Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

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timh
Posts: 515
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:50 pm

Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#1

Post by timh »

Hi Robin,

Can the plate solving and synchronise alignment function in SC be expected to work for goto AZ Dobsonians (via the Windows Synscan App driver)? It all works great with my EQ set up and I am just experimenting with moving the Dob over to direct PC control.

thankyou
TimH
procyon12
Posts: 253
Joined: Tue Jan 14, 2020 11:32 am

Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#2

Post by procyon12 »

Hi Tim,

For me it works very well:

W7-64 and W10-64, SynScan Windows App Pro 1.19.0, latest SC Pro w All Sky Plate Solver, mounts (AzGTI and 10" Flextube) connection over WiFi (for 10" USB also works), Skychart/CDC, ASCOM 6.4.1.2695

1. Power mount

2. Establish mount connection to PC

3. Start SynScan App

4. Start CDC, connect mount (POTH.Telescope), see picture; Generic Hub may also work

5. Start SC, connect mount (POTH.Telescope)

Cheers, Christian
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timh
Posts: 515
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2019 5:50 pm

Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#3

Post by timh »

Thanks very much Christian,

OK that answers the question I think. My set up is similar except that I am using Stellarium which works OK with the dob but can't itself be used to better align the Synscan app driver pointing model. If plate solve in SC works then that will solve the problem nicely and I can abandon the slightly creaky system that I am using at the moment of using Android and Sky safari to move the scope and a PC with SC to read the camera. Looking forward to trying it out - just need a clear night or two!

Tim
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Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#4

Post by admin »

Hi,

thanks Christian for answering that one – I must admit that I've managed to get this far without ever using a dob (let alone a GOTO one!), So I can't give any direct feedback.

Cheers, Robin
MikeHuerto
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Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#5

Post by MikeHuerto »

It works for me - after quite a bit of playing around and reading this and other forums:

I'm a 6 month novice at AP, so I've written this for other less experienced pioneers!

I'm using an ASI224 attached to 14 " SW Dobson with WIFI Dongle and Windows Synscan App Pro running on a Dell PC (Windows 10 ). I installed AllSkyPlateSolver and files that fit my FOV. It's a narrow FOV, but I have a list of small DS targets (10'x7' and smaller) - in addition to planets.


A few things I had to check before it worked:

In Sharp Cap:
- In Scope control (on right hand side of screen) . Make sure Sharp Cap is connected to SynscanApp Driver on PC via the IP of the driver = 127.0.0.1 (not - 192.168.4. which is the IP of the WIFI dongle). In this way, all movement instructions generated by SC run through Synscan app via the WIFI dongle to the mount.

-In Sharpcap settings. (File/setting/Platesolve)  in the plate solving tab, make sure you have the plate solving setting set to solve and center.  In the hardware settings, make sure you have the proper mount control interface specified (SynscanApp Driver not the Skywatcher mount option). Since SC communicates via Synscan App, not directly to the mount).

- In Camera setting I find I need to go full-out on exposure (2 to 10 secs) and Gain (500-600), Once the mount has adjusted, I lower these for taking shots through SC Live Stacking. It seems to work when I can see/count more than 30-50 stars on the screen (however noisy). 20 or less it fails. In Live Stack I get good results with short exposure (800 ms to 2 secs) and fairly high gain (500). It will stack and process 40 to 150 no problem. https://astrob.in/1gdt09/0/

In hardware setting selects Synscan App Driver (not Skywatcher Mount) Sharpcap will communicate all movements via Synscan

Launch plate solving from the telescope controls in the right-hand panel by clicking the GPS location button (not the plate solving option in the tools menu).

It normally takes a 2-3 minutes to solve. The only issue then is that by the time it's solved, the image it was using is out of date, so the object, is no longer completely centered. Is there a way to anticipate and correct for this lag?

In Synscan App - You can go through the normal 2 or 3 star alignment, and get SC plate solving to correct, but more recently I've been using one star alignment on a bright star near my target, and just get SC to plate solve and correct. Synscan - Point and track should also work

My next step will be to see if I can get PS to work with a Canon 450D which gives me a 45' x 30' FOV - I plan to try running this through the Capture Monitor folder - as has been suggested for SC Live Stacking - but one step at a time - I was happy enough to get PS working on the Dobson!

I also want to see if I can get the tracking feature to work - this will be especially useful for planetary imaging. but one step at a time!

I hope this helps!


Mike







-
Last edited by MikeHuerto on Sat Jan 30, 2021 2:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bortle 5
Skywatcher GOTO Synscan 14" Dobson
Skywatcher 130PDS on HEQ5
ZWOASI224MC and ASI294MCPro
Laptop = Lenovo Legion 5 FullHD 144Hz (Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA RTX2060-6GB, Windows 10
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Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#6

Post by admin »

Hi Mike,

thanks for sharing what you've learned so far.

It may be worth checking the SharpCap blog to see if there's anything recorded that might help explain why it's taking so long to do a plate solve
operation - that should normally be fairly quick as SharpCap only searches within 15° of the current location. For instance with the image of the Orion nebula that is used by the test camera, I find that the plate solving operation prior to resynchronisation takes 10 to 15 seconds using AstroTortilla as the solving engine.

Cheers, Robin
MikeHuerto
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Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#7

Post by MikeHuerto »

Hi Robin

I've played around with plate solver using the virtual DSO camera on SC. The fastest I can now get it to solve is 30-40 sec (compared to the 10-15 secs that you describe). I took a look at the log and I see a few error and warning messages -- is this normal or does it indicate anything that I can fix?
Upgrading my PC from 4 to 8 RAM helped a bit - perhaps gained 10 secs +/-.

