Plate solve issues

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joanbdunham
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 4:23 pm

Plate solve issues

#1

Post by joanbdunham »

We've had various problems when trying to use plate solve. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it crashes SharpCap. We are likely trying to use this feature in a way not originally intended. Here are the specifics of last night's efforts:
Both SharpCap Pro 3.2.6480 and the Beta version 4.0.7493, 64 bit were used.
Computer is KingDel NUC Win 10 Pro version 1909
Plate solve tool AstroTortilla
Telescope an unpowered 10-inch Dobsonian
Camera the Watec 910 HX
Recording formats tried: AVI, PNG, SER, FITS

What we want is to assist the observer in preparing a scope for unattended capture using a drift-through technique where the scope is pre-pointed to where the event will happen. To do that, I want to be able to determine the location of the center of the field in RA and DEC. Eventually, I'd like to give the center in Alt and Az, but for now, I'd be happy with reliably being able to provide RA and DEC.

An error message that showed up multiple times was "WARNING: Couldn't computer FAST_CMD pointer. Please report this problem to the public mailing list cygwin@cygwin.com." We have not done that, and think that would probably not be helpful. I do not find bug reporte

I see 18 log files as the result of last night's efforts and I am quite certain no one wants to plow through them to see what we were doing wrong! I've attached the last one.

When this worked it was great and we are very happy to see the results!

Joan Dunham
Attachments
Log_2021-03-11T05_58_54-7040.log
successes and failures with plate solve
(258.16 KiB) Downloaded 54 times
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Menno555
Posts: 1053
Joined: Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:19 pm
Location: The Netherlands
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Re: Plate solve issues

#2

Post by Menno555 »

Hi Joan

I don't know AstroTortilla but maybe these topics do help?
viewtopic.php?t=2306
viewtopic.php?t=2271
viewtopic.php?t=2161

Menno
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admin
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Re: Plate solve issues

#3

Post by admin »

Hi,

thanks for including the log – it includes two successful plates solving operations and one unsuccessful one. The unsuccessful one contains this error message which I think is the key to the problem that you are having

Code: Select all

      0 [main] python2.6 6740 child_info_fork::abort: address space needed by 'fcntl.dll' (0x1E0000) is already occupied
This is usually caused by antivirus programs getting into the act and causing problems for the plate solving application.

Have a look at

http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.usin ... k-failures
http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/111 ... tch-commit

I'd suggest trying the 'rebase' instructions in the first link to see if that helps.

Robin
joanbdunham
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 4:23 pm

Re: Plate solve issues

#4

Post by joanbdunham »

Thank you, I will try that as soon as we get some clear weather.
Joan
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admin
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Re: Plate solve issues

#5

Post by admin »

Hi Joan,

since it's a kind of trial-and-error type thing, try using SharpCap's built in test camera - the deep sky one by default shows an M42 image, but you can load another image into it and then test plate solving (use the plate solve option in the tools menu - it doesn't need the mount connected, but is slower as it searches the whole sky).

Robin
joanbdunham
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 4:23 pm

Re: Plate solve issues

#6

Post by joanbdunham »

I did the rebase, following the instructions in the cygwin documentation, I gave up waiting for clear skies and tested with the folder monitor camera, reading data where plate solve failed. I ran through a number of them and did not experience the failure again. I think this one is solved, or at least I now know how to get plate solve working again should we have another of these failures.
Joan
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admin
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Re: Plate solve issues

#7

Post by admin »

Hi Joan,

glad to hear you have it working :)

Robin
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