ACP vs CCD Commander

[Joao Luis Gregorio]

I've been asked by a friend about ACP and CCD Commander. I can speak about my experience with ACP but I fail to say anything about CCD Commander . Does anyone have experience with both and give me a clue about the major differences. Or why should I pick ACP instead of CCD Commander.
The price gap is tremendous.

Thanks

Joao
www.atalaia.org/gregorio

[Tom Krajci]

Hola Joao!

My limited experience:

I started doing science in 2000, with kit-built Cookbook CCD, and no filters...performing long time-series for Center for Backyard Astrophysics http://cbastro.org/

I started using CCD Commander about one year ago, and if you only observe a small number of targets per night (several long time-series targets), then CCD Commander is often sufficient.

I can observe more targets per night with CCD Commander, but the process/sequence is fixed/rigid. (If I need to take calibration images of Landolt fields...some at low elevation, some at high elevation, etc...this is difficult to plan unless you know exactly how long it takes for your telescope to slew/acquire/expose.)

Recently I started operating telescopes for AAVSO:
http://www.aavso.org/news/aavsonet.shtml specifically BSM, W28, and W30.

These telescopes handle AAVSO observing/survey programs, and observing requests from numerous individual AAVSO members...many targets! BSM's current target list is over 1000 stars. This is much more difficult to manage/plan/schedule, and in that case ACP Scheduler does very well.

ACP Scheduler will choose one observing plan...and after that plan is finished...it will look at the current time and position of other targets...and then choose the next plan. In other words, the observing sequence is not set in stone...Scheduler makes the optimum decision after completion of a plan. This is good for complex observing plans

(If I had a weather/cloud sensor providing input to ACP Scheduler...that would be even better because Scheduler can adapt/adjust the choice of observing plan after a shutdown/restart because of scattered clouds.)

How many targets per night do you plan to cover?

[Bob Denny]

I'm moving this out of the ACP Tech Support forum and into a publicly viewable area, the Pre-Sales forum.

[Joao Luis Gregorio]

Thanks for the reply Tom,

typically its for one or two targets per night, exoplanets require long observing sessions.

Joao

[John K]

Of the 3 big names in automated imaging; CCDcommander, CCDAutoPilot and ACP. CCDComm is the least sophisticated by far.

CCDCommander is like a collection of imaging commands that you string together into a plan. Much more detail is required than say ACP. for example ACP _knows_ you want to do certain things in conjuction with taking a series of Red exposures, based upon the system set up you've done.