type of planetarium software

[mark7331]

CdC wins for me. While I like Stellarium because it looks nice it's a bit processor hungry and, for imaging, doesn't feel as complete or simple as CdC does when controlling the scope.

[mcrossley]

As I said above I like Stellarium for 'pretty' views and a quick blast around, but it does have some shortcomings as a 'reference' planetarium. I would not trust it for precise calculations - particularly historic as I know it does not currently account for deltaT, so if you look at events 2000 years ago it will be about 3 hours out.

[Slangers]

Of late it has been Stellarium, but I also use Red Shift and a good old hard copy of the Cambridge star atlas.

[carastro]

I use both Stellarium and Starry Night, both have their good points. I find Starry Night easier to change location and date (i.e. if I'm wanting to see what is up on a certain date in another part of the world when I am abroad).

I use Stellarium to control the mount and I like the images of DSOs in case I need to "centre" the object, makes it easier to see what i am doing, but not yet worked out if I can sync on it. Must take a look at Stellariumscope.

Carole

[david o]

StarCalc - simple, straight-forward functional and free, if now a bit dated looking. For all you imaging chaps and chapesses there's 'scope control via ASCOM.

Not too keen on Stellarium, despite some nice features. Toying with CdC and it's growing on me.

Out at the 'scope currently using TLaO and Pocket Sky Atlas.

[martin_h]

Stellarium + stellariumscope, but also CdC if i cant find what im looking for in stellarium.

As for being processor hungry...when imaging use Stellarium to get you there, then close it down...simples!

[Psychobilly]

Stellarium for a quick look...

CDC for Deeper object Id'ing

The Sky6 for planning framing...

I left the Netbook running for 10 days downloading the USNO A2.0 Catalog (5GB+) so go down to mag20 stars...

Also have the TLE's 470K+ NEO's and lots of satellites (both updated from Spacetrak) my Q6600 manages to compute the lot with 5s updates (just)...

Peter...

[davew]

SkyMap Pro.

Dave.

[Pug]

I use stellarium 'cos it's easy to understand, but I'm slowly getting my head around the more technical looking cartes du ciel.

[astroimpulse]

I use Stellarium at home on the main PC just because it's more polished, but I use Cartes du Ciel on the netbook when I'm out 'on the job'. I find it a more practical bit of software, which also integrates with EQMOD stuff more betterer.

Pretty much this

[James]

Voyager about 50%, Equinox 40%. The other 10% is made up of Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel, TheSkyX.

James

[Revs]

That Voyager look nice, I'll take a look tonight

[Squagnut]

I use MyStars (simple, clear, does what I've wanted so far), and will probably start using CdC for goto guiding.

[MikeWilson]

The one thing that CdC does that really annoys me is it needs a middle mouse button click in order to 'drag' the view around, unlike Stellarium and some other planetarium software products that let you left click to drag.

This is really annoying when you're in the middle of a cold field sans middle mouse button on a slow netbook that doesn't like having to redraw every time you press an arrow key.

[Guest]

Megastar 5 and Guide 8

Owen

[lukebl]

For a free package, Carte du Ciel can't be beaten. Non-nonsense and technical, and excellent at controlling your scope. A really useful feature is to be able to download and display over the map a deep-sky image of the eyepiece or CCD field you're looking at, to give you an idea what the view will be. I used to like Stellarium, but I find it needlessly flashy and 'pretty'. I mean, who really needs to have the stars artificially twinkling when all you want is to naviate your way around?

[661-pete]

Another vote for CdC here. Absolutely top-notch for detail, ease of use and accuracy (except - perhaps - in high zoom when you have many catalogues open - a bit irritating to see the same star or galaxy listed several times over - in slightly different positions).

Over the years I've downloaded just about every add-on: for stars I now go down to UCAC3 which goes as far as mag. 18 - enough stars for me! It was quite a devil to download the catalogue mind you - had to do it a bit at a time using a FTP downloader. Maybe the process has been streamlined a bit since then?

Also I'm still on CdC version 2.76, haven't tried the version 3 yet. Has anyone any comments on the upgrade?

[jfeeney]

Stellarium here too. As a stargazing newbie, I love the ocular plugin - lets me practice finding DSOs without having to breakout the scope.

[Specman]

I just love Stellarium but for running my HEQ5 I've opted for CdC, purely for practical purposes.

[sbooder]

I voted Stellarium because I use that the most, but I also use The Sky 6.