Best software for running cameras and guiding?

[gregbradley]

I have been using CCDsoft for some time now. Occassionally I have used PHD2 for guiding (not for a while now though) and also Sky X.

There is a free plugin to dither with CCDsoft but I found it affected autoguiding badly where it would apply to both the imaging camera and the guider giving bad errors trying to dither autoguiding exposures.

So I would like to use dither routinely. PHD2 has dither, not sure if it works. I think it does.

Also I want to use an SX AO unit and control that.

I also would like to use drizzle. I think that is a software item after collecting data and not before but not sure if drizzle requires some special data with each image or not.

What software is the best allround for these items? Nebulosity may be the go with PHD2 guiding? Or use Sky X for everything? Not sure it does dither.

Greg.

[Atmos]

Sequence Gen Pro will send Dither commands via PHD2, I've been using that for a while. In some ways I do much prefer MaximDL over SGP but I do LOVE its framing wizard :P

I find that the guiding is more stable for me in SGP than Maxim although I still have a LOT of drop outs. Sometimes it works fine all night, other times i'll drop out every hour or so. Doesn't matter if I am using SGP or Maxim, SGP just seems to like my ASI120MM-S better. In about a month I'll be making the move over to Maxim on a more permanent basis though, just awaiting the arrival on my new mount :D
The SX AO should work fine with both PHD and Maxim.

As for drizzling, as long as you dither you are fine. Technically, if you didn't guide and intentionally had a slight PA offset and used suitably short subs you could drizzle just using PA misalignment and PE :P

[glend]

SGP cost much less than Maxim. I love SGP.

[Joshua Bunn]

TSX Pro does indeed have a dither option.

Josh

[cfranks]

Yes, TSX will do everything you've asked for except handling the SX AO. They have been promising 'couple of months' for over 3 years now. I haven't seen if 10031 has the support but I haven't looked very closely.

Charles

[lazjen]

APT also supports dithering via PHD2. I can't see an option for handling AO units though.

[gregbradley]

I never get drop outs with CCDsoft and I also get reliable guiding. PHD2 has been quite good as well once setup right. It gives more options but at the end of the day I don't think they add up to better guiding results.

I think I'll concentrate on using PHD2 for dithered and AO guiding.
other.



Greg.

[Bart]

I have both Maxim and SGP. Maxim wins for me, every time, although SGP is still very good.