Astronomy

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Software

Provided below is a list of software I have found very useful through the years

 

Classification

Name

Cost

Version

Description

Company

Hardware Drivers

ASCOM

Free

6.2

The ASCOM Initiative is a loosely-knit group of astronomy software developers and astronomy device manufacturers devoted to vendor-independent plug-and-play control. ASCOM is a many-to-many and language-independent architecture, supported by most astronomy devices which connect to Windows computers. The diagram below shows how ASCOM differs from traditional astronomy instrument control architectures.

N/A

Image Capture

Astro Photography Tool (APT)

$20.00

3.57

The Swiss army knife for your astro imaging sessions. No matter what are imaging with - Canon EOS, Nikon, CCD or CMOS astro camera, APT has the right tool for planning, collimating, aligning, focusing, framing, controlling/tethering, imaging, synchronizing, scheduling, analyzing and monitoring.

Incanus Ltd

Tracking

PHD2 Guilding

Freeware

2.6.5

PHD2 is telescope guiding software that simplifies the process of tracking a guide star, letting you concentrate on other aspects of deep-sky imaging or spectroscopy.

Stark Labs

Image Processing

PixInsight

$200

1.8

PixInsight is an advanced image processing software platform. It has been designed specifically for astrophotography and other technical imaging fields. PixInsight is a modular, open-architecture system where the entire processing and file handling capabilities are implemented as external installable modules.

Pleiades Astrophoto

Analysis

CCD Inspector

$180

2.0

CCDInspector allows astrophotographers to assess and tune their optical systems performance with its real-time optical analysis technology. For the first time, users can precisely collimate their optical system with the CCD in place and in focus. In addition, CCDInspector provides 3D field curvature maps, visual FWHM displays, detailed analysis of the quality of FITS images and much more.

CCDWare

Focus

FocusMax

$150

4.1.0.85

FocusMax provides complete accurate control of your ASCOM-compliant motorized focuser to achieve precise optimal focusing of your imaging train. In addition, tools are provided for characterizing the temperature dependency of your system for temperature-compensated focusing. Analytical tools are provided to optimize results from acquired data.

CCDWare

 

Plate Solving

PlateSolve 2

Free

2.28

Integrates with APT to platesolve your image

PlaneWave

TimeLapse

StarTrails

Freeware

2.3

Stack photos to make time lapse and star trails photos

 

Photo Editing

GIMP 2

Freeware

2.8.20

GIMP is a cross-platform image editor.  I use this instead of PhotoShop.

Used for more complex image manipulation.

 

Photo Editing

IrfanView

Freeware

4.44

Image viewing, and some basic processing.  Mostly used for batch file conversion and generating thumbnails