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Thomas Rox: Well, after digesting the comments so far it seems that I should try NINA (I've already downloaded and installed in fact, just haven't used it yet) and I guess if it's all good I'll make a donation for sure; |
1.20
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NA is fantastic. If my wife wants to go out to dinner for example, I can remotely power on my system from my phone and have it turn on camera cooling, dew heaters, open the flat panel at the appropriate time for slewing to target. With a camera rotator I can image multiple targets while sleeping and wake up to it completing flats based on trained brightness and exposure for all 7 filters. It'll also power off my equipment in the morning when the end sequence completes. I actually donated to the developer via Paypal 2 years ago. It is the developer's choice to make software free however. |
5.76
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Lynn K: I think this is a fallacy and to me TSX is one of the most egregious cases of it, though it sounds like MaximDL follows suit. TSX tried to be an all-things software. IMO it does some things well (tpoint modeling, and image link for example, and a great planetarium database). But it is very difficult for one (small) company to do everything well. Even Microsoft has learned that lesson, and started incorporating other products (still trying to make them a MS flavor, but at least motion in the right direction). TSX's guiding was a great example -- it worked, but it did not work well. I forget what it was missing (maybe dithering?), but it was generally klunky and just "ok". Multistar guiding in PHD2 works MUCH better. PHD2 receives a lot of love and change from dedicated contributors, TSX only got attention if a lot of people complain about something, because their small team has other priorities. Being able to pick best-of-breed software to use, and having inter-operability with them, is a benefit. It also can avoid having a small development team try to be experts in everything and develop everything. Consider: What if every product tried to build in native support (not SDK, really native) for every device? Sure, one could argue getting closer to the hardware could let you do amazing stuff but... nothing would ever be finished, nothing would ever advance. No one complains because all these tools expect you to use ASCOM drivers or a manufacturer's SDK. Why is guiding different? |
5.21
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I have used many image acquisition softwares since the days of the ancient DOS based CCDOPS in the early 1990s. I have used MaxIm and later MaxIm/ACP. Then I moved to SGP and about two years ago to NINA. My take: MaxIm and ACP are very "geeky" and very "1995". They work but the interfaces are old and I cannot recommended them any longer, especially at the price, which is pretty high. Support-wise, I have found MaxIm to be poor but ACP to be excellent. SGP was, for the time I used it (which was mostly pre-NINA), pretty good with decent support, reasonable stability, and not too high a price. A few years ago, the stability seemed to worsen, the cost went up, and several long-promised features never materialized. At that time I tried NINA. So far I am happier with NINA than with any other imaging software I have used. Is it perfect? No, nothing is. There are still occasional bugs (but not many) and developers are not always receptive to ideas (but no more or less so than with most software  ). At this time I would have to go with NINA.There is also Voyager, and many folks like that but it is quite expensive. I have never tired it since NINA does everything I need. |
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Only started 5 years ago, and I wanted something to do it all in one package, without having to learn 2-3 apps at once. So I found Prism v.10 back then, v.11 now. Although not so popular, it has everything you need to control an obsy, basically you need to install ASCOM + Drivers + Prism. Here are the features: 1. Extensive hardware control 2. Autoguiding (single star, multi star, full frame, slit guiding) 3. Focusing (single star, full frame) 4. Sky chart 5. Catalogs (can add GAIA DR2/EDR3, UCAC4, NOMAD, USNO) 6. Automatic scheduler 7. Internal plate solver (can add external – ASTAP, Astrometry.net), 8. Telescope tools (PEC measurement, PEC analysis, Polar align with King method, Drift method, Collimation tools, Tilt and Curvature), 9. Pointing models 10. FITS keyword management 11. Photometry tools 12. Spectroscopy tools 13. Basic image processing 14. Image statistics 15. Automatic calibration frames |
2.10
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| I've been using APT for 3 1/2 years. It does it all. Very good ergonomics with a professional look. An excellent manual covering everything in the tool. |
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For me TheSky is the best in the market! Maxim is more suitable for processing. But since I can't afford both at the moment, I'm using APTools which fills all my needs for acquisition and PixInsight + Photoshop for processing! Cheers, Cesar |
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| I have been running Nina for a few years now and I'm very satisfied with it. |
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Well, I do use NINA in my fixed rigs, and it does everything I need + a lot of excellent plugins. I also love the fact that I can work several planning sessions using Stellarium, then I export (or call, as you wish) to NINA. I did contribute, so it is not free for me, and I could not figure out any deep reason why not to choose free software, in particular when behind what you see there is a huge work, with contributions from many people. Like GIMP, once you get used to, no need for any expensive software, particularly those that charge you every month (well, actually yearly but, it is presented as a monthly amount...). For my movable gear I use SharpCap, and I don´t care if it is not free if suits my needs for that equipment. I could use NINA as well, but I like some of the features of SharpCap, particularly when imaging the Sun. An finally, as it is also valid for the gear, the best software is the one that suits you best. CS! |
