning tables with MPC, Gaia, JPL, Sun and Moon context for station X09.

This is Windows astronomy software in test mode. Inspect every generated NINA sequence before using it at the telescope. If something looks wrong, contact me; I will try to help, but support may take time.

Normal GUI Use

1. Put original single-day TXT files into the protected einzeln folder below the working folder. The folder is scanned on every run and those rows are preferred over imported extension rows.
2. Optionally add Discord HTML exports, copied discord.txt message text, or an extra selected TXT file with DATE yyyy-mm-dd or # yyyy-mm-dd lines.
3. Select the read-only NINA source JSON if you want the generated occultation blocks inserted into an existing sequence. Standalone block files are generated as separate NINA JSONs too.
4. Check ROI X/Y plus ROI width/height. The GUI writes X/Y directly as the ROI corner expected by NINA.
5. Use Preview to check Wait For Time, capture end and frame count before running. The Defaults button restores the processing parameters.
6. Run the conversion. Daily JSON files are written beside the selected NINA JSON and copied to the Dropbox NINA-Occs folder if enabled.
7. The NINA JSON field is filled with the generated JSON for the current or next observing night. Use Open with N.I.N.A. to load that file.

Default Values

If Station contains a known MPC station code, the GUI fills latitude, longitude and height from the jostjahn.de station table and refreshes those values when the Station field changes. Unknown or invalid station codes clear the coordinate fields; invalid three-character codes are expected to use one letter followed by two digits. Manual edits are allowed for the current session, but they are overwritten on the next start while the station code is still known.

Input Format

Daily original TXT files belong in einzeln. They can be named yymmdd.txt; then the date comes from the filename. A selected TXT file with any name is accepted when it contains DATE yyyy-mm-dd or # yyyy-mm-dd before the event rows. Each useful table row contains name, RA, DEC, UT-Mitte, Duration, Exposure, Gain and ROI. Discord message text can also be converted; the website keeps the original discord.txt and generated daily TXT files for inspection.

If observation intervals overlap, original TXT rows are kept first. For rows with the same priority, the row with the brighter V Star value is kept when that value is available.

Discord message event times are audited against the supplied target altitude and Sun altitude. The default auto mode keeps the raw time as UTC when UTC fits better, but converts from America/Santiago to UTC when Chile local time is clearly the better match. The detailed result is written to discord_time_audit.csv.

NINA Output

Each event is written as an outer sequential container. The first item is Slew and Center with the event coordinates. The generated Lucky Target Container waits until capture start minus the configured video prep seconds, then runs Take Video Roi Exposures with the planned frame count. No loop-until condition is written. A Wait For Time at capture end is placed after the ROI video. The Take Video ROI exposure uses the planning table Real value rounded to 0.01 s and the frame count uses #. A normal full-frame 60 second exposure is added below the Lucky container to localize the field.

Updates

The GUI checks update.json at most once per day. When a newer version is available, it offers the setup download and the website download page. If a known update is ignored for 60 days or more, the GUI stops running conversions until the update is installed.

Downloads And Installation

The recommended download is NinaOccultSetup.exe. The setup installs the GUI, CLI and this help page into the user profile and creates Start menu entries below amrumsoftware\NinaOccult. The portable GUI EXE is enough for interactive use; the CLI EXE is for automation.