A Sampling of Astronomy Software and Resources for Apple Macintosh Computers One asterisk. means I have or had a license and I have tried the application. Two asterisks.
means I have a current license and I use the application. Three asterisks. means that I am a frequent user. Please note that the asterisks or lack thereof are not a quality rating; they indicate only the extent of my experience with an app. I’ll cite just one example: Astro IIDC.
Nebulosity 4.2 Multilingual macOS 159 Mb Nebulosity is designed to be a powerful, but simple to use capture and processing application for Windows (7/8/10. Nebulosity (Windows and OS X) is designed to be a powerful, but simple to. Atik legacy and modern (Titan not supported on Mac yet); Canon DIGIC II* / III / 4.
It is probably the best lunar and planetary stacking software available, full stop. But I have one asterisk behind it in the list because—except on rare occasions—I am not a Solar System Photographer. This is not a comprehensive list of Macintosh astronomy software. With your own brief writeup for inclusion on this page.
Observation planning and telescope control. Highly recommended.
Can communicate with Equinox. Captures QuickTime video from FireWire or USB webcams. You may require drivers from. Originally Windows-only and known as Cartes Du Ciel (Sky Charts), this venerable (and free) program has come to OS X. Don’t forget to download the databases under Current Catalogs. For imaging with ALTA CCD cameras.
The current version is used mainly by professionals, and it is free. Future versions will reportedly support CCD, CMOS, and DSLR cameras from a variety of vendors, and will not be free. There is no web site for this software at this time. E-mail Georg Tuparev at to get a copy.
From ESA/ESO/NASA. As far as I know this is the only way to bring a FITS image into Photoshop for further editing without saving the FITS as another format first.
I use this Photoshop plug-in frequently and find it to be extremely convenient. Version 2.3, released in November, 2009, works with Photoshop CS3 and CS4. Be sure to read the installation instructions carefully, especially if you are installing in Photoshop CS3. Focusing assistance for Canon digital SLR’s.
The author was inspired. Not all Canon cameras are supported. Author Steve Bryson is apparently too busy with to continue development. The iPhone is a Mac (sort of)!, who teaches astronomy and physics at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, has assembled a list of star-charting apps for iPhone and iPod Touch. Webcam control and autoguiding (for Meade LX200-compatible telescopes).
Recently updated for Intel Macs and Leopard. Stacking and combining of still images or QuickTime videos. $15 and worth every penny!. A comprehensive Moon atlas. As of this writing, in late June, 2009, I have only recently purchased this software and I do not have extensive experience with it yet.
Stacking and combining of still images or QuickTime videos. Works with third-party servo hardware to control a Dobsonian telescope (“Dob”).
Can even control a Dob via a bluetooth-enabled cell phone!. Java-based sunclock for Mars, showing graphical representations of the planet’s position relative to Earth. Also available:. Free from NASA. August, 2008: Finally, an update!
Displays information on current, past, and future lunar phases. One of the best Mac image-capture and processing apps. Craig Stark, PhD, writes “Nebulosity (Windows and OS X) is designed to be a powerful, but simple-to-use capture and processing application for a wide range of astronomy CCD cameras. Many cameras are supported for capture. And images from just about anything can be processed (support for many FITS formats, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, CR2/CRW, etc).” Various observing logs in database format.
This is another great piece of software from Craig Stark, who says “PHD Guiding is designed to be ‘Push Here Dummy’ simple, yet provide powerful, intelligent auto-guiding of your telescope for both PCs and Macs. Connect your mount, your camera, select a star, and start guiding. That's it!In PHD Guiding, all calibration is taken care of automatically. You do not need to tell it anything about the orientation of your camera, nor do you need to tell it anything about the image scale. The automatic calibration routine takes care of this for you.
Nebulosity 4 Mac Nebulosity 4 For Mac Download
Odds are you won't ever need to set a single parameter. Just select your star and hit 'PHD Guide' and let the software take care of it.” This is the software I use most often for guiding with my guide camera. Guiding could hardly be simpler than it is with this combination. Pixinsight is astro-image processing software that came to the Mac in December, 2008. It is world-class software—as advanced as any astro-image processing application available to date. The interface is not very Mac-like, and the learning curve is made a bit steeper by the lack of documentation, but Pixinsight touts their forums as the source for help. Craig Stark, himself an author of excellent Mac imaging software (see Nebulosity and PHD Guider) has put a couple of Pixinsight video tutorials at.
