All in 1 Astro software

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Hi Guys.

I have tried Maxim DL, Stellarium, The Sky6, and a couple of others.
These programs are ok in their own right but not one is perfect.

Maxim DL has a poor planetarium feature and visually is poor, like it was made in the earlt 90's.
The sky6 is not very pleasant to use when it comes to deep sky objects. You have wait and manually download every image. its hopeless.
Stellarium is the most pleasing visually and has telescope control and as a planetarium, i find it good.

What i am looking for is a software that has it all....
Nice GUI, good graphcs, easy to navigate planetarium and with telescope control, CCD control, focus control, filter wheel control...ets.....
I really like the look of Star Walk (iphone app) if only they could develop that to be PC compatible and have all the features i am looking for.

Does any one here have any suggestion?

Thanks for reading..

John

[ZeroID (Brent)]

At this point in time I don't think there is one that does it all in the amateur field. Probably not even in the professional arena either.

[chrisp9au (Chris)]

Have you checked out Sky Safari Pro ?

http://www.southernstars.com/index.html

Cheers

Chris

[beren]

Early days but I like CCDAutopilot/Navigator from CCDware with SkyX, for planetarium and scope control Sky Safari pro is my favourite.

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Yeah Sky Safari Pro is brilliant.
I have it on my ipad.
But unfortunately they dont make it for PC.
It would be good to have all the software on one platform.

Will just have o wait and see i guess

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

What about using Maxim DL for control but using the CDC skycharts for planetarium? That has an attractive interface and easily links with ASCOM/or Maxim. (CDC = Cartes Du Ciel)
Graham

[g__day (Matthew)]

From my experience you will need a portfolio of overlapping software, posibilities I have tried include:

Stellarium, CDC, The Sky,

Tpoint, Maxpoint

MaximDL, BackyardEOS, APT, PHD, DSLR Shutter, Meade and Celeston Nexstar default telescope / DSI camera control software

FocusMax, Polar Align, Astro Tortilla,

USNO sky catalogues and plate solving star catalogues

CCD Stack, CCD Check, PEMPro, Deep Sky Stacker

Photoshop CS4

To me this is a basic set of over-lapping software as nothing does everything well; you have to mix and match into your workflow to get optimal results.

Secondly some software is inherently more powerful, complex to use (and costly) than others e.g. CCD Stack vs Deep Sky Stacker, or Tpoint vs Maxpoint, or MaximDL guiding vs PHD.

Some parts of data processing workflow are probably best started in CCD Stack, moved to MaximDL and finished in Photoshop CS.

My thoughts!

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Thanks for all that info Matthew.

Looks like i am going to have to juggle a few programs to get the job i need done.

And thanks for everyone's contribution.
Much appreciated

John

[troypiggo (Troy)]

There's so many different hardware configurations and users' needs (astrophotography vs visual vs photometry...) that doubt you're going to find a magic bullet, all-in-one software that meets all of your specific needs. Better off finding the best software for each of your needs.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Starry Night Pro Plus 6.

H

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Octane

Starry Night Pro Plus 6.

Just a note of warning: I have a copy of Starry Night Pro Plus 6 and it crashes every time I search for a NGC or Messier object. The same thing happens on two different computers, so it's not some odd Windows problem on my laptop. I reported this more than two years ago. The support folks and the developers apparently agreed this is a bug but Simulation Curriculum Corp. have not seen fit to produce an update/fix to date. I last pinged their support address again a few days ago and nobody has bothered to reply. The copyright message on the software is dated 2009. It looks to me like this is a dead product and that they are just milking sales and not doing any maintenance.

Sorry H, didn't mean to rain on your parade but I think this is something that folks ought to know before shelling out a substantial amount of money to buy a copy. Apart from crashing every time I search for an object it is a nice piece of software.

Cheers,
Rick.

[allan gould]

Could check out astroplanner as it has an extensive catalogue and ASCOM control of mounts for goto etc. very good IMO.
Allan

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by johnnyt123

...

What i am looking for is a software that has it all....
Nice GUI, good graphcs, easy to navigate planetarium and with telescope control, CCD control, focus control, filter wheel control...ets.....

Sounds like TheSkyX with camera add on. Not cheap but it's fully integrated. I use it for everything now including dome control (dome add on). In theory I don't even need Ascom installed any more but I haven't fully transitioned to @Focus2 yet.

Cheers, Marcus

[Octane (Humayun)]

That is really strange, Rick.

I've been using SNPP6 for many years now and it has never crashed on me. On my Dell notebook, ASUS netbook and MacBook Pro. :S

Connecting via the Gemini ASCOM driver, search for objects, slew, centre, and so on, beautifully without a fault.

H

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Octane

That is really strange, Rick.

I've been using SNPP6 for many years now and it has never crashed on me. On my Dell notebook, ASUS netbook and MacBook Pro. :S

Connecting via the Gemini ASCOM driver, search for objects, slew, centre, and so on, beautifully without a fault.

H

It is odd, H, but I reproduced it on a desktop machine as well as my laptop. I expect it's some odd Windows 7 config that causes it.

I did hear back from Simulation Curriculum Corp a couple of days after my last support email. They say that they are working on a new version and that "my" bug is marked to be fixed. They have offered to let me participate in the beta program. So, that's good news and I'm pleased they haven't abandoned the product.

Cheers,
Rick.

[johnnyt123 (John)]

I have to say the the most pleasant planetarium software with telescope control are Stellarium and SkySafari Pro.
And FocuzMax and Maxim DL for the rest.

John

[alistairsam]

Hi,
I've been looking for similar software, so far have been using stellarium and maxim. But friday night which turned out to be perfect, stellarium decided not to sync when i centered on a star. just refused to work. and when I want to use maxim to control for plate solving, I have to disconnect stellariumscope, which meant all my sync points were lost even though i had the save and load points ticked in eqascom.
I've tried the client server mode, and it works well, usually!!.

so i'm back looking for something.
starry night is good, but a bit too processor intensive.
i then played with CDC, I hated it for its old 16bit look and feel, but was surprised and the number of options it has. extremely extensive.
and one good thing is it'll give you a list of objects in the FOV by catalog name, just double click and it'll bring up an image instantly. very very handy if you're looking for targets to image.
the Skyx seems a bit too complex for me.

Cheers

[Jon (Jonathan)]

I really like SkyTools 3. A planning app S well as planetarium/telescope control.

[White Rabbit]

I have both SN6 Pro Plus and The Sky X.

TSX PRO with the camera add on like Marc says, is as close as your going to get for what you want.
The camera add on adds focusing, filter selection, as well as auto guiding and CCD/DSLR control. Add plate solving into the mix as well although I think you get that with out the camera add on. TSX offers a 90 day trial of the camera add on so you don't have to purchase everything at once.

Having said that I don't really like the planetarium on TSX, I much prefer SN6. To be honest though I rarely look at the planetarium. I generally know what I'm looking for before start it up anyway so I just type the object in click find, click slew, calibrate the guiding, take an image, plate solve, re Center object,
reengage guiding , press go on my image series. All done from my recliner in the living room via ipad and vnc whilst watching a movie .

I think the camera addon still has a lot of maturing to do. It doesn't offer dithering ATM. And the "Take series" could be a bit more sophisticated by adding a bit more automation like filter selection and focus between a series. Presently you have to manually select a filter and manually auto focus But I'm sure these things will come in time.

Cheers
Sandy

[White Rabbit]

Correction, the "take serries" does offer filter selection.