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Solving with smaller than recommended field

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 12:45 pm
by dbunna2
There is a thread on CloudyNights where a guy is trying to do a SharpCap polar alignment with a FOV much smaller than recommended:
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5839 ... try7988747

He gets a successful first solve, but after the second the circle target and arrow are not on the screen. While I've never had the problem I imagine others have since he noted "The guide text says if arrow and target are off screen, restart alignment."

I wonder if in circumstances like this having SharpCap draw a different colored arrow in the direction of the target would help them get closer to a place where the polar alignment routine would produce success.

Re: Solving with smaller than recommended field

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 7:20 pm
by admin
Hmm, that's odd because the movement arrow should always start from one of the stars in view - it shouldn't be possible to have no sign of the yellow movement arrow at all.

Basically SharpCap tries to pick a star in view where the end of the arrow (as drawn from that star) will be in view. If it can't find one to match that then it just picks the brightest star.

I really need to add a way to log the progress of a polar alignment session that will create a zip file so I can debug them afterwards... one day!

cheers,

Robin