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Actually having just got home and checked something, SGP at least has a setting which will really help with autofocus on the SCT, the ability to reverse the in and out focuser moves will be a huge help in combating mirror flop issues common to the SCT. The autofocus routine moves "Out" by the specified number of steps then steps back in to build the focus curve, for the SCT it needs to go the other way or the backlash compensation required to combat mirror flop has it constantly spinning back and forwards, and I am not convinced with the drag of the grease that the mirror reliably stopped moving before the next focus image was taken.
Reversing the focuser direction should fix that, I checked and it actually does reverse the direction of travel that requesting an "In" move gets you, so now for autofocus it will move what it sees as "Out" and it will actually match the optical effect (The focal plane moving forward WRT the sensor) where it had the opposite effect before. It will also avoid constant shuffling back and forward to deal with the flop. It will make an anti flop "Backlash" move on the initial move away from focus then step progressively in one direction for the focus run before finally making a backlash corrected final move.
The theory sounds fine, now I need a clear sky to see how it works in practice.
I think I will stay with the thought above, I will go with SGP at least until the end of the trial period before I try any other software. Get the best of the trials so compare packages.
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