Also see Craig's blog at. Free from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard. “SAOImage DS9 is an astronomical imaging and data visualization application. DS9 supports FITS images and binary tables, multiple frame buffers, region manipulation, and many scale algorithms and colormaps. It provides for easy communication with external analysis tasks and is highly configurable and extensible.”.
Planetarium software with telescope control. Runs on OS X and iOS.
An iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) can control a telescope via WiFi using SkySafari and Southern Stars’ SkyFi Wireless Telescope Controller. A guaranteed winner for your home use or at a public star party. Planetarium program; runs natively under OS X and OS 8.1 and above.
I hesitated before listing Starlink here because it is part of the Fishcamp Engineering’s Starfish Guide Camera package. I bought a Starlfish in November, 2008, however, and I found the Starfish and Starlink combination provided excellent guiding. This software has been rendered largely obsolete by PHD Guiding. This was the first iOS app I listed here.
StarMap Pro (there is a regular edition as well) is available from the iTunes store. It deserved special mention because, as far as I know, it was the first iOS app that could control a telescope, albeit indirectly. Starmap Pro can synchronize with (see above) and control a telescope that is connected to the Mac that is running Equinox Pro. Planetarium and telescope control. Very elaborate very good. Free planetarium program, noted for its beauty. Not for heavy-duty observing, I think, but good for finding out what’s up.
This is part of the complete re-write of all of Software Bisque’s software. TheSkyX Pro is the replacement for TheSky 6 (Windows only) and it offers as add-ons both camera control (replacing CCDSoft) and TPoint. This is the first time that TPoint has been available for the Mac. TheSkyX is suitable for the most demanding user. Software Bisque is justifiably famous for superb customer support through the forums at Bisque.com. In addition, in my experience Software Bisque ranks very high in quality control; problems are rare and if they turn out to be bugs, they are addressed quickly. A powerful cousin of TheSkyX Pro running on iPad or iPhone!
Trust me on this-it is awesome on an iPad! New to the Mac in late 2009. I have been most impressed by my initial look at this software. Downloads are at. Download and install the software first, then download the textures and picture libraries as you wish. (A Lunar Atlas) A planetarium and telescope-control application. At least two Mac astronomers report that Voyager is worth a look, and one of them says that Voyager has been his astronomy app of choice for the Mac since it first appeared in the pre-OS X era.
Planetarium software and printed charts and books will tell you a great deal about deep-sky objects, but they don’t show you where an object is in the Milky Way relative to the Earth (or outside the Milky Way, as is the case with other galaxies.) That’s where Where is M13? It helps you visualize the 3-D locations in addition to the physical properties of common deep sky objects. A nice feature is that you can choose relative or absolute data about an object. Where is M13? Formerly cost $19, but author Bill Tschumy has made it freeware. Where is M13? Is available for Mac OS (Universal Binary), Linux/Unix, and Windows.
UNIX planetarium and telescope control. Runs under Free if you want to compile it yourself, available as a Mac OS X package installer for a modest fee. This is an extremely powerful application that is worth the time required to learn to use its various options and functions. It is a good introduction to running UNIX software on a Mac. There is a great deal of UNIX software available from the major observatories and research institutions around the world.
Macs can run all of it because the Mac OS is UNIX. In some cases, like IRAF and XEphem, there are Mac installers available that work from the standard Mac graphic user interface. In other cases it is assumed that you know UNIX and you are expected to compile and install the software from the UNIX command line. In the case of IRAF and some others you must know some programming in order to write little programs called “scripts” that are needed to control the software. I have omitted most of that software from this page, but a Google search should show you a selection.
Windows Not featured here is Windows software because this is a Mac astronomy page. You may safely conclude that I'm not a Windows fan, but I would not spite myself or limit my options by ignoring good Windows software if I needed it to do what I want to do. I sometimes boot my old 17' MacBook Pros in Windows 7 Pro or run Windows under Parallels Desktop.
I have several excellent Windows applications from (though I am now using their Mac software), plus AstroArt, CCDStack, MaximDL, and other Windows astronomy applications. I want to emphasize that I get along with Windows OK, but as of this update on April 26, 2018, I have not found the need to run Windows in astronomy for more than a six years. I boot Windows periodically to get my anti-virus software updates and Microsoft updates and that's about the extent of it.
