[Capt_buscemi (Mark)]

Hey mate, I feel your pain. I doggedly tried with KStars/EKOS on my Mac for a couple of months, using a StellarMate - it was a costly and extremely frustrating enterprise, and ultimately I gave it away.


I've met a few people who have KStars working, but invariably they are (a) using Linux and (b) people with IT backgrounds who have no hesitation in writing code and pulling nightly builds off the developers' forum. They are happy to tinker away at what is a very ambitious but still highly unstable, Open-Source project.


Have managed to source a 12-year-old Windows laptop, and though it kills me to use Windows after nearly a decade blissfully using MacOS, I've got to say it works, and I'm getting my rig running using ASCOM/EQMOD, Sequence Generator Pro and Stellarium. It's still a steep learning curve, and I wish it was easier, but it's a damn sight better than KStars. If nothing else, there are vast resources out there on YouTube and forums, you can solve most problems very quickly and easily, whereas anything Mac can be days before anyone replies.


I'm watching ASIAir with keen interest, my hunch is it will be the dominant imaging solution a year from now, especially for beginners like me who want simple DSO functionality, and most of us will leave our laptops behind. But I don't think it's there yet, so in the meantime I'll use my ancient Craptop and SGP, try to make up on the lost time.