Color CMOS processing

[tooth_dr]

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

I like APP, I really do. And it's available for mac. What I don't like it it's 200 quid* price tag for a stacker. When it's up against DSS which is free

APP is actually £165 not £200.

 

[scotty38]

Don't get me wrong I realise that even £165 is £165 more than £0 but in the grand old scheme of things against the price of hardware it's in the small percentages. True if you get no pleasure from it then fine but I have both APP and PI because I've wasted much more than that tinkering with eyepieces or whatever....

[powerlord]

31 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Don't get me wrong I realise that even £165 is £165 more than £0 but in the grand old scheme of things against the price of hardware it's in the small percentages. True if you get no pleasure from it then fine but I have both APP and PI because I've wasted much more than that tinkering with eyepieces or whatever....

Personal choice for sure whether it's worth it or not.

Not sure why HW cost is relevant. My mac was 2500 quid, but I don't expect software for it to cost more because of it. Some software is worth more to me, and I think it offers good value even though it's expensive. Final Cut Pro for example. I just think APP is vastly over priced for what it is. Same with PI. Would they sell 4 times more licences at 50 quid a licence and therefore make more money ? who knows. It's a difficult thing to price up. But they certainly lost a sale to me is all I can say.

stu

[scotty38]

3 minutes ago, powerlord said:

Personal choice for sure whether it's worth it or not.

Not sure why HW cost is relevant. My mac was 2500 quid, but I don't expect software for it to cost more because of it. Some software is worth more to me, and I think it offers good value even though it's expensive. Final Cut Pro for example. I just think APP is vastly over priced for what it is. Same with PI. Would they sell 4 times more licences at 50 quid a licence and therefore make more money ? who knows. It's a difficult thing to price up. But they certainly lost a sale to me is all I can say.

stu

Sort of what I was saying re personal choice.  No way I'd buy a mac at £2500 when I can run the software I want/need on a cheap Dell running free Linux. Is it the same question turned round to ask why a mac costs so much versus another piece of hardware that "does the same"? To me a mac is vastly over priced for what it does so yep I guess we are in agreement....

[powerlord]

16 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Sort of what I was saying re personal choice.  No way I'd buy a mac at £2500 when I can run the software I want/need on a cheap Dell running free Linux. Is it the same question turned round to ask why a mac costs so much versus another piece of hardware that "does the same"? To me a mac is vastly over priced for what it does so yep I guess we are in agreement....

yup. if all you want it for is that then absolutely. right tool for the job at hand for sure.

[rickwayne]

"Right tool for the job" is of course correct, but "right" has a LOT of wiggle room to it. A lot of it is in intangibles. The Mac has decades of Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field making it cooler, they're good-looking machines with a lot of cachet so many are inclined to buy them for that, regardless of technical  merit. (Disclaimer: I am, in  fact, typing this on a $2500 MacBook Pro that I use for Windows software development.)

Likewise, APP's intangibles are, to me, worth a fair bit. It just feels right to me, and I do a lot more than stack with it. A LOT more. If you're getting equivalent results out of free or cheap tools and feel good about the process, I salute you -- more power to you. Me, there's a reason I paid my €165 after using just about every free tool out there. I didn't try out a bunch of the less-expensive ones first, just figured that if I was going to have to pay, I'd go premium and not worry about it afterwards. So the choice for me was PI or APP. After using both APP was the clear winner for usability out of the box.

[DaveS]

I started using AstroArt when I moved from DSLR to mono CCD as it did everything I needed from capture to post to JPEG for posting or PNG for printing. I've stayed with it from v5 through v7 (Missed out 6) and now v8 (A huge improvement, even over v7). I now use Maxim DL for capture, but only because the ASA software currently requires it.

I've tried Startools, Image Plus and Pixinsight but have come back to AA8. Pixinsight had me even with Warren's book.

[CCD-Freak]

I also have used AstroArt since V2 and I am currently using AstroArt 8.  I use it to control the scope, camera and EAF focuser and then do my pre-processing and post processing with it too. 

It is a very capable "one stop shop"  (^8

This is one of my latest projects I am working on.  I have some more image data to add to the stack so it is not done yet. 

M78 200 x 2 minutes ASI-533MCP with a UV-IR filter through a Sharpstar 150 mm F2.8 Hyper Newt.

Edited November 19, 2021 by CCD-Freak