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Old 28-11-2011, 12:41 PM
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JohnH
Member # 159

JohnH is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: NSW
Posts: 1,226
CCDCommander or CCDAutopilot - which is better?

I have recently moved to using an SBig CCD and aas a result hav eto use CCDSoft V5 for image acquisition. I used to use AstroArt4. AA4 has a very simple method of automation which I was happy with. CCDSoft uses WSH which is far more powerful and can auotmate not just CCDSoft but also The Sky 6 and FocusMax or indeed any other windows app. This enables very powerful automated sequences to be developed (eg mosaics/plate solves/surveys) but at the cost of complexity. Indeed I am have issues just trying to find documetation for the methods and properties for the objects I need to control. The web is little help here with only simplistic examples out there.

It seems that the alternate is to use a tool and two seem to be available, CCDCommander or CCDAutopilot.

Can anyone help me make a choice here, I have given CCDCommander a bit of a go and it seems pretty good, it did crash once though so I am looking for a recommendation based on experiance.

I want to drive:

ST-2000xm
CFW-8 or CFW-10
AO-8
Moonlite CFL with stepper
G11G

and sometimes

QHY5 guidecam.

The setup is temporary and I have limited open skies so ease of use is more important to me that the nth degree of functionality (no supernova searches for me ).
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