Help Using ASTAP for Platesolving

[SteveMcN]

I am trying to get SC to use ASTAP for PS but if I select Astap as the "Preferred Plate Solver" in settings, SC ignores it and still uses astrometry.net.

I can't find anywhere to tell SC where my ASTAP is installed so I suspect it is looking for it in a standard location. My ASTAP is installed in a non-standard location.

Is this why I can't get it to use ASTAP? If not any ideas as to what I might be doing wrong?

TIA

[admin]

Hi,

You are correct that SharpCap looks for Astap in the default install location – that is either

"c:\Program Files (x86)\Astap\Astap.exe"

or

"c:\Program Files\Astap\Astap.exe"

There isn't a way to configure SharpCap to look in different locations currently, but you could create a link from one of those locations that points to your real installation of Astap.exe. Modern versions of Windows have a mklink command that will allow you to do this - see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... nds/mklink . You will have to run the command from an administrative command prompt in order to be allowed to make a link in the program files directory and you will probably have to create the Astap folder manually before you put the link in it.

Cheers, Robin

[SteveMcN]

Thanks for the quick reply and for confirming my suspicions. I'll get cracking on mklink - it has been my friend for years

Might I humbly suggest an option in a future release to manually specify a non-standard path to ASTAP...

[admin]

Hi,

yes, I'll put that on my list.

Cheers, Robin

[rgarrett7]

I tried setting up a symbolic link. That worked for finding the astap.exe file, but when I try running the plate solver, it can't find the index files, which are in the non-standard directory.

Here is my configuration:

My astap files are actually in D:\Program Files\astap

As admin, in the C:\Program Files (x86) directory, I ran: mklink \Astap "D:\Program Files\astap" but SC can't find the astap.exe file.

If I make a \Astap directory in C:\Program Files (x86) then do a symbolic link to astap.exe, SC can now find the executable and start it, but astap does not see the index files.

I can run astap directly and that works fine.

Recommendations?

[OrangeCanAstronomy]

So, in spite of the web documentation not listing, ASTAP as a plate solving solution, SharpCap will work with ASTAP. Is that correct?

[admin]

Hi,

yes, the documentation is out of date (will be updated for SharpCap 3.3).

cheers,

Robin