The majority of the astrophotographs displayed on primordial-light.com, and all recent ones, are 100% Mac-made, but not all of them. If you are going to control a telescope with a computer, you might need a This is because some mount manufacturers are in the serial-port age—years after Apple abandoned serial ports, followed (as usual) by makers of Windows-only PC's. My two RoboFocus units use serial ports.
The adapters I have used with a Mac are the USA-19HS “USB High-Speed Serial Adapter;” the UPR-112G Mini Port Replicator; and the USA-49WG “USB 4-Port Serial Adapter.” The latter is what I use now because I have more than one serial device—two. Keyspan is not the only manufacturer of serial adapters, but I know that the models that I named above work with Mac OS X and with Windows. I have, on one occasion, quite a few years ago, accepted free software as a gift from Software Bisque. The gift was unsolicited and it came without conditions or suggestions as to what I ought say or write about the application—if I chose to mention it at all.
Furthermore, before I accepted the one piece of free software I already owned a number of Software Bisque applications that I purchased at their full retail prices. As of late April, 2018, I have, for a number of years, used only Software Bisque products that I purchased at full retail price. I do not believe that my objectivity in expressing my opinions about Software Bisque applications has been compromised. My bias is toward products that work for me, be they freeware, gifts, or costly suites. Software Bisque products for Mac OS and Windows have always worked well for me, but in all cases I make no representation that what works for me will work for you. You should, as always, judge for yourself, and many software packages have trial versions to allow you to do that.
DESCRIPTION Stark Labs Nebulosity 4 Capture and Processing Software Nebulosity 4 Image Capture and Processing Software by Stark Labs: Dr. Craig Stark creates software for the amateur that focuses on simple interfaces that create an easy to use experience taking the frustration out of what is often a grueling and unpleasant part of the imaging hobby.
Stark Labs lSO appreciates that while a program should be simple, it cannot lack the functions necessary to capturing and creating jaw dropping, beautiful astroimages. Power and simplicity make a happy marriage. As imaging equipment and computers have become increasingly more obtainable, easy to use, and capable of capturing incredibly detailed DSO images, the capture and processing software available has failed to match - until now. Rather than leave beginning imagers in the dark when it comes to post processing, Dr.
Stark has created Nebulosity to bring the joy back to imaging. It's clean, clear interface is favored by advanced imagers too who find they save time and frustration. Developers at Stark Labs recognized a consistent issue with many image capture and processing software programs - they tried to accomplish too much. Even in successful software programs, this massive array of functions is overwhelming to the novice imager and sends prices soaring!
Avoiding function overload, Nebulosity 4 has been pared down to be everything you need and nothing you don't. A clean and simple interface sets Nebulosity apart from the crowd while still providing precision camera control and full image processing capabilities. Nebulosity by Stark Labs is a universally compatible (Windows XP/7/8 32/64 bit and Mac OS X 10.6-9) image processing and capture software developed by Stark Labs. Compatible with a large variety of CCD and DSLR cameras and able to process images in a nearly any format.
Created with the goal to be the perfect imaging software whether you're a beginner or an advanced imager in search of an easy to use, simple capture and processing experience. Each tool within Nebulosity was developed purely for the astrophotographer in mind. Compatible Cameras:. Atik Legacy (16, etc.) and current (beta-level support for all Atik cams). Canon DIGIC II.
/ III / 4 / 5 EOS DSLRs (1D Mark IV, 1D Mark III, 1D Mark II N, 1D Mark II, 1Ds Mark III and 1Ds Mark II, 5D, 5D Mark II, 5D Mark III, 6D, 7D, 20D/Da, 30D, 40D, 50D, 60D/Da, 70D, 100D/SL1/Kiss X7, 350D/Digital Rebel XT., 400D/Digital Rebel XTi., 450D/Rebel XSi/Kiss X2, 500D/T1i/Kiss X3, 550D/T2i/Kiss X4, 600D/T3i/Kiss X5, 650D/T4i/Kiss X6i, 700D/T5i/KissX7i,1000D/Rebel XS/Kiss F, 1100D/T3/Kiss X50). Fishcamp Starfish. Meade DSI, DSI Pro, DSI II, DSI II Pro, DSI III and DSI III Pro.
QHY 8, 8L, 8Pro, 9, 10, 12. QSI 500 / 600 series. SBIG. Starlight Xpress USB2 models (SXV / SXVF / SXV-R / Lodestar / etc.