The Price Point of Software?

[wuthton]

I tried out Pinpoint plate solving this evening and it was superb but.... it is expensive.... over £100 

There are many software utilities available to us that are very keenly priced for the functionality and convenience they provide, I'm looking at APT and Sequence Generator Pro. Also we use many freewares which are kindly provided for our use by their developers i.e. Eqmod, PHD, Astrometry.net, CdC, Stellarium, DeepSkyStacker + many more.

If Pinpoint was priced around £10-20 I would buy it right now but at £100 I think I'll stick with Astrometry and sacrifice a couple of minutes each evening. I do think if they priced it more sensibly they would sell enough copies to dwarf the price reduction.

[frostynixon]

Hello,

you could try astrotortilla instead of pinpoint. It`s freeware and works great in combination with e.g. phd and backyardeos/nikon. It also supports all ascom cameras.

best regards

PS: I`m looking at pixinsight atm and i have the same feeling as you. If it would be a third of the price i would buy it in an instant.

[Steve 1962]

I've tried Pinpoint, and came to same conclusion as you: it offered very little compared to the free astrometry local server / Astrotortilla option which I think is superb.

The paid software that I use is SGPro - which, at about £60, is just brilliant - especially when compared with Maxim. (I've just woken up after a good nights sleep to full nine and half hours of subs with the kit being looked after without manual intervention all night by SGPro.

I've also got Pixinsight - which, although more expensive, I also think is good value. If you add the cost of PI to SGPro you're still "only" about half way to the cost of Maxim.

[wuthton]

Hello,

you could try astrotortilla instead of pinpoint. It`s freeware and works great in combination with e.g. phd and backyardeos/nikon. It also supports all ascom cameras.

best regards

PS: I`m looking at pixinsight atm and i have the same feeling as you. If it would be a third of the price i would buy it in an instant.

I used to use Astrotortilla but I found it too temperamental. The plate solving in SGP combined with either Astrometry or Pinpoint is superb, failed to solve is a thing of the past.

I've tried Pinpoint, and came to same conclusion as you: it offered very little compared to the free astrometry local server / Astrotortilla option which I think is superb.

The paid software that I use is SGPro - which, at about £60, is just brilliant - especially when compared with Maxim. (I've just woken up after a good nights sleep to full nine and half hours of subs with the kit being looked after without manual intervention all night by SGPro.

I've also got Pixinsight - which, although more expensive, I also think is good value. If you add the cost of PI to SGPro you're still "only" about half way to the cost of Maxim.

After I started this topic last night I tried a few more solves with Pinpoint and it is blisteringly quick but when compared with the software you've listed you don't get much for a hundred quid. Going back to Astrometry might be painful though.

[Xplode]

Astrotortilla works great if set up correctly and the computer isn't too slow. My solve rate has been 100% lately and usually solves the image in under 10sec

[strutsinaction]

The paid software that I use is SGPro - which, at about £60, is just brilliant

Agreed, superb piece of software with excellent support. The Framing and Mosaic Wizard for an extra £30 is also well worth the money.

Regards

John

[Steve 1962]

My local astrometry server solves anything (touchwood) in less than 10 secs too, after a bit of fettling. The biggest speed improvement I've found is to delete any unused index files.

[strutsinaction]

Yes, removing the unused index files had a dramatic effect on performance of my local Astrometry.net too. I started off by downloading the whole lot just for fun, something like 32Gb of data! My working set has now been pared back to index files 4208 to 4212, about 140Mb.

[michaelmorris]

If Pinpoint was priced around £10-20 I would buy it right now but at £100 I think I'll stick with Astrometry and sacrifice a couple of minutes each evening. I do think if they priced it more sensibly they would sell enough copies to dwarf the price reduction.

I guess the issue might relate to the developers preferred business model

The argument goes something like this:

Option 1 - High price full featured software

Sell 100 units at £500 each = income of £50,000

Development time = 250 hours

Support 100 users = 50 hours of support per year

Option 2 - Low price less featured software

Sell 1000 units at £50 each = income of £50,000

Development time = 100 hours

Support for 1000 users = 200 hours of support per year - assumes users of low cost software likely to be less demanding

The danger of option 1 is that you over-price the product and not enough people buy it because of its high price.

The danger of option 2 is that not enough people want your product in the first place and as result you will never make enough money.

I guess it's much easier to quickly switch your business model from 1 to 2 than from 2 to 1.

Unfortunately life isn't exactly like this, but I hope it illustrates my point.  Both are perfectly valid business models which yield the same hourly rate of return for the developer. 

[ollypenrice]

Hello,

you could try astrotortilla instead of pinpoint. It`s freeware and works great in combination with e.g. phd and backyardeos/nikon. It also supports all ascom cameras.

best regards

PS: I`m looking at pixinsight atm and i have the same feeling as you. If it would be a third of the price i would buy it in an instant.

You can call Pixinsight gratuitously obscure, you can call it all sorts of things (and probably will!  ) but you can't call it expensive. Be fair, it is utterly phenomenal with the some of the best tools in astrophotography and a staggering number of funtions along with free updates for the rest of time. Thousands of hours of development have gone into creating this package and all this for a very small market. What is more this developing has not been done by Joe Soap, it is the work of people at genius level, quite literally. I would pay the PI asking price just for Dynamic Background Extraction. The perfect removal of colour gradients was a desperate task before this and, while it's about it, DBE gives you a perfect colour balance and a neutral background sky colour as well. Then there's SCNR Green. How did I manage without that? And LHE. And...

The only way I can describe the PI price is 'astonishingly inexpensive.' And it comes with a free Harry Page!  You 'd pay a fortune for  Harry Page in a crash helmet shop!     

Olly

[pete_l]

I guess the issue might relate to the developers preferred business model

The argument goes something like this:

Option 1 - High price full featured software

Sell 100 units at £500 each = income of £50,000

Development time = 250 hours

Support 100 users = 50 hours of support per year

Ahhh, if only a fully featured software package could be knocked out in 250 hours (about 6 weeks of full-time work)

I would suggest that it takes 10 to 20 times that long - a timespan of years. The documentation alone would account for a considerable chunk of that time (reckon on 1 hour per page to write, illustrate, format, index, proof-read and tweak). As for the testing and compatibility checking? A monumental task.

That tends to be the biggest difference between a good quality professional product and a piece of freeware. The question is whether people are prepared to pay for it. A decent astro package is easily worth as much as a decent eyepiece. It's just a shame that so few of us see intangible stuff in the same way as "goods".

[Earl]

If it was not For Harry Page PI would be a mystery to many. I personally find PS more of a mystery since my time spent listening to harry

[johnrt]

Sequence Generator Pro and Pixinsight are by far the best value products I have bought in a very, very long time.

[wuthton]

Sequence Generator Pro and Pixinsight are by far the best value products I have bought in a very, very long time.

I think this is the problem. These two in particular make some other software packages look very expensive.

[Earl]

I must Say SGP is handled in a very hands on approach by the Devs and they are really on the ball when it comes to interacting with their customer base on the forum, hats off to them.

I use it most of the time, although i do strugle with the autofocus at times, the newer betas seem to have it better under control.

[michaelmorris]

Ahhh, if only a fully featured software package could be knocked out in 250 hours (about 6 weeks of full-time work)

I would suggest that it takes 10 to 20 times that long - a timespan of years. The documentation alone would account for a considerable chunk of that time (reckon on 1 hour per page to write, illustrate, format, index, proof-read and tweak). As for the testing and compatibility checking? A monumental task.

I did say it just for illustrative purposes. 

I appreciate that developing software takes months/years rather than hours.

I agree with your comment about comparative costs.  I guess we are spoilt by the availiablity of some good/very good software that are written as much as a labour of love as being a commercial venture.  You are right, the documentation on much of this software is below what you would expect from more expensive software.

This must make it hard for those who are trying to make a living from writing software.  My perception (i.e. not necessarily reality) is that there is a cultural element to which business model is applied, with software originating from the USA being more likely to be fit the high price, full featured model.

[wuthton]

I did say it just for illustrative purposes.

I appreciate that developing software takes months/years rather than hours.

It does demonstrate the difficulty of pricing a product that requires so many man hours to produce but yet has no actual intrinsic value.

[frostynixon]

You can call Pixinsight gratuitously obscure, you can call it all sorts of things (and probably will!  ) but you can't call it expensive...

...

The only way I can describe the PI price is 'astonishingly inexpensive.' And it comes with a free Harry Page!  You 'd pay a fortune for  Harry Page in a crash helmet shop!     

Olly

Hello,

you are probably right. Maybe i find it expensive because so far the maximum amount of money i paid for software was on the order of 70,- to 80,- €. I fully believe that PI is a very capable software and well worth the money and i will buy it eventually. It`s just that sometimes if you are not prepared, certain price tags are shocking. It was the same when i started with photography when i got to learn how much proper lenses cost. 

br

[Sp@ce_d]

Well, I guess it's down to what you expect from your investment.

My tale will probably make your eyes water then!

My quest of getting those elusive subs by maximising sky time and still keep the job, hold onto Ms Sp@ce_d, have a life and...  err... sleep sometimes?

Has led me through such a frustrating circle of upgrades and yet more & more time spent trying to make this work with that or that work with this... That I had less and less time getting anywhere near those subs!

