Ad Astra Observatory

With the observatory down for another week or so, I have been considering re-trying the Mac Mini out as an observatory server.

I started researching Mac astrophotography software, with disappointing results.

Here is a list of things that I am coming to depend upon from my astronomy software:

– DSLR control
– webcam control
– autoguider control
– motor focus control (including autofocus)
– telescope control (parameter setting/getting, plus slewing)
– image naming and storage
– guiding data
– polar alignment
– periodic error analysis
.
.
.
the list goes on. These are just the heavy hitters that I thought of while sitting here. Note I didn’t even touch image processing (stacking, deconvolution, etc).

Put simply, the tools on PC can get all this done for me, with a lot of fuss and nonsense. Essentially, MaxIM does the heavy lifting, and with a couple of “plug ins” (because really that’s what FocusMax and PemPro are), I can do the rest. If I upgrade to the “pro” version of MaxIM, I can even do planetarium style telescope control from MaxIM. Neat. I haven’t even gone to the really complicated level, with plate solving and scripting/automation.

The tools for Mac just aren’t there. Yes, there are lots of planetarium programs. Yes, there are a handful of camera control programs (still difficult to find ones that work with particular cameras though). Yes, there are a couple of telescope control programs. But to do all of what I can do in Windows? I can’t find a setup that is fewer than 3 programs (Equinox + iAstrophoto + PHD Guiding and there’s no PE analysis or autofocus, period). And there is a lot of stuff (like CdC) that “only sort of works” on Mac (CdC has no scope control for Mac for instance).

In short, pains me to say it, but I can’t but see running Windows as my observatory box for the foreseeable.

I just don’t see the Mac Mini being a useful platform for astronomy. Not when I have a native Windows laptop out there already. Built-in screen and keyboard, same number of USB ports, no need to dual boot or fight a VM.

I wouldn’t mind being able to offload the processing to a different box. But I guess I am pretty happy with how the PC is running the observatory at the moment.

Another task checked off the list, at least for now.