Best imaging software

[valleyman]

Putting aside all the free software available

 

Which is the best between Nebulosity, Astro Art and Maxim DL, without considering the Price.

 

Which is the most user friendly

 

Pat

[Zakalwe]

Putting aside all the free software available

Which is the best between Nebulosity, Astro Art and Maxim DL, without considering the Price.

Which is the most user friendly

Pat

You would have to define what you mean by "best". And the "best" one might not be the most user-friendly, especially as complexity increases as the software does more. Maxim is more powerful as it can control just about every part of the process (mount control, CCD control, focusing, stacking, post-processing). Olly P talks highly of Astro Art's stacking capabilities. I personally like Nebulosity, but only for data acquisition. It's, undoubtedly powerful, stacking and post processing process is long winded and takes too much user input.

In short,  you'll probably get better responses by more clearly explaining what it is that you wanting to achieve.

[lensman57]

Putting aside all the free software available

Which is the best between Nebulosity, Astro Art and Maxim DL, without considering the Price.

Which is the most user friendly

Pat

Looking at the gear you have in your signature, I would say Nebulasity for capture and it does have some data processing capability. I use StarTools and PI for processing though. Maxim is very capable and it is a whole package but it is quite a large suite and very expensive.

A.G

[glowingturnip]

i don't rate maxim at all for post-processing tbh, pixinsight is much better.  haven't used the capture stuff in maxim though, and the stacking is ok

[Shelster1973]

Am also on the look out for some software too.

Am looking at Nebulosity, Images Plus or Maxim DL, (IP looking like my choice so far) but have to say am not too sure on forking out a great lump of cash on something that I am not sure will be suitable.

Do any of them offer 'demo' downloads, either with prtions hobbled of or time / feature limited? as would want to try before buying.

Final aim is to have camera and also mount control running from same laptop...haven't even started on the investigations into getting the mount controlled by computer as yet...that will be a whole load more investigations and research me thinks

[ChrisLX200]

I settled on Sequence Generator Pro, does everything in the capture department. Pixinsight for processing.

ChrisH

[Shelster1973]

I settled on Sequence Generator Pro, does everything in the capture department. Pixinsight for processing.

ChrisH

SGP looks like a very powerful piece of software there.

From my very brief read so far here in work, am guessing this will control the mount to slew to the desired object, or will this have to be done from another piece of software (Stellarium for example).

Also, I guess you need an autoguider for that functionality to work correctly?  Guess I will be gettign one of those too then.......here come the Airmiles...hehe

[Merlin66]

You can download a demo of AstroArtV5.

It does everything you need....

(As I type this it's "data farming" in the background doing a 9600sec sequence of the Nova Cen.....)

[ChrisLX200]

SGP looks like a very powerful piece of software there.

From my very brief read so far here in work, am guessing this will control the mount to slew to the desired object, or will this have to be done from another piece of software (Stellarium for example).

Also, I guess you need an autoguider for that functionality to work correctly?  Guess I will be gettign one of those too then.......here come the Airmiles...hehe

It will control everything, including slewing to target, plate-solving then centering. You can load an image from a previous session and it will put the camera exactly back on target. It has its own autofocus routine or you can use FocusMax. It will integrate with a planetarium (I use StarryNight Pro because I happened to have it) and will transfer you target list from there, slew and centering if you want. I now use this in place of AstroArt 5.

You'll need an autoguider to guide accurately anyway but the program is happy to work without one if your mount is up to the task of unguided imaging.

ChrisH