Difficulites getting Platesolver to run again.

[FstarGazer]

Good evening, in January there was a windows update, after which nothing worked anymore.

Until then I had a perfectly running system with Sharpcap my ASI ZWO MC533pro on an Ioptron GEM 28, running with commander.

I had to uninstall everything and it took me a few weeks of trying until Ioptron Commander worked well again and Sharpcap recognized the camera and mount again.

When Plate solving, it always told me it was not working, couldnt find a picture to solve. Ok, uninstalled and re installed ASTAP. Tried the test in sharp cap, ASTAP was found automatically and test gave a positive feedback. Today there are a few hours of clear skies since christmas again.
When I now start the plate solve it tells me it cant find enough stars. I reinstalled astap again with the newest version of the D50 data base today and it still tells me, not enough stars. I can see plenty of stars in this picture. How come sharpcap doesnt? Anybody got an idea how to solve correctly and this problem?

[FstarGazer]

Right now I tried the Deep Sky Test Camera with the telescope simulator . Even the 180‘ solve couldn’t find a solution. Orion is below the horizon at the moment , do I have to try again tonight.

Any help is highly appreciated.

[Menno555]

Hi

Could you make a screenshot of your plate solving settings in the main SharpCap settings window and share that?

Menno

[admin]

Hi,

one thing I can see is a known issue with the latest iOptron drivers and SharpCap 4.0, which gives ridiculous values for the RA/Dec/Alt/Az shown in SharpCap (those bad values could also be affecting plate solving). The fix for that is either

* Use SharpCap 4.1 or
* Use the ASCOM device hub for connection to your iOptron mount ASCOM driver

That might help, if not then the fact that only 15 stars are being detected might be an issue. Things to check for low numbers of stars detected in plate solving include

* If using Astrotortilla/ASPS/Ansvr - reduce the 'sigma' setting in the SharpCap plate solving settings a bit at a time to see if that helps
* If capturing in 8 bit mode, try 16 bit
* If the option to send 8 bit images to the plate solve is set, try turning it off.
* (Not relevant in your case) If using a display stretch, turn it off to check the stars are visible without a stretch
* Increase exposure and/or gain to capture more stars.

Hope this helps,

Robin

[FstarGazer]

Thank you two for the support. I was using ASTAP with a fresh install and the most recent database.
Here is the setting screen.

Screenshot (4).png (73.55 KiB) Viewed 1798 times

I tried without 8 bit images before, just swithced it on in the end. If that is worse and not better, i will switch this option off again.

The strange values in the mount control panel will only show with the ioptron mount, not with one of the test mounts, still no plate solve.

I will try the 4.1 version of sharpcap. Just around new year everything worked fine, nothing was changed in hardware or drivers. Other than a windows update that seemed to have everything messed up. I also tryed an older version of ioptron commander, plate solving still didnt work.

I get good RA, Dec, etc. values in the recent ioptron commander though, any idea why this doesnt work with sharpcap anymore?

My Gain for plates solving is usually 400 with 2-5 s of exposure. It worked fine for all the nights last year. Unless I was using a narrow band filter, but there was none mounted last night.

And the last question, when I use the test camera and a test mount with the orion nebular picture, why doesnt plate solve work with that either?

[FstarGazer]

Just updated to Sharpcap 4.1 and there are proper readings for the mount now. At least. My pictures settings were RAW 16. So should have been fine. How can I test the plