Astronomy Software
Astronomy software I like to use:
Stellarium is my preferred planetarium software for quick look-ups. It’s simply and straightforward, and it gives you plenty of customization options.
It’s a nuisance that a number of steps are involved in setting up telescope guidance, and this may put some people off. Also, it will only work with a limited number of scopes. These are the Meade LX200 or AutoStar telescopes, G11 or compatible, and Celestron NexStar telescopes. In addition, because you have to use subversion and compile the source, it’s easier to do things using Linux.
I’ve tried it and it works well with my LX90 in a room. I’ve yet to try it outdoors.
System: Windows / Linux / Mac.
This is a great program for Linux. It’s got a very nice interface and colour scheme. From what I’ve seen this tends to be used by a great many backyard astronomers.
The telescope guidance is no problem to set up, at least it wasn’t for me. What was a problem was getting the right-click functionality to work. Supposedly, you should be able to perform some of the same operations as the control panel. Well, unless I’m doing it wrong, and I don’t see how I am, the right-click doesn’t work at all. If I select slew, nothing happens, the scope doesn’t move. Yes, I can more it via the control panel.
What this means is that you have to manually guide the scope to a location, you can’t select and location and have it just “goto.” I find this very cumbersome. I’ll have to investigate it further because I can’t believe this is the default.
System: Linux.
This is what serious people use, apparently. The free version has to be compiled. I had a little trouble at first but then sorted it out. How you compile it for Ubuntu without any problems is document on my Linux How-To site here.
I’ve still yet to test it as a telescope guidance system.
System: Linux.
The Meade package. This seem all right, what little I’ve used of it. However, the interface is not as nice as user friendly for me as the two above. I find it a bit awkward at the moment.
System: Windows / Linux using Wine.
This seems fairly basic but it is fast. I was very impressed at how the telescope guidance worked straight away with little fuss in setting things up.
It has a list of scopes to choose from, and while the LX90 isn’t on the list, the LX200 is. I just chose that and everything worked fine. I was very impressed with how easy and accurate it was from the start.
System: Windows / Linux using Wine.
This is free and appears to be quite comprehensive. It uses the ASCOM drivers for telescope control. Graphically, at a quick glance, it seems a lot like Autostar, although has far fewer features.
I’ll be testing it further in due course.
System: Windows / Linux using Wine.
Another nice looking free one. I haven’t comprehensively tested it yet.
Software Links Sites: