Voyager and the others

In the last days different threads appears on forums about usually Voyager vs. or better vs. Voyager also if not really explicit on the topic title like this:

or this:

What get me sorry is the lack of informations about Voyager and how someone manipulate things to leave to final thread reader a bad image and incorrect info about Voyager (happen for all software).

Some considerations about Voyager on the most common things always subject of fight, I cannot answer directly but this is my general answer to this questions.:

  • Voyager overall paradigm is for the best data, sequence paradigm is to work for time slot and not for exact number of shots, if someone think that the paradigm must be the fastness and shot number will found not necessary success on Voyager (this not mean Voyager is slow, can handle huge amount of data like for QHY600 and ASI6200 in few seconds for example). If you are switching to Voyager from another automation suite you cannot expect to find a clone of it and you cannot expect necessary to found all the tools probably because in Voyager this tools are not necessary or simple are against paradigm or simple because have another name or place
  • you can swap sequence from one profile to another without problems and you can inherits a sequence in one click and customize
  • you can use one generic sequence for all target overriding basic data from the DragScript (target name, RA,DEC and constraints) in one click
  • you can change sequence when you want in Voyager also when things are running or nothing is connected and … just to activate changes you must restart the sequence if running. For restart there are a lot of flag to decide what to redo in terms of actions or only restart immediatly with the shots. What not is available (for now) is the memory on which shot was done.
  • you can run autofocus also if you are really out of focus, especially with single star autofocus, Voyager recognize stars up to to an HFD of 60 if are over the background average. In anycase there is a loop exposure to start with precompiled DragScript and with FIT viewer open you can read the HFD and do a manually focus
  • you will not found offset and temperature compensation in Voyager because aren’t a reliable way to get the best data (exception for the array where the nodes should be specialized for some kind of filter and where offset is used {at now!} ineriths the initial request of the customer who has commissioned the array software now opened to all)
  • Voyager have a powerful section dedicated to a Research and Survey multitarget
  • Voyager have a powerful section dedicated to Mosaic or Multitarget Sequence
  • Voyager have a powerful web dashboard with state of the art graphical UI and performance with a dedicate web server or public website support, this running in all device PC/tablet/smrtphone
  • Voyager have a Framing Wizard with extensive mosaic support and realtime stretch in color for framing
  • Voyager have more than 11 automata (someone with AI inside) taking care of your sequence and more than 54 configurable watchdog to get the best data
  • With DragScript you can realize a lot of different schedulers for multitarget based on your taste (date,time,HA,Altitude,external script trigger)
  • all the module that need a big amount of memory or processing resources are separated in 64bit application or library called from the application core. For example FITViewer is a 64 bit application, Dashboard dispatcher is a 64 bit application, stars recognition and focus processing are a 64 bit library with external process call
  • using Viking you can expand Voyager to manage a lot of different I/O cards and I/O protocol also over the LAN and in another PC, you can develop your own HW and ask driver for Viking or send to us specific of cards and obtain driver for Viking
  • you can completly customize your observatory management and automation from A to Z

and so … when someone or something is different not necessary is a bad thing.

CEO owner and developer of Voyager Astrophotography Automation and fully astrophotographer inside
Leonardo Orazi

PS thanks for who, using Voyager, have answered directly
PS2 sorry for my english, i try to do my best … you are really invited to help me (also in public) to fill my lack on this wondeful language

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Demonize the companies that produce paid software (which then we speak of ridiculous figures compared to all the efforts made and the management costs), to consider open source as the only source of news and alternative for the future, to supply biased information on programs that you do not know … all this for me translates into tangible damage and is not a question of negativity.

Thank you for your very welcome comments on Voyager and for the sensitivity shown on this topic.

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I’d be willing to bet that those preaching for open-source and demonize paid software don’t understand that open-source only works because either the developer(s) earn a living through a regular day job or has the financial backing of a large company. Their negativity can translate into tangible damage, but I believe your supporters outweigh them. The open-source craze, to me, while not a new concept, is a new “fashion craze,” and we’ll have to ride out the storm and wait for the dust to settle.

I agree with @PirateMike; keep doing what you’re doing. I am also grateful for your software, the effort you and @Francescodb put in, and the willingness to make changes and updates based on our feedback. Keep up the great work, and ignore ill-informed naysayers.

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There were quite a bit more praises than criticisms about Voyager. That’s pretty darn good.

