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Ralph's Primary Software Tools

Planetarium software: I consult either Starry Nights Pro or EquinoX if I am looking for information about a future night sky. I have The SkyX, but until it goes beyond the "student" version, it is of limited usefulness to me (I bought it to show my support for Bisque's return to the Mac).

Observing Management: I use both AstroPlanner and ScopeDriver, although now that I am in my observatory, AstroPlanner runs more often.

Image Capture: It entirely depends on what camera I am using. If I am using the Starfish, I prefer its packaged software, Starlink. If I am using my Canon EOS400D, I am most likely to be controlling it with ImagesPlus running in a session under Parallels. The reality is that no other program offers the range of features that ImagesPlus does for controlling DSLRs.
If I get a new Firewire camera, I will absolutely be running it with AstroIIDC - in many ways, I think this is the best capture software on any platform.

Processing: I still stack in Keith's Image Stacker, altho I am now also using AstroIIDC Version 4, and I am still hopeful that, one day, Rod Kennedy will release his image processing application. And every almost image I ever do eventually finds its way to Photoshop, now CS3 Extended - but you might want to read my comments below.

An Editorial on Adobe

I have been using Adobe software for at least 20 years. During much of that time, I have been a satisfied user. But as a MacUser, I have been increasingly distressed that Adobe seems to favor the Windows platform over Mac, an attitude that appears to have been recently underscored by Adobe's announcement that it would soon release a 64-bit version of Photoshop for Vista (what, for both users?), but not for MacOSX. Since all currently shipping Macs are true 64-bit systems, this decision is especially mystifying (altho Adobe has many excuses for it).

I think it is time to begin looking at alternatives to Adobe software and one that I can recommend is Pixelmator - it is the equal to Photoshop for many image editing tasks. It is a slick app built on a modern code base (Xcode, CoreImage, etc.) and it is only $59. The publisher makes a full-featured demo available, so try it out here.