/solar plan
/solar plan [setup] [location] [remember] [night]
Plans a day of solar imaging: when to shoot, what your gear will do, and what the Sun looks like that day.
Usage: /solar plan for today with your default setup and
saved location, or /solar plan setup: SHG-700 Ha location: Flagstaff, AZ date: tomorrow. date accepts YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD
or tomorrow; the cloud forecast only reaches about a week ahead,
so later dates still get the Sun’s numbers without a weather verdict.
remember: True saves a typed location as your new default.
Best window — the stretch of the day, with the Sun above 20°, that has the clearest sky: the longest run of at least 45 minutes at or under 30% cloud, or, on a cloudier day, the least cloudy 45 minutes (and it says plainly when even that is poor). This is cloud cover only: there’s no seeing forecast behind it.
Your setup today — whether the Sun fits your gear at today’s actual size, and for a scanning setup the frame rate and exposure for your usual scan, as an estimate (JSol’Ex stays the reference). With no saved setup the rest of the plan still works.
The Sun — its size, the P angle (tilt of its axis from celestial north), B0 and L0 (which part of the Sun faces Earth) and the Carrington rotation, plus sunrise, solar noon and sunset on your location’s real clock. A chart shows the Sun’s altitude with the usable and best windows shaded, above hourly cloud cover.
Parameters
| Name | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
setup | No | Which saved solar setup to plan for (default: your default) |
location | No | City name, decimal, or DMS coordinates. Leave blank to use your saved default. |
remember | No | Also save this as your new default location (otherwise this is a one-off lookup) |
night | No | Day to plan: YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD or tomorrow. Default: today |