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Jimmy Nordström edited this page Oct 24, 2026 · 9 revisions

This page takes you from a fresh download to a working setup: building or running Sidralune, telling it where you observe, downloading the catalogues, describing your equipment and trying the simulated observatory.

Contents

System requirements

Item Requirement
Operating system Windows 10 or Windows 11. 64-bit is strongly recommended for stacking and planetary videos.
Runtime .NET Framework 4.8.1
Memory 4 GB works for planning and processing single images; 16 GB or more is comfortable for stacking large sensors or long planetary videos.
Display 1280 × 800 or larger. Per-monitor high-DPI scaling is supported.
Disk About 10 MB for the program, plus about 70 MB for the recommended datasets (up to 150 MB with all optional ones).
Optional software ASCOM Platform and drivers, PHD2, ASTAP, an SDR program or rtl_tcp, only for the features that use them

Building from source

Sidralune has no third-party dependencies, so building is a single step.

  1. Install the .NET Framework 4.8.1 Developer Pack and Visual Studio 2015 or later (any edition), or the Visual Studio Build Tools.

  2. Clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/pzyber/Sidralune.git

  3. Open Sidralune.sln in Visual Studio and choose Build → Build Solution, or run in a developer command prompt:

    msbuild Sidralune.sln /p:Configuration=Release

  4. Start Sidralune\bin\Release\Sidralune.exe.

The solution also contains the unit tests (Sidralune.Tests and Sidralune.AppTests), which need Visual Studio's MSTest framework. With only the Build Tools, build just the program: msbuild Sidralune\Sidralune.csproj /p:Configuration=Release.

To move Sidralune to another computer, copy the whole bin\Release folder. The program keeps its settings and downloads in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Sidralune, not next to the executable.

First run

On first start Sidralune creates a site called Home at latitude 52° N, with a longitude guessed from your computer's time zone, and opens the Tonight page. The night summary is already useful, but it is for an approximate location, so the first thing to do is set your real site.

Catalogues load in the background; the status bar shows "Loading catalogs" until they are ready. Without downloaded data, Sidralune uses its built-in catalogue (bright stars, Messier and showpiece objects, constellations and four large asteroids) and an analytic planetary theory.

Step 1: set your observing site

  1. Click Settings at the bottom of the navigation rail and open the Location tab.

  2. Fill in the fields:

    Field What to enter
    Name Anything you like, for example "Back garden"
    Latitude / Longitude Decimal degrees (north and east positive) or sexagesimal, for example 51 28 38 N and 0 00 05 W
    Elevation (m) Height above sea level
    Time zone Your Windows time zone; daylight saving time is handled automatically
    Sky brightness (SQM) A Sky Quality Meter reading at the zenith, or an estimate (see the table below)
    Extinction k(V) 0.15 at a high, dry site, 0.2 typical, 0.3 or more in hazy or low-lying places
    Typical seeing Full width at half maximum of stars in arcseconds; 2.5″ is typical
    Temperature / Pressure Used for atmospheric refraction near the horizon
    MPC observatory code Your Minor Planet Center code if you have one (otherwise 500)
    Horizon profile Optional pairs of azimuth:altitude in degrees, for example 0:10, 90:25, 180:5, 270:15, to mark trees and buildings

  3. Click Save site, then Use this site.

You can store several sites, for example home and a dark-sky location, and switch between them with Use this site.

Sky SQM (mag/arcsec²) Bortle
City centre 17.0–18.0 8–9
Suburbs 18.5–19.5 6–7
Rural outskirts 20.0–20.8 4–5
Dark rural site 21.3–21.7 2–3
Exceptional site 21.8–22.0 1

The SQM value drives the visibility predictions in the Sky chart and Planner. Bortle is derived from it automatically.

Step 2: download the catalogues

  1. Open Settings → Data.
  2. The recommended datasets are already ticked: the DE440s ephemeris, the HYG star catalogue, OpenNGC, constellation lines and boundaries, and MPC comet elements.
  3. Tick the optional ones if you want them: near-Earth asteroids, the full MPCORB file, and CelesTrak satellite elements.
  4. Click Download selected. Progress is shown in the status bar, and the catalogues are loaded as soon as the download finishes.

Refresh comet and asteroid orbits every week or two with Update installed, because new comets are discovered constantly and orbits are improved as observations accumulate. See Data and catalogues for what each dataset provides.

Step 3: describe your equipment

Open Settings → Equipment. There are three lists: Telescopes, Eyepieces and Cameras. Select an item to edit it, Add to create a new one, Remove to delete it and Use to make it the active one (marked with ●).

  • Telescope: name, aperture, focal length, central obstruction (as a fraction of the aperture diameter, 0 for refractors) and light transmission.
  • Eyepiece: name, focal length and apparent field of view.
  • Camera: name, pixel size, sensor width and height in pixels, read noise, quantum efficiency and whether it is a colour (Bayer) sensor.

The Combination summary shows the resulting magnification, true field, exit pupil and Dawes limit for visual use, and the image scale, field of view, focal ratio, optimal sub-exposure for your sky and the Nyquist focal ratio for planetary imaging. These values are used for:

Step 4: find your way around

  • The navigation rail on the left switches between workspaces. Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 open the first nine.
  • Ctrl+K opens the command palette. Type an object name (M 42, Vega, Jupiter, C/2023 A3) to select it, or part of a command (stack, polar, print) to run it.
  • The clock at the top shows the site, the date and time used for every calculation, and the local sidereal time. To look at another date, type it into the date field on the Sky toolbar or use the step buttons next to it. The clock turns amber while you are away from the present; click Live to return.
  • Ctrl+Shift+N switches to the red night-vision palette.

The user interface explains all of this in detail.

Step 5: try the simulated observatory

You can learn the observatory tools without any hardware:

  1. Open Observatory → Equipment and click Connect simulated observatory.
  2. The status bar shows a simulated telescope, camera, focuser, filter wheel, dome and weather station as connected.
  3. In Sky, select a bright object and click Slew. The telescope marker moves across the chart.
  4. In Observatory → Imaging, take an exposure. The simulated camera renders the real catalogue stars around the telescope's position, with noise, so you can try autofocus, plate solving and centring.
  5. In Observatory → Sequencer, run the template sequence to see a whole automated session.

Typical workflows

I want to… Go to
See what is up tonight Tonight, then Sky
Plan a session at the eyepiece Planner → Generate best for tonight…, then print finder charts from Sky
Image a galaxy with a cooled camera Astrometry → Framing & mosaics, then Observatory → Sequencer, then Deep sky, then Process
Image Jupiter with a planetary camera Record a SER video, then Planetary → Pre-process → Lucky stacking → Sharpen & deconvolve, and Derotation for several videos
Measure a variable star Photometry → Measure, then Light curve analysis, then export an AAVSO report
Time an exoplanet transit Photometry → Transit predictions, observe, then Measure and Exoplanet transits
Report asteroid positions Astrometry to plate solve, then Solar sys. → MPC astrometry
Record the hydrogen line Record IQ data with your SDR, then Radio → Hydrogen line / spectra

Next steps

Home

Getting going

Planning and observing

Imaging and processing

Science

Reference

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