In my blind determination I thought building a double and then a triple shooter was the way.. 3 hours of subs in one real hour.. oh yes. Well, trying to make the software all hang together with that lot is a nightmare. There's nothing that will sync multiple capture devices, so you can't dither. For no apparent reason one night something will take a fit and hang the bus rendering the entire thing comatose while you think you're smugly sharing the evening with your loved one your rig is grinding itself into the pier

I don't think I've posted any finished images in at least the last year, I just fought with one piece of kit after another. Towards the end of last year I took a step back and weighed up what I'm actually trying to do and suddenly it dawned on me. No matter what gear & software I had it was dependant on me setting it all up and kicking it off on its way. If something happened the best outcome would be it all shutdown & the roof closed. However, if it was safe in half an hour I would have to wake up to set it all of again.. well its ok.. my time is cheaper than software.. ay?

Well, I finally decided to try what is probably the most expensive piece of capture software the amateur will invest in, ACP. I'd been put off trying it because of the price tag.. how could I justify it? Well, I'd ended up spending far more in bits here and there and that hadn't worked so why not try it I thought. So off came the multiple scopes and for the first time in a couple of years I started afresh & sat a single scope on the mount!

It's a bit of a learning curve but not as steep as I expected and you know what... I've had more usable subs in the past couple of months than in the whole of at least the previous year if not longer. From just one scope!

There's a heck of a lot gone into it..years. I was sceptical of the value but the proof is in the output. I still have a way to go refining it & I now have 2 scopes on the mount I can switch between remotely depending on the focal length I want to shoot

So to me it would have been far cheaper to buy the most expensive piece of software, a Tak, 10Micron/Mesu/ etc.. blahdy blah blah.. in the first place than what I've spent on gear and in wasted time in the last few years. You know what, trying to build that photon hoover on the cheap has actually cost me more in the long run.

Oh and Pixinsight? Just do it.. You know it makes sense

[JacobvonChorus]

Second Pixinsight, absolutely fantastic. It takes care of all of my post-processing needs, everything from the initial image calibration, right through to the final touches. There is a decent learning curve, but that goes for anything in this hobby.  

Jacob

[perfrej]

Slightly off topic... Has anyone managed to get the local version of the SGP Astrometry.net server to accept requests from anything but SGP? Mine fails miserably, so I am working on a local implementation of the full nova.astrometry.com web service so that all possible clients out there can use it. I wil host it locally in our Provence setup.

/per

[Sp@ce_d]

Slightly off topic... Has anyone managed to get the local version of the SGP Astrometry.net server to accept requests from anything but SGP? Mine fails miserably, so I am working on a local implementation of the full nova.astrometry.com web service so that all possible clients out there can use it. I wil host it locally in our Provence setup.

/per

I had exactly the same thoughts a couple of days ago with astrometry.net being down. I was going to ask over at dc-3 but see the threads already there didn't get far. I'd be interested to hear if you crack it.

[wuthton]

I had exactly the same thoughts a couple of days ago with astrometry.net being down. I was going to ask over at dc-3 but see the threads already there didn't get far. I'd be interested to hear if you crack it.

Coincidentally that is why I tried Pinpoint in the first place. I was using a new PC and hadn't got round to/forgotten to download the index files.

[silios]

Slightly off topic... Has anyone managed to get the local version of the SGP Astrometry.net server to accept requests from anything but SGP? Mine fails miserably, so I am working on a local implementation of the full nova.astrometry.com web service so that all possible clients out there can use it. I wil host it locally in our Provence setup.

/per

Hi Per,

had a look in the ansvr code and it looks like it uses the exact same principles with the online API version.

Both need to be accessed by POST and then

-- log in

-- upload image

-- pass parameters wrapped in json format (emulating webform) for solving and waiting for results.

They also have a python client ready here -> http://trac.astrometry.net/browser/trunk/src/astrometry/net/client/client.py which i tested and worked (partially cause i know jack about python atm) and got to the point of uploading an image with specific parameters to the local server.

Which method - way have you tried?

[r3i]

I guess the issue might relate to the developers preferred business model

The argument goes something like this:

Option 1 - High price full featured software

Sell 100 units at £500 each = income of £50,000

Development time = 250 hours

Support 100 users = 50 hours of support per year

Option 2 - Low price less featured software

Sell 1000 units at £50 each = income of £50,000

Development time = 100 hours

Support for 1000 users = 200 hours of support per year - assumes users of low cost software likely to be less demanding

The danger of option 1 is that you over-price the product and not enough people buy it because of its high price.

The danger of option 2 is that not enough people want your product in the first place and as result you will never make enough money.

I guess it's much easier to quickly switch your business model from 1 to 2 than from 2 to 1.

Unfortunately life isn't exactly like this, but I hope it illustrates my point.  Both are perfectly valid business models which yield the same hourly rate of return for the developer. 

That's an interesting point about end user support.  I've often wondered how one would go about pricing a piece of software, and whether you should price it so that few people pay a high price or lots of people pay a low price for the same level of functionality.  I guess by setting a premium price you're going to reduce the support overhead.

Another piece of software that looks very useful but is a rather niche product is CCD Inspector.  It goes for $180, which is quite pricey, and I wonder if the price was say $60 they'd sell more than 3 times as many as they do now?