Best planetarium program

Davros (Lauren) · #1 29-09-2009, 07:28 PM

Ive had stellarium on the macbook for the past few years and it works fine for what i have needed in the past (push to dob with setting circles). Now that i have a goto, tracking mount as well (Sirius HEQ5) i was wondering if there was a more recommended program for scope control etc.

Bassnut (Fred) · #2 29-09-2009, 07:31 PM

Starry night rocks, and can do scope contol (the pro version). The Sky stinks, but its more powerfull ( and usually required for automation).

mtodman (Matt) · #3 29-09-2009, 07:41 PM

I have used both Starry Night Pro & The Sky v6. They're both feature rich and can do pretty well all you need them to. However more & more often, when i'm out under the stars planning my night's imaging session or just working out which star is which, I keep reverting back to Stellarium. It places much less load on my notebook so it happily runs MaximDL for image capture & PHD for guiding at the same time.
Oh, & it has no problems controlling my scope as well.

troypiggo (Troy) · #4 29-09-2009, 09:52 PM

Cartes du Ciel is free and work great as planetarium and scope control/goto. I'm using the newer version 3.

White Rabbit · #5 02-10-2009, 04:00 PM

I use Starry Night, It rocks. I use the compressed version for my astro laptop and it flies, no all sky images to load.

Astrobserver99 (Rob) · #6 02-10-2009, 05:34 PM

I use SkyMap Pro, great program, works with eqmod and goto scopes.

scopemankit (Chris) · #7 02-10-2009, 06:02 PM

I use an old version of Starry Nights Backyard, which came as a free disk with an old computer magazine. It is great stuff.

danielsun · #8 02-10-2009, 09:02 PM

I have pretty much tried most of the leading planetarium programs and find Starry night pro plus 6 at the top.
Very user friendly runs my scope plus via EQ MOD.

Cheers Daniel.

Ian Robinson · #9 05-10-2009, 01:56 PM

I like Guide.

Kevnool (Kev) · #10 05-10-2009, 01:59 PM

So theres your answer.
Starry night seems to be the norm.
Cheers Kev.