Peter

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I moved from Sequence Gen to Voyager recently because:

  • Voyager supports more equipment
  • it is way way way more straightforward and intuitive
  • it is made by someone who knows how to create high quality data sets
    …rest is bullshit, don’t let it stick :slight_smile:
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Welcome Davide and thanks, you are the one who taught me to do astrophotography many years ago. I am delighted that you have opted for Voyager, for me it is an honor.

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I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past few months testing and comparing three of the products mentioned here. I think they each product has strengths however I think Voyager offers more flexibility in connection to equipment and seems to be better at recovering from issues with peripheral equipment. The scripting capability seems more comprehensive than what the others offer in automation and I feel more comfortable leaving this unattended than I’ve been able to do with the other products. I’ve still got a lot to learn to get the best out of it however I’m a fan so far.

I still don’t understand this war, I struggle to understand certain hateful positions … but these are the answers

yes stretch with a 64bit fit viewer with a dedicated process that you can switch or/on without using for nothing resources of your PC … debayer is something not handled … Voyager is an automation software

Voyager has a dedicate section only for mosaics with a dedicated advanced sequence action (and is the only software doing this) … you can run forever and for each days you want … also you can create a real mosaic with realtime preview and stretch always in real time for really faint objects … with a button you can transfer to the mosaic section or store in your personal database of targets for future modify or use

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It does not look hateful. This person does not want to pay for software and he sounds like a cheap bastard for buying a very robust software like yours…

Peter

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I found the message hateful … seems like he want to show to the others that Voyager is broken …
Thank for answering, really appreciated.

Well, I responded back to him and I am waiting for his response. I didn’t quite understand his message but it’s obvious he does not want to buy any software. He’s simply looking for a freebie software.

Peter

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I just wanted to thank you (and in general all Voyager users) for responding to requests from others on Voyager and not from this person. I am not interested in his motives, but I am not so blind as not to understand the general trend of these diatribes. I am interested in answering here where I can express the reasons without having to ponder all the words to be written, also considering that I do not master your language correctly.

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Again, this is not more true … I released a daily build in this week and today to manage rotator and sync also for rotator doesn’t have Sync (99% of rotator). Now you have also the Sequence with Rotator full management.

The second thing is not completly true… mosaic isn’t need DragScript to run , Mosaic have a dedicated section in Voyager where you can run with a single click and advanced sequence dedicated to Mosaic. Someone also use for multitargeting and more than one users have used it for reasearch and for complete a photographic Messier Marathon …

What people really doesn’t understand is Voyager is different … I lost faith in explain this, there are milion of things that put Voyager ahead like use of AI … or no crash way to coding … or advanced multithreading and parallalized actions … DragScript … internal application server … internal web server … advanced web dashboard with high responsive UI … Viking for I/O … 2 kind of autofocus … autoselection of guide star … system integration …

Leonardo, I think that gentleman is asking about sequence memory within Mosaic. If I only captured M out of N frames in day 1, can I continue from M+1 frames next day? I think that relates to the sequence memory feature you briefly showed one day in another post, but don’t know if there is any progress on that?

Again … I’ve 2 pegasus focuscube for my personal setup (VIxen and Epsilon 130D) … work really fine with Voyager … I never answer in this way and usually help everyone…



I understand exactly thanks … this not change things. No progress on it sorry but next to come when I finished rotator … status is (configuration form finished, translation of SOAP file to JSON configuration file finished, database for handling memory cos i need also for advanced finished, i need to split the sequence tree in 2 actions and adding new features management). I also find the way for allow in running change to sequence slot , guiding, focus etc… without stop the sequence using the injection mechanism already working in Voyager.

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Ok cool, that’s excellent. Thanks for the update on the status. Looking forward to it!

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Now if your usb cable broken or removed Voyager cannot talk to mount and not crash, just exit from task (others usually crash) … normally a user will receive an ERROR on dragscript or in Sequence … now if EQMOD is on the PC and you remove USB or usb is broken how can EQMOD talk with the mount ?? which is the difference !!! What is the difference…

If you want reconnect (probabilities is near zero) just use this flag in Voyager for ASCOM its really dangerous because you can reconnect a mount with totally wrong parameters but as is requested from some users:

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Leo

Do not pay attention to them; their loss if they don’t want to be constructive. They are not worth your time.
Many of us can attest to how successful Voyager is on CN or elsewhere. You have plenty on your hands improving the software; do not lose any sleep over this. If there are false assertions being banded about on fora, it can easily be raised by any of us to moderators.

Roberto

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