The Night Manager
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The Night Manager connects NINA to your phone. See every sub as it lands, watch guiding live, get woken only when your rig actually needs you, and wake up to know exactly how the night went, and why.
A simulated twin rig, running right here in your browser, just as it streams to your phone.
Your PC streams to your phone every second while you're watching: guide steps, temperatures, the mount, the exposure, even NINA's own status bar. Close the app and it goes quiet, so you get real-time when you want it, and no data wasted when you don't.
A single refractor in the garden, two scopes riding one mount, or a remote site with several piers: The Night Manager shows each observatory with its setups, and each setup with its optical paths. Twin rigs read as one system, with an exposure clock per camera.
A card follows your night on the Lock Screen: the exposure filling up, time to the meridian flip, safety, subs and usable hours. On iPhone it lives in the Dynamic Island too, and StandBy turns a charging iPhone into a bedside observatory display. On Android it's a live update on the Lock Screen and in the status bar. It starts in the evening and ends with the night, with the night's numbers.
Every sub is graded against your own recent good frames, with no tuning per telescope. The night charts mark every autofocus, meridian flip, filter change and cloud bank. Drag your finger across them to read exact values. Then Why? lays your subs against altitude, temperature and guiding, and tells you in plain English what's costing you.
An hour before dusk, Night Manager checks the rig the way you would: drive space against tonight's plan, the sequence, Target Scheduler, and every instruction and trigger in it. Rigs that power themselves up from the sequence are understood, not flagged. If something needs you, you hear about it while there's still time to fix it.
No advice from a single night. Night Manager builds a baseline from your own history first, like a fitness ring that fills before it judges, and only then tells you what to change. Every tip comes from your rig's numbers, not a rule of thumb.
Night Manager keeps a record of every rig's night on your phone (and in your own iCloud on iPhone): the hours on each target and filter, every sub's focus, guiding and grade, and the sky it was taken under. It never expires, and moves with you to a new phone. Then it turns your year into numbers worth reading.
Unsafe weather with the roof open, lost contact mid-exposure or a sequence asking for you can ring a real alarm that cuts through Silent and Focus. Everything else waits quietly for the morning. Anything that moves a telescope needs a deliberate slide to confirm, so nothing happens from a pocket or cold fingers in the dark.
See what Syncthing is uploading and how long it'll take, limit uploads to the hours your site allows, and know how much space is left on every drive, before NINA runs out mid-target.
On iPhone and Android, for one scope in the garden or a remote site full of piers. Pro marks the paid extras; everything else is free.
Install it, press Pair, type the code into the app. That's the whole setup. After that, its options page is a dashboard: how tonight is going at a glance, and every setting on a page of its own.
Plus a sequence planner and an Advanced Sequencer editor on the phone. Build it on the sofa, send it to NINA. Every instruction is explained in the guide.
Download it and drop it into NINA's plugin folder. Works with NINA 3.2 and 3.3.
Press Pair in NINA and type the six-letter code into the app. No keys, no port forwarding.
Every NINA instance on that PC appears as its own rig. Your phone takes the night shift.
They show you the screen. The Night Manager tells you what it means.
| Remote desktop | Chat notifications | The Night Manager | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glance without unlocking | ✕ | Partly | Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, StandBy, Android live updates, widgets |
| Live, phone-sized view | Tiny desktop | ✕ | Built for phones, updates every second |
| Wakes you only when it matters | ✕ | Every message pings | Real alarms for emergencies; quiet otherwise |
| Knows a safe shutdown from a crash | ✕ | ✕ | Yes |
| Grades every sub, explains why | ✕ | ✕ | Grades, charts, Why? and a cull list |
| Safe remote control | Full PC access | ✕ | Opt-in actions, slide to confirm |
| Starts NINA after a power cut | ✕ | ✕ | Coming soon: restarts NINA and carries on imaging until dawn |
| Works on a slow site connection | Struggles | Yes | Tiny updates; full stream only while you watch |
Built with imagers, for imagers. Beta testers help decide what comes first.
A proper iPad app: the whole observatory on one big screen, live guiding beside the subs, and Stage Manager friendly.
Hour-by-hour cloud, dew and Moon for your site, set against tonight's targets: usable hours before dusk.
The exposure ring on your wrist, a tap when it's unsafe, every rig at a glance.
Watch tonight's target build up as a stretched stack, sub by sub.
Your real trees and rooftops on every altitude chart and visibility estimate.
Cooler drift, guiding by pier side and focus-curve shifts spotted weeks before they ruin a night.
Acquisition details ready for AstroBin's CSV import, and a script that sets aside rejected subs before WBPP.
Observatory camera snapshots are already in the app; next comes cloud detection from your all-sky camera and an overnight time-lapse.
Start free and stay free for one rig. Pro adds more rigs, coaching that learns your rig, AI reports and remote-site tools, with a 7-day free trial.
Beta testers included. Claimed at launch with an App Store or Google Play offer code. After the first year it renews at the normal yearly price, and you can cancel any time in your phone's subscription settings.
Join the beta to secure a placeOne rig, everything you need to sleep easy.
For remote and multi-scope imagers.
Clubs and multi-pier sites.
Prices in GBP including VAT; other countries see their local store price. Subscriptions are bought and managed through the App Store or Google Play. During the public beta, testers get the whole app (Pro+) free for 30 days.
The Night Manager is in beta on iPhone (Apple's TestFlight) and Android (Google Play testing). Places are limited to 100 per platform in each round; when a round is full you go on the waiting list for the next one. Testers help shape what ships.
This is a public beta: you may meet bugs in the app, but they shouldn't cause problems in NINA itself. Testers get the whole app free for 30 days, then the free plan unless they choose Pro. Report issues, with screenshots and NINA logs, on our Discord. New here? Read the guide.
No. Your FITS/XISF files never leave your observatory PC. The app gets a small stretched preview of each sub (around 30 KB) and its numbers. Previews are kept in the cloud only for a few days, then live on your phone (and in your own iCloud on iPhone).
No. It works with the Advanced Sequencer, the classic sequencer and Target Scheduler. With Target Scheduler you also get its plan and the next nights' targets.
Only what you allow, one action at a time, in NINA on your own PC. Every action that moves equipment needs a slide to confirm on the phone, and is logged and confirmed back.
Yes. Link a second NINA instance to its main rig and the app shows them as one setup; pair as many observatory PCs as your plan allows.
Android is in beta too, through Google Play's testing programme (Android 10 or later). Choose Android on the form and use the Google account email you use for the Play Store.
It's in public beta on iPhone and Android now, launching on the App Store and Google Play when testing is done. Free stays free for one rig; Pro is £4.99 a month or £44.99 a year (up to 3 locations and 4 rigs in total) with a 7-day free trial; Pro+ is £12.99 a month or £119.99 a year, for up to 10 locations and 16 rigs in total. The first 100 members, beta testers included, get Pro for £29.99 for their first year.
A proper iPad app is next on the roadmap. Until then the beta is for iPhone and Android phones.
Coming soon: a small Startup helper. With it switched on in the plugin, NINA opens again when the PC comes back, master profile first, and restarts the sequence if it was imaging and it's still dark. Your phone is told at each step. Windows needs to sign in by itself after a restart.
Your account moves to the free plan: one observatory with one rig, live status, alerts, safety and 3 AI reports a month. Nothing is deleted, and you can choose Pro at any time.
Read the guide, and ask on our Discord: post bugs with screenshots and your NINA log, and we'll help.
Yes. The plugin is free and works with every plan, including Free.
Very little. The observatory streams only while someone is watching; otherwise it sends small updates when something actually changes.