Do you prefer Stellarium or Cartes Du Ciel?

[dark knight]

Stellarium won hands down for me, however now use THE Sky6.

[cathalferris]

I have custom horizons set up for use in Stellarium so I can get fairly accurate rise / set / visibility from the various points that I can set up my scope at. I've got all of the star databases downloaded for Stellarium as well. I use the scoep / eyepiece visibility plugin a lot to see what things will look like through the various scopes and that is handy. The lack of deep sky object catalogues is a bit of a drawback.

However, I tend to prefer using CdC for its accuracy and general ease of info display. I've got the full 220gb PPMXL database of star positions and magnitudes down to ~mag.20 and that's a lot better for me to play with! Tracking of objects and generating charts with tracks on them for printing or otherwise is much easier in CdC and that's a feature that I tend to use a bit.

Horses for courses to be honest. I've tried the various payware applications but there hasn't been any great added value there that would get me to buy and use them over these two freeware applications. Though I can see myself with a properly set up observatory in ~5 years, and I think I would like to have it remote-capable and that may be best done with Software Bisque's package. We'll have to see though.

[The Flinty Fox]

Hi, have just been looking at cartes du ciel, which i downloaded today, and i can honestly say i have absolutely no idea what i'm doing. I'm trying to look at star clusters such as M36, M37 and all i can get is brown circles. Where are all the stars? There seems to be a distinctive lack of them. Where are they and how can i find them?

Any help appreciated

Cheers:confused:

[Macavity]

I'm trying to look at star clusters such as M36, M37 and all i can get is brown circles.

Ah, but they are simply "markers", rather than images of the real thing. There is a "picture" option, requiring an additional (200Mb+) database, but I've not tried it. The rightmost button on the lower button bar has a few [imo] more attractive options for displaying ordinary stars. The nebulae outlines are also useful.

[Double Kick Drum]

CdC is my preferred option though I do also have Stellarrium.

[Gweedo]

Stellarium for me.

Easy to use, nice features, and looks good.

[earth titan]

As most here suggest, Stellarium for planning and pretty work but when I need to interface with the mount, CdC everyime.

[malc-c]

CdC for use with the scope / Eqmod, but also use Winstars2. Stellarium always seems to want a lot of computer resources for what should be a simple application, regardless of what computer I ran it on

[nlessel]

I have both installed, but mostly use CdC. I have set CdC graphics to black on white with anti-alias setting to ON. There are quite a few settings in CdC and I have found that the program is much better after adjusting many of these settings to my liking :-) I have probably spent an hour or more, adjusting all the settings. The only downside, with CdC, for me is that moving around the map is a little slow, but it helps to turn off unnecessary items.

[Moonshane]

I must be weird. I prefer a paper map. although I don't image.

[Mr Spock]

I too have CdC customised to suit me. Here's a crop of M13...

[proflight2000]

C Du C is the one I like mainly based on the statistical information it provides. I love numbers, loads and loads of numbers even though I don't understand most of them. But slightly off topic, I still use my starrynight pro 6 for seeing what is about. I have become so used to its interface that I know it off by heart. Stellarium is an excellent programme mind you, so I run that too.

[Parus major]

I use Stellarium for playing with but CdC for EQmod but the sinclair spectrum style field rotation really annoys me.

[Catweazel]

Prefer Stellarium, but don't have a motorized mount so just for planning of viewing!

[MarsG76]

CDC for its no nonsence schematic like layout, RAW data, easy to read interface through red film and control of the scope. Just like engineers like...

If I need to plan my imaging framing, I have FOV markers and circles setup for cameras and OAG in starrynight pro 6. 

[DaveS]

Wow, another 5 yr old thread!

Myself I use Stellarium for thinking about my imaging or setting fov but CduC for controling the scope, especially as ASA mounts have their own software / interface which CduC works with.

[Islander]

Both for me, backed up with a decent (Tirion) star atlas

 

[Stub Mandrel]

CDC if you prefer to look at something that looks like a map and love having millions of tweaky things to look at.

Stellarium if you want something to compare the view through EP/camera with when finding your way around.

[Gina]

CdC has a FOV display.  I use it a lot.