NGC 1977 — The Running Man Nebula
Tonight's Sky

Welcome to the new Tonight's Sky. Plan your observing session based on your sky, your scope, and tonight's conditions. Problem? Send me a message.

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Location
? Sky Quality Meter value — higher is darker. 22+ is pristine dark sky; 20–21 is rural; 18–19 is suburban. Estimated automatically from your location using light pollution data. If you have a real SQM meter, toggle to enter your actual reading for more accurate results.
estimated from location
I have a meter reading Enable this if you have an actual Sky Quality Meter reading for tonight. Your measured value will be used instead of the light-pollution estimate.
? Your north-south position. Click the map or drag the marker to set automatically.
? Your east-west position. Click the map or drag the marker to set automatically.
? Used to convert your local start time to the correct UTC time for calculations. Set automatically when you click the map.
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Date & Time
? The night you plan to observe. Objects are calculated for this date at your location.
? The hour you plan to begin observing. Only objects visible during your session window will be shown.
20:00
? How long your session will last. Objects that set before your session ends will still be included if they are up at the start.
3 hrs
? Objects below this altitude above the horizon will be excluded. Increase this if trees or buildings block your low sky.
25°
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Equipment
? The diameter of your telescope's primary mirror or lens. Larger apertures collect more light and reveal fainter objects.
? Larger binoculars gather more light. 7×50 and 10×50 are the most common for astronomy.
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What to Observe
? By default the search depth setting uses every DSO catalog. Use these overrides only when you want to restrict results to a specific catalog you are working through, or hide one you have already completed. Note: catalog filters only apply to non-stellar deep-sky objects. Stars and solar system objects are not affected by these settings.

Click a catalog once to only include it. Click again to exclude it. Click a third time to clear.
Applies to deep-sky objects only. Double stars and carbon stars are unaffected.

CICMNGC
? Your location, equipment, and preferences are saved as a cookie in your browser. No account is required and nothing is sent to our servers. Clear your browser cookies at any time to remove saved settings. We do not track you.