This is a really neat project which is integrated directly with Nightime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy (NINA) using a plugin. To enable this integration simply install and configure the Lightbucket plugin. Once the Lightbucket plugin configured with an API key the information about your NINA astrophotography sessions is automatically uploaded, logged, and shared on Lightbucket.co. This post provides an overview of installing and configuring Lightbucket in NINA and viewing session information at Lightbucket.co.


Lightbucket is a tool for tracking your astrophotography imaging sessions so you can easily see data about your journey through the cosmos. After installing this plugin and configuring your API credentials, NINA will send information about your LIGHT frames as they are saved over the course of a sequence.
The following information will be sent to Lightbucket when images are saved:

• Target Name, RA, Dec, and Rotation
• Telescope Name (from your NINA Profile)
• Camera Name
• Image Filter, Duration, Gain, Offset, Binning, and Total RMS (in arcseconds)
• A small (300px) thumbnail of the stretched frame.

To install Lightbucket open NINA -> Plugins -> Available. Find Lightbucket, install the plugin, and restart NINA. After the restart access the plugin options from NINA -> Plugins -> Installed -> Lightbucket. Lightbucket is enabled by default but needs to be configured before session data will be logged to Lightbucket.

You will need to request an API key from https://app.lightbucket.co/api_credentials. Once you have your API credentials add your Discord username and API key to the Lightbucket options configuration.

When Lightbucket is enabled data from imaging sessions will automatically be logged to Lightbucket.co whenever a sequence exposure finishes. If you do not want your sessions logged then you can set the Enabled to Off. There is also an Offline mode which can be enabled if there is no Internet connectivity. If Offline Mode is enabled session logs are only stored locally but the logs can be uploaded to Lightbucket manually when Internet connectivity is restored.

When you log in to create your API credentials a page is created for your user, mine is https://app.lightbucket.co/astronomers/herseyc. On this page you will find a map of your sessions, information on the total number of session/targets/time, and details on each target and session.

Session data is tracked for the past 3 years. It also includes a thumbnail of the last image captured for each object. You can upload additional images and add a description of each session.

Pretty neat easy to install NINA plugin to track and share your NINA imaging sessions. Hopefully the sky will clear and I can upload some sessions to Lightbucket soon.