I think most of you will agree with me that Leo has done a superb job with Voyager. For my purposes, it is right there with ACP in reliability and capability, at 1/10th the cost.
Leo has worked on this software for seven years, and it shows. It is delivering night after night of successful, all-night imaging sessions for me.
Voyager is not well-known in the English-speaking astro-imaging world. I have read a ton of threads on popular astronomy forums about imaging software with no mentions of Voyager. To see Leo say “the number of Voyager users can be counted on the fingers of two hands” makes me want to do something… and I hope it does for you too.
Let’s get the word out. Not in a pushy, sales-y way, but just in a natural way:
Mention Voyager when we talk about images taken with it
Include Starkeeper.it Voyager in your Forum signatures as part of your gear
Include it in your Astrobin listings and/or wherever you post your images
Mention it when people ask about options for imaging software.
“Starkeeper.it Voyager” is a good way to list because Google search for “Voyager” may not show it.
Word-of-mouth references are the most powerful sales tool. This software is too good to be only used by a few people.
OK, getting off my soapbox but thanks for the help, and I’m going off to fix my Forum signatures to include Starkeeper.it Voyager !
FYI, I tried to announce the Wiki on http://www.astronomyforum.net but my post was not allowed because I have not made twenty posts there and can’t “promote software” until then. So I guess I can start posting about other stuff and eventually will have the rights. But if anyone is an established member at this high-traffic forum and wants to post about the existence of English language docs at https://voyager.tourstar.net, thanks in advance for helping !
Thanks Rowland, but probably Voyager does not reflect the expectations of the common astrophotography. It is evident that the accumulated experience I put in Voyager is not sufficient or necessary to achieve greater diffusion. To me it’s fine too, the important thing is that I can keep the servers otherwise I will be forced to close the forum and site and move the download links on google drive and maybe return to the use of a public group.
My opinion - right now, Voyager appeals strongly to the intermediate or advanced amateur who needs more reliability and flexibility than the entry level software provides, but is having a hard time justifying spending $1000 to $2000 for “professional” software.
Right now there are only a couple of options in that intermediate to advanced tier that don’t cost $1000+. CCD Autopilot and Prism come to mind. CCD Commander plus TheSkyX with camera add-in, or Maxim DL.
For my needs, Voyager checks more boxes than either of those products. Better focusing, wider support for ways to connect equipment and do guiding. TheSkyX, Maxim DL, FocusMax all supported - but not required. The ability to suspend and resume in all-night imaging sessions, easy scripting for flexibility, and most importantly, rock-solid reliability.
If you want to go after the entry-level imagers, you could add a few things as we have discussed. But your support load will go up exponentially since Voyager becomes the integrator and any problems with the underlying drivers, hardware, and third party software bubble up to Voyager and people will ask you for help first !
I believe the number one limitation to adoption of Voyager has been English language docs and awareness that Voyager exists, and we should give this a try in 2019 and see what we can make happen!!
Agreed, I’ve been talking it up with my peers for the last few months too … and it’s in my sigs on CN as well … really good stuff, and I know that there are some luminaries on CN that are trying it out …
We as vociferous advocates need to make sure that people don’t think it’s a magical swiss army knife though … then people will see it as a spork rather than as a precision tool.
I’ve seen people ask on CN about it being a viewer (and I direct them to FitsWork if they want to monitor ongoing images, because Voyager isn’t a viewer), I’ve seen people ask about it being able to do direct CMOS captures (and I’ve told them privately that camera vendors are tough to work with and using the ASCOM driver the vendor provides will get you 90% of the functionality they are looking for) … IMHO we don’t want to accidentally oversell the platform and make Leo’s life harder with feature requests that exceed what it’s fundamentally designed to do …
Great product though … it’s easily increased my count of good, usable images per night per scope from the low tens into the mid tens just because it doesn’t crash, it doesn’t give up and it gives me SO much flexibility in DragScript …
I also hope that Voyager can attract other users around the world, remembering that more users equals more troubles for Leonardo: it is a risk he can afford… The added values ​​of Voyager (for me) are the experience of Leonardo as an astrophotographer, which is essential in the tuning of the astrophotography setup (you can be sure that Leonardo will always reply to an email for an advice), the power of the script, (which is a double-edged wheapon, that sooner or later should be used) the extreme precision of the AF routines with Robostar (both in single-star mode and in localfield mode), and the extreme configurability of all the individual actions of Voyager: it is very powerful , but must be well studied to appreciate its strength, compared to other automation systems. I am sure that in the coming months and years, Voyager will be more and more used and performing, thanks to Leonardo and to all users …
“It’s a difficult world … sometimes happiness … and an uncertain future” … things are not as you say and I struggle to keep the servers in view of my constant negative situation. Thank you for the encouragement that never hurts.
!
The added values ​​of Voyager (for me) are the experience of Leonardo as an astrophotographer, which is essential in the tuning of the astrophotography setup (you can be sure that Leonardo will always reply to an email for an advice), the power of the script, (which is a double-edged wheapon, that sooner or later should be used) the extreme precision of the AF routines with Robostar (both in single-star mode and in localfield mode), and the extreme configurability of all the individual actions of Voyager: it is very powerful , but must be well studied to appreciate its strength, compared to other automation systems. I am sure that in the coming months and years, Voyager will be more and more used and performing, thanks to Leonardo and to all users …