latitude 34deg 51'South, longitude 148deg 58 East
One of the fantastic things about amateur astronomy is the vast number of dedicated people writing code to allow us incredible control of our equipment. From Ephemerides to dome rotation, there s something available to suit. In addition, there are amazingly capable professional offerings for those with the budget for them (not me...)
ASCOM
Lurking in the background of most astronomy software these days is ASCOM, a 'vendor-independent plug-and-play control. ASCOM is a many-to-many and language-independent architecture, supported by most astronomy devices which connect to Windows computers'.
ASCOM drivers make it possible for different hardware to talk to the many different software programs available, whether commercial or public domain / open source.
Planetarium Software
I'm a big fan of Stellarium for looking around the sky for targets. You can even put your own horizon in for a more realistic experience.
Cartes du Ceil is my choice for control of the mount. It is less a planetarium program and more an ephemeris. I find it is easier to use for control than Stellarium, but Stellarium is easier to navigate through.
Camera Control
Atik cameras have a proprietary camera control program called Capture. They also include Dusk for image and autoguiding.
Canon cameras have a few choices. I've used DigiCamControl because it has a plug-in for PHD guiding. There is also the Canon EOS Utility, which has an astronomy module included.
ZWO cameras provide SharpCap on their website. Scroll to the bottom of their page for a good collection of software that works with other cameras too.
Free Nikon software is a it more difficult to find because of handshaking protocols used by Nikon. DigiCamControl works with many cameras, as does AstroDSLR (Mac only).
For a modest price there are also BackyardNikon and BackyardEOS programs that are optimised for astrophotography. They also interface with PHD2.
Finally, consider Nebulosity from Stark Labs.
Telescope tracking control
I like a few different options here. PHD and PHD2 are great works.
All Sky Plate Solver is one of a family of programs that allow very accurate alignment by comparing the view through your scope with a database of known images. It takes a little setting up and requires a knowledge of your optical system. Other programs can now do this in the background for you (see N.I.N.A.)
Astrotortilla is another plate solving program.
I'll include AstroPhotography Tool here too because as it is described on the site it "is like Swiss army knife for your astro imaging sessions. No matter what are imaging with - Canon EOS, Nikon, CCD or CMOS astro camera, APT has the right tool for planning, collimating, aligning, focusing, framing, controlling/tethering, imaging, synchronizing, scheduling, analysing and monitoring."
N.I.N.A.
Since writing the above I have become an ardent fan of N.I.N.A.- Night-time Imaging 'N' Astronomy.
NINA is a comprehensive imaging suite which will link all your different pieces of equipment- cameras, guider, mount, focuser, filter wheel and dome at one click, control everything, plate solve for polar alignment, help pick targets, centre them and sequence your imaging session.
APT does much of this but the user interface on NINA is, in my opinion, cleaner and more intuitive.
Image Processing