Any ideas would be appreciated

Cheers

Mike
M42 PLATE V8.1 33 secs 8 RAM.txt
(19.57 KiB) Downloaded 87 times
Bortle 5
Skywatcher GOTO Synscan 14" Dobson
Skywatcher 130PDS on HEQ5
ZWOASI224MC and ASI294MCPro
Laptop = Lenovo Legion 5 FullHD 144Hz (Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA RTX2060-6GB, Windows 10
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Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#8

Post by admin »

Hi Mike,

all looks fine there - I have extracted the relavent parts of the log and removed some of the noise to make it clearer. The warnings are not a problem and the solving time is split up roughly equally between finding stars in the image (about 10s from 19:31:37 to 19:31:45) and running the actual plate solving which takes about 20s. Obviously times will vary depending on the speed of your PC, the resolution of the camera and the field of view (smaller fields of view tend to take longer).

cheers,

Robin


Code: Select all

Info:	19:31:37.5820151  Astrotortilla plate solve command is: solve-field -b /etc/astrometry/backend.cfg  --ra 87.2754884915444 --dec -8.22213024341721 --radius 15 --sigma 50 -r --objs 100 --no-plots -N none -L 0.1 -H 20 -u degwidth -D /tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017 /tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017/frame.png
Warning:19:31:37.5830351  SharpCap.ImageProcessing.AsyncProcessRunner.Start(String cpath, CancellationToken cancellationToken, String[] args) :: C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Astrometry\bin\bash does not exist.
Info:	19:31:37.5830351  Running external command : C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Astrometry\bin\bash --login -c /tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017/script.sh
Info:	19:31:38.6353614  Plate solving : Reading input file 1 of 1: "/tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017/frame.png"...
Info:	19:31:43.9202244  Plate solving : Extracting sources...
Info:	19:31:44.9495868  Plate solving : simplexy: found 128 sources.
Info:	19:31:50.4362640  Plate solving : Solving...
Info:	19:32:03.9698871  Plate solving : Reading file "/tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017/frame.axy"...
Info:	19:32:03.9698871  Plate solving : Only searching for solutions within 15 degrees of RA,Dec (87.2755,-8.22213)
Info:	19:32:04.0728156  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4209.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.0738164  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4208.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.2317182  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4207-05.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.2327186  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4206-05.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.3416506  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4205-05.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.3426481  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4204-23.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.4515800  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4204-22.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.4525869  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4204-21.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.4525869  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4204-20.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.5695089  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4203-23.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.5705065  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4203-22.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.6726746  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4203-21.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.7908157  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4203-20.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.7908157  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4202-23.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.9017470  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4202-22.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:04.9027496  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4202-21.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.0134373  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4202-20.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.1233707  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4201-23.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.2732770  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4201-22.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.2732770  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4201-21.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.3882895  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4201-20.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.4982141  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4200-23.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.6131488  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4200-22.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.7160882  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4200-21.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:05.8280095  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4200-20.fits, field objects 1-10).
Info:	19:32:06.0489003  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4209.fits, field objects 11-20).
Info:	19:32:06.1519387  Plate solving : Field 1 did not solve (index index-4208.fits, field objects 11-20).
Info:	19:32:06.2938516  Plate solving :   log-odds ratio 185.618 (4.09983e+80), 69 match, 1 conflict, 26 distractors, 133 index.
Info:	19:32:06.2948512  Plate solving :   RA,Dec = (83.8356,-5.307), pixel scale 4.29314 arcsec/pix.
Info:	19:32:06.2958563  Plate solving :   Hit/miss: ++++++++++++++++--+-++--+-+++--+++++--+++++-++++-++++--+++++-+-++-++--+++-+-+-+++c+++-+++---++++(best)++++
Info:	19:32:07.0625193  Plate solving : Field 1: solved with index index-4207-05.fits.
Info:	19:32:07.0635200  Plate solving : Field 1 solved: writing to file /tmp/2c9777b2-bbff-4100-b904-942ebebba017/frame.solved to indicate this.
MikeHuerto
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:05 pm
Location: Spain

Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#9

Post by MikeHuerto »

Ok - thanks! Good to know. Will try on the real scope in the next few days.
Mike
Bortle 5
Skywatcher GOTO Synscan 14" Dobson
Skywatcher 130PDS on HEQ5
ZWOASI224MC and ASI294MCPro
Laptop = Lenovo Legion 5 FullHD 144Hz (Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA RTX2060-6GB, Windows 10
MikeHuerto
Posts: 75
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:05 pm
Location: Spain

Re: Plate solve using synscan app for dobsonians?

#10

Post by MikeHuerto »

Just a quick update on this.

I invested in a new laptop a couple of months ago and, Plate Solving with ASI294 camera is now lightning fast (5-10 secs) though sometimes a bit longer depending on how far off my target I am.

New laptop is:
Lenovo Legion 5 144Hz (Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA RTX2060-6GB, Windows 10

Seems that old Dell Latitude I bought on eBay for a 120 quid was not up to the task!

Mike
Bortle 5
Skywatcher GOTO Synscan 14" Dobson
Skywatcher 130PDS on HEQ5
ZWOASI224MC and ASI294MCPro
Laptop = Lenovo Legion 5 FullHD 144Hz (Intel Core i7-10750H, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, NVIDIA RTX2060-6GB, Windows 10
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