The Night Manager guide
Everything you need to get the plugin running in NINA, connect it to your phone, and set up your nights so the app tells you what matters: what's happening, what went wrong, and how good the night was.
Before you start
- A Windows PC running NINA 3.2 (the current release) or 3.3 (nightly builds). Check yours in NINA under Help → About.
- An iPhone with iOS 26 or later, or an Android phone with Android 10 or later.
- During the beta: TestFlight (iPhone) or the Google account you signed up with (Android). Your invitation email explains the steps.
- Internet on the observatory PC. If it drops, the plugin keeps everything and sends it when the connection comes back.
Install the plugin
- Download the plugin for your NINA version from the install page: NINA 3.2 for most people, NINA 3.3 for nightlies.
- Close NINA. If several NINA instances run on the PC (twin rigs), close them all.
- Open the plugin folder: paste
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NINA\Plugins\3.0.0into File Explorer's address bar. - Unzip the download there, so you get a folder called
The Night Manager. If Windows blocked the zip, right-click it → Properties → Unblock first. - Start NINA. You'll find the plugin under Options → Plugins → The Night Manager, and its instructions in the Advanced Sequencer under The Night Manager.
To update, do the same with the new download: close NINA, replace the folder, start NINA. Your settings and pairing are kept.
Pair with the app
- Open the app and create your account (or sign in).
- In NINA, open Options → Plugins → The Night Manager → Connection and press Pair. NINA shows a short code like
K7P-4QX. - In the app, tap + (add observatory) and type the code. Your observatory and rig appear straight away.
Pair once per PC: every NINA profile on that PC (each rig) joins the same observatory. Twin and multi-scope rigs show up as one setup with several optical paths.
How it works
- The plugin watches NINA (equipment, sequence, guiding, autofocus, safety, weather, every saved sub) and sends what changed to our server, which pushes it to your phone.
- Your images stay on your PC. The app gets a small preview of each sub (about 30 KB) and its numbers: star size (HFR), star count, guiding and a grade.
- It never changes NINA on its own. Remote actions from your phone (abort, park, close the roof…) only work if you switch each one on in NINA, and every one is logged.
- Live when you watch. While the app is open, status updates every second; otherwise it updates on change, and alerts arrive as notifications.
- The night is a session. It starts with your sequence or first sub, and ends at dawn once the last subs (and dawn flats) are in. Then you get a "night complete" summary and a morning report.
The plugin's options
In NINA: Options → Plugins → The Night Manager. The Overview shows a tile for each page.
| Page | What's there |
|---|---|
| Connection | Pair and unlink, connection status, and this rig's role: main rig (controls its mount) or linked optical path (rides on another rig's mount, for twin and multi-scope rigs). |
| Data and privacy | Choose what's sent besides the essentials: sub reports, live updates, live guide graph, Target Scheduler data, previews, optics and focus data. Off means it isn't collected at all. |
| Images and optics | Grading sensitivity, previews, optics analysis (tilt and "one side softer"), and the cull list written next to your subs. |
| Alerts and control | Which remote actions the app may run (abort sequence, stop guiding, park mount, close dome, warm camera, safe shutdown), plans from the app, starting the sequence from the app, and guiding alert levels. |
| Remote site | Syncthing upload status and upload windows, and observatory cameras (allsky, roof, network or ZWO cameras) for snapshots in the app. |
| Startup | Coming soon. Start NINA when the PC starts, with the profiles and sequences chosen in the app; the master profile first, the others a set gap apart. After a power cut in the night, imaging carries on. |
| Collaborators | Share the observatory with others: view only, or view and control. |
Night Manager sequence instructions
In NINA's Advanced Sequencer, open the instruction list and find the category The Night Manager. Drag them into your sequence like any other instruction. They make your sequence talk to your phone, and let your phone answer.
Instructions
| Instruction | What it does | Settings |
|---|---|---|
| Notify my phone | Sends a notification, e.g. "Flats done, closing up". | Title, message, level, attach the latest image |
| Send latest image | Sends a notification with the newest light frame attached. | Title, message |
| Note to timeline | Adds your note to tonight's timeline and the morning report. No notification. | Text |
| Ask my phone | Asks a yes/no question and waits for the answer. "No" fails the instruction, so with "Skip instruction set" on error it skips the rest of its block. | Question, button labels, timeout, answer if no reply |
| Wait for go from phone | Holds the sequence until you tap Go in the app, or the time runs out. | Message, timeout, carry on when it times out |
| Pause point | If you tapped Pause in the app, the sequence holds here until you tap Resume. Otherwise it passes straight through. | Longest wait |
| Wake me up | Critical alert, repeated until you tap "I'm up". Optionally holds the sequence until then. | Title, message, repeat every, how many times, wait for you |
| Start Lock Screen tracking | Starts the Lock Screen card (Live Activity on iPhone, live update on Android) on the phones following this setup. | – |
| Night ending | Tells your phone the night is ending and a shutdown may follow, so the PC going quiet isn't an alarm. Put it at the start of the End area. | Message |
| Send night report | Closes tonight's session (after images finish saving), writes the cull list and sends the morning report. | – |
Triggers and conditions
| Item | What it does | Settings |
|---|---|---|
| Failures to my phone | Failures are already sent to your phone. Put this trigger in a block to change how: ignore some instructions, set the level, or notify on every attempt. | Notify, level, ignore, every attempt |
| Progress to my phone | A quiet progress notification every N subs and/or every N minutes. | Every N subs, every N minutes, message |
| Loop until finished from phone | A loop condition: repeats until you tap "Finish night" in the app. Unlike Abort, the end-of-sequence steps (park, warm, close) still run. | – |
Sequence recipes
A clean end to every night
- In the End area, first: Night ending.
