astroplanner is fun and useful, definatly changed how i go about things outside. Running it with EQMOD on an EQ6 works fine as well.
My setup routine when heading out with the laptop and EQ6 is as follows.
Setup tripod. Use compass to point it within a degree or so of south and bubble level to make sure its pretty flat.
Put the EQ6 on the tripod, leaving azimuth knobs loose for the time being and mounting the scope on it as well.
Turn the laptop on and do the rest while its booting up.
Power up mount, and do a quick 2 or 3 star align, then polar realignment routine with the latest beta firmware.
Once im happy with that, I park and power off the mount, and hand over control from the handset to a direct EQMOD connection.
Power back up the mount and drift align however makes you happy. Im testing out EQAlign at the moment for that side of things.
Build a pointing model with what ever makes you happy, that could be with EQTour, CdC or an Astroplanner plan.
Remember to save said pointing model just incase eqmod/astroplanner/ascom crashes, saves alot of time.
Once ive done all that, Then i hand over control to AstroPlanner.
The reasoning for doing the initial 2/3 star coarse alignment with the hand-controller rather than the computer is as follows - lets me make sure the mount and scope is all working properly, and its also the go/no-go time for the weather, some nights I've decided that due to intermittent cloud, i cant be bothered going through a full computer setup and are just happy scanning the sky. Plus it also tends to mean less time spent drift aligning with EQAlign
