I am so impressed with SGP I can hardly contain myself. 2 yrs ago when I started this hobby, it was a dream of mine to be able to run a whole night of imaging, unattended, and have it do everything necessary: plate solving, centering, focusing, auto-guiding, pier flipping, image monitoring, +++. Well, SGP does all of those beautifully. I tried several other products, including product X, and could never get it or them to work for me.
Saturday night was a real testament to how good SGP is.
Perfectly clear, but bad winds, 15-25 mph, and G-11 mount out in the open, with lots of sail area: 3 telescopes all imaging + guiding scope, about 50 lb payload. I did short 75 sec exposures with 2x2 binning to try to get some sort of useful images. Imaged 7 different targets from 8pm to 5am, totally unatteded. Every plate solve (binned 3x3) and center (using Astronometry.Net) worked perfectly. Pier flips mid target worked perfectly. Auto-guiding with PHD2 worked perfectly (80 mm short tube with Lodestar X2 autoguider).
I am impressed.
I develop software myself (data base management software), so I can appreciate what you have to deal with in fixing bugs, implementing new features, balancing the pros and cons and priorities of each new feature. SGP has an excellently designed and simple interface. Ken and Jared, you have a fabulous product, and are providing top-notch support. Thanks.
I can only join Jmacon on this: great software guys !
Can’t agree more, this software makes what little clear sky I seem to get recently fully usable - I can pre plan the targets, set-up, kick off the sequence and just leave the software to it.
I looked at a number of products before choosing SGP and brought it for before I even had the CCD, the support form Ken and Jared is second to none and like you I develop software, more financial with some opensource media PC thrown in so equally aware of the challenges of supporting a diverse user base,
Thanks
I third or fourth or whatever the sentiment. I have been using it for about a year now and it surpasses all of the “old guard” software easily.
running the trial of SGP ," WOW" roll on pay day its a MUST HAVE , only just starting out on ccd imaging with 314l+ , 150pds and 80mm ,
Lenny
Another very positive vote here. I’ve just got my first real image with SGPro, what an easy piece of software to use. Love it, keep up the good work.
Huw