- Then your usual steps: stop guiding, park, warm the camera, close the roof.
- Last: Send night report.
The app then shows "shut down safely" instead of an alarm when the PC goes quiet, and the morning report arrives straight away.
Check the sky before committing
At the start of the Target area: Ask my phone "Clear enough to start?", with "Skip instruction set" on error and "No" if you don't answer within 15 minutes. Put the imaging in the same block: answer No and the night skips to the End area.
Run all night, finish when you say
Put your imaging in a loop with Loop until finished from phone. Tap "Finish night" in the app and the sequence finishes its current sub, then runs the End area properly.
Know it's running without opening the app
Add Start Lock Screen tracking after slewing to your first target and Progress to my phone (every 10 subs) to the target block.
Using the app
Tonight
Every observatory at a glance: what each rig is doing, the darkness bar, up next, safety and weather. Tap a setup for everything about it: live guiding, NINA's status, autofocus runs, the sub grades, sub length advice, the focus coach, optics health, Target Scheduler's plan, observatory cameras and the timeline. The layout is yours: reorder and hide sections.
Lock Screen and live updates
During the night a card follows your setup on the Lock Screen (and the Dynamic Island and StandBy on iPhone; a live update notification on Android): current target, the sub counting down, subs so far, last HFR and safety. It starts in the evening and ends with the night, showing the night's numbers for a few minutes.
Alerts
Problems come as notifications grouped by kind (safety, equipment, sequence, autofocus, night…); switch groups on and off in Settings. Emergencies (unsafe and the roof not closing, lost contact while imaging) can ring as alarms, even in silent mode if you allow it. The Alerts tab keeps the history.
Nights and morning reports
Each night gets a summary and a morning report: what went well, what cost time (clouds, focus, guiding, meridian flips), and what to try next. Nights also keeps your year in numbers.
Targets and plans
See Target Scheduler's projects and progress, plan targets for the coming nights, and edit sequences from your phone (when you allow plans from the app in NINA).
Remote control
The setup screen's "Lock Screen and remote control" section holds the actions you allowed in NINA. Risky ones ask you to slide to confirm.
Startup (coming soon)
When the Startup helper arrives: Settings → the observatory → Startup: which NINA profiles open when the PC starts, which is the master, which sequence each loads and whether it starts. The PC must have "Start NINA when this PC starts" ticked in the plugin.
Sharing
Invite friends or club members from the app or from NINA (Collaborators): view only, or view and control.
Best setup
- Twin and multi-scope rigs: set one profile as the main rig (it controls the mount) and the others as linked optical paths. Alerts about the shared mount then come once, not twice.
- Use a safety monitor if you have one: unsafe conditions are the most important alert the app can send.
- Add "Night ending" and "Send night report" to your End area (see the recipe above).
- Allow only the remote actions you'd really use. Park mount, close dome and abort sequence are the useful ones for most people.
- Target Scheduler users: keep "Share Target Scheduler" on in Data and privacy: you'll see tonight's plan, waits and progress per project.
- Notifications: leave safety and equipment on; turn autofocus off if 25 notifications a night is too many (it's off by default).
- Remote sites: set up observatory cameras (allsky or roof). The Startup helper (coming soon) will make sure a power cut in the night doesn't lose the night.
- Set your focuser's step size (Images and optics) so tilt and focus advice are given in microns.
The public beta
- Tell us what goes wrong on our Discord, in bug-reports: what happened, screenshots, and your NINA log.
- NINA's logs are in
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NINA\Logs(paste that into File Explorer). Attach the newest file, or the one from the night it happened. - Beta testers get the whole app (Pro+) free for 30 days from when they start, then the free plan unless they choose Pro.
- During the beta the plugin shares anonymous technical data (focus runs, star measurements, temperatures, equipment specs) to help build focus and optics features. What exactly, and how to switch it off.
Troubleshooting
The plugin doesn't appear in NINA
Check the folder is %LOCALAPPDATA%\NINA\Plugins\3.0.0\The Night Manager (not a folder inside a folder), that you downloaded the right NINA version, and that Windows didn't block the zip (Properties → Unblock, then unzip again).
The pairing code doesn't work
Codes last 10 minutes. Press Pair in NINA again for a fresh one, and check you're signed in to the app with the account you want the observatory on.
The app says offline
Check NINA is running and the PC has internet. The plugin keeps everything while offline and catches up when the connection returns. Connection in the plugin's options shows the last sync and any error.
Times look wrong
The app shows times at the observatory. If the PC's clock or time zone is wrong, NINA's twilight times are too: fix Windows' time settings on the observatory PC.
Still stuck?
Ask on Discord with a screenshot and your NINA log. We read everything.