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
).