Plate Solving Parameters

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cuivenion
Posts: 227
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:37 pm

Plate Solving Parameters

#1

Post by cuivenion »

Hi, I would like the ability to enter focal length and pixel size (or image scale) for the plate solving feature. As far as I know sharpcap doesn't do this.
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admin
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Re: Plate Solving Parameters

#2

Post by admin »

That's right - SharpCap currently doesn't do anything about pixel scale in plate solving.

This is currently deliberate - adding scale ranges can make plate solving faster, but it can also make it fail if they are entered incorrectly (or the use of a different scope/camera changes the scales). To my view the risk of the latter problem outweighs the value of the speed increase - particularly for 'solve+sync' with a mount connected that is fast because it only searches a small area of sky.

Ideally I'd like features like this to 'just work' and not need any configuration - or at least as little as possible - throughout the whole of SharpCap.

So the question is - is there a use case where it's critical that blind plate solving is faster, or am I wrong in my assumption that restricting the scale range only speeds up the solving process?

cheers,

Robin
cuivenion
Posts: 227
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:37 pm

Re: Plate Solving Parameters

#3

Post by cuivenion »

That's fair, I suppose if you want something more configurable you can just use the platesolving software itself. Just as an afterthought is sharpcap platesolving set to JNOW or J2000 epoch.
robrj
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2017 1:03 am

Re: Plate Solving Parameters

#4

Post by robrj »

As a workaround, you could remove indexes that you know won't solve given your image scale/focal length. That way, Sharpcap won't search through them because they're not there. So for example, based on the LightVortex tutorial for Astrotortilla, I know my ASI294MC and my ED80T-CF camera would only use indexes 4205-4211. So I can move 4200-4204 and 4212+ from Astrotortilla's cygwin index location and put them in a backup directory should my scope or camera change.

My index files are located in C:\Cygwin\usr\share\astrometry\data\

Just google Light Vortex and Astrotortilla for the instructions. I'd post a link but that site is blocked on my work computer.
cuivenion
Posts: 227
Joined: Wed Feb 15, 2017 7:37 pm

Re: Plate Solving Parameters

#5

Post by cuivenion »

Thanks, I'll give it a go.
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