Nebulosity, Opinions, Thoughts

[Mav359]

Hi guys

I'm nearly ready to purchase a QHY10 & yesterday i sat through the two tutorials of nebulosity and it seems quite good.

Craig Stark has confirmed that the camera is compatible with nebulosity, as its not free i wanted to get some opinions from people who may have actually used it before i go and purchase it.

What do you think? Would you use something else and why?

Cheers

[Tim]

I love Nebulosity (2) and wouldn't use anything else for image capture.

It is clean, easy to use, super intuitive and just what you want at 4.30 in the morning. I have Maxim and a few others but always use Nebulosity.

But you can try it for free with all features, so see what you think.

[Jessun]

I use Nebulosity and I find it very simple and reliable to use. It is in my view mainly a capture program with preprocessing thrown in and it's topped off with a few handy functions for stacking and post editing too. So I'd say the capturing is it's strength in how easy to use it is. Especially outside in the cold at a dark site. With a few clicks you're framing, focusing and imaging.

In my experience it has never crashed and it talks to PHD as well.

I also have the latest AstroArt but it just happens to be unreliable with my particular laptop/camera kit. AstroArt take a bit longer to get your head around, and personally I find it a bit fiddly to get going even once you know how to i.e. tiny popup windows to work with, but AstroArt does many, many more tricks and has its own guiding program.

It's a more complete package.

My vote: Nebulosity if you intend to bring out a small laptop to a dark site and want things to be simple and reliable, but AA if you have a warm room, and perhaps a bigger screen too.

Good luck with the new camera!

[Mav359]

Cheers guys, i like simple.

I'll have a go at the demo. I'll give astro art a go as well.

[perfrej]

I'd put my money on Neb2 as well, or rather, I did. I also wrote a script creator for it which makes it easy to set up a large and complex imaging session with filter wheel, darks and flats if need be.

The best thing about my "front end" software is that I can capture the different filters overlapping instead of first all red, then all green etc. Just tick the checkbox for spread exposure and it will create a script that changes filter between each exposure. When you get clouded in, at least you have some of each filter and not a whole bunch of reds.

Neb2 has proven very reliable and Craig listens to feature requests very well. He is also quick with fixes if you find something wrong.

I'd say it is a total steal and very simple to use.

/per

[perfrej]

just what you want at 4.30 in the morning.

Ah, I'm sound asleep at that time, my script running the show on the balcony outside the bedroom window

In fact, I have never stayed up waiting for my scope. If I have to tend to it I'll take a quick dash out of bed at 4...

/per

[Komet]

As has already been pointed out, Nebulosity is a capture prog only and does talk well to PHD. However PHD doesn't seem to work for everybody - it certainly doesn't for me. This may mean that you may also need a guiding program in the future.

It will be very worthwhile to try the Astroart demo also as that includes an excellent guiding routine.

If PHD does work for you though then it is also worthwhile to have a look at Sequence Generator Pro. Still in beta but very, very capable. This is the evolution of SequenceGenerator - a frant end for Astroart and Nebulosity. It provides superb camera control (ASCOM at the moment but that list will grow) with excellent warm up and cool down routines. Control of filter wheels and mounts - all ASCOM as stated earlier. It also provides excellent plate solving (Neb don't do dat!) via Elbrus with some very neat tricks. It also integrates beautifully with PHD so if PHD works for you then that is a plus. I have been using it for a bit and love it. Available from Main Sequence Software and improving very quickly. Don't spend your money on Nebulosity just yet - check SGPro out first.

[Mav359]

Cheers Komet i'll have a look at that as well. As for PHD its been working for me up to now but seems to have developed a DEC issue, i haven't time to re-balance the scope and investigate further yet but i'll deffo try this out to see if PHD is the issue.

Cheers

[r3i]

Another thumbs up here for Nebulosity. Works very well with PHD (for me it does anyway).

Would echo what others have said in that it's easy to use and superb for capturing and pre-processing operations. Its post processing functions are a bit basic but can be handy for doing a bit of rough stretching to get an idea of how well (or badly) your image is turning out. After pre-processing in Nebulosity, I head for CS3 to do the real post-processing stuff.

I've never used Astro Art so can't comment on it myself but I know a lot of folks on here rate it highly.

For me Nebulosity has been good value for money.

[Mav359]

I do my processing in DSS & PS and am quite please so, far its the capturing software for the new camera that i'm most interested at this point

Cheers R3i

[FrankieValley]

I leve Nebulosity also. I haven't used much else, but it has taken me from my early steps in capture and processing. I would say I am at intermediate level now, but have no desire to change from Neb. I find the instructions are very good, it is well laid out and intuitive to use. Cameras are added regularly and in good time.

[Steve 1962]

Another vote for Neb 2 and PHD - I find Neb 2 very simple to use for capture and initial stacking etc...and (touch wood) I've never had a problem with interfacing it to PHD.