List of all astrophotography software

[oilydog]

Hi all,

I am chasing all the different types of software available to assist with complete automation of capturing photons. As people add or comment one I have missed, I will add it to this post to help newcomers evaluate different software easily. I have tested a few things out, but I have found a lot of software only covers one specific thing. I personally cant stand to have to have a half dozen programs running just to align, point, capture, track, move and process pictures.

Initially these programs will be in no particular order, but as more come in I will try and organise them. The programs that handle more then one function I will place at the top.

Maxim DL (http://www.cyanogen.com/maxim_main.php)
Covers a wide range of of features in one bundle..

TheSkyX (http://www.bisque.com/sc/pages/TheSkyX-Professional-Edition.aspx)
Similar to MaximDL

Astrotortilla (http://sourceforge.net/projects/astrotortilla/)
Plate solves and aligns your mount to what you want to point at.
Can be a pain to get going if you are not all that tech savvy.

Alignmaster (http://www.alignmaster.de/)
Assists in the PA process.

BackyardEOS/Nikon (http://www.otelescope.com/index.php?/page/index.html)
Control of your slr. Annoyingly missing autofocus.

Teamviewer (https://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx)
Fantastic software for remoting into your obs PC.
Free for personal use.

Pixinsight (https://pixinsight.com/)
Use to process your pictures.
Very strong program for stacking your awesome night sky pics.
LARGE learning curve.

Nebulosity (http://www.stark-labs.com/nebulosity.html)
Use to capture and process your pics.



If you are part of the penguin persuasion there is also a Linux distro (http://www.distroastro.org/features/) for capturing and processing your astro pics too.




I can guarantee I have missed a lot of software, feel free to point out what one's I have missed, also your experience out of 5 stars in regards to the certain things it does.

I would like to collate a list for the newcomers who want to get into astro, without spending 12 months and lots of money trying to find the best one for them.

Thanks for your input.
Michael

[troypiggo]

You'll have a hard time listing "all" astro software, as little utilities are written all the time.

Extremely comprehensive list here:
http://www.pierpaoloricci.it/download/downloadsoftware_eng.htm

Do a search in this forum for some handy free apps written by sheeny. I'm sure others have contributed here too, but Al's leap to mind first for me.

I made a list here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=8874419) a while ago of software I have used.

[Eden]

Hi there Michael,

A few more software titles to add to your bucket list. By no means comprehensive, but should cover most of the popular ones that were absent from your post. If you're serious about maintaining a detailed list, it might be helpful to create a survey post for each title and ask people to rate the application from 1-5 stars.

I've only provided a brief description for each application, some of them have so many individual features that they practically deserve a thread of their own to describe them properly.

OpenPHD (openphdguiding.org)
Auto-guiding control software, includes polar alignment assistance tool. Recommended replacement for Stark Labs original PHD program.

Stellarium (http://stellarium.org)
Virtual planetarium with support for hardware accelerated 3D. Useful for planning imaging runs and can be used to control the telescope mount remotely with the assistance of EQASCOM or StellariumScope.

StellariumScope (http://www.welshdragoncomputing.ca/)
Provides remote control of the telescope mount to Stellarium.

PRiSM (http://www.prism-astro.com)
Along the same lines as Maxim but includes a lot of interesting features not found elsewhere.

Firecapture (http://firecapture.wonderplanets.de)
Video capture tool with native support for a wide range for cameras. High frame-rate capability and comprehensive feature list, making it an ideal choice for planetary work.

ASCOM Platform (http://ascom-standards.org)
Essential framework libraries needed to run many astronomy tools, provides ubiquitous driver interface for accessing astronomy hardware.

EQMod (http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net)
Enables the control of telescope mount via PC by replacing the mounts hand controller with a software interface. Interfaces with applications such as Maxim, Astrotortilla, Stellarium, etc.

FocusMax
Auto-focusing tool with comprehensive feature list.
URL not included at this time as Google search query warns that their website may have been hacked.

Planetary Image Pre-processor (PIP) (https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/)
For pre-processing planetary images before stacking them with image stacking software.

SharpCap (http://www.sharpcap.co.uk)
Planetary imager written in C#

Mire De Collimation (http://sweiller.free.fr/collimation.html)
Virtual reticle overlay tool, useful for collimation and for framing/centering with imaging applications which do not feature a built-in crosshair or reticle.

Straton (http://www.zipproth.com/Straton/)
Enables the removal of stars from your images whilst retaining nebula.

Registax (http://www.astronomie.be/registax/)
Image stacking software.

Deep Sky Stacker (http://deepskystacker.free.fr/)
Another popular image stacking tool.

Sequency Generator Pro (http://www.mainsequencesoftware.com/)
Another popular image capturing suite, requires OpenPHD for auto-guiding.

MetaGuide (http://www.astrogeeks.com/Bliss/MetaGuide/)
Video-based auto-guiding software with powerful collimation and diffraction analysis tools.

Visual Pinpoint Astrometry (http://pinpoint.dc3.com/)
Plate-solving, supernova and asteroid hunting tools.

[scagman]

PHD2 (http://openphdguiding.org/)
Guiding Software/ Polar Alignment (4stars)

Pempro2 (http://www.ccdware.com/products/pempro/)
Periodic error correction (4stars)

Cheers

[Merlin66]

http://www.mainsequencesoftware.com/Releases
http://www.msb-astroart.com/
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AA5ObsMgr/files

These may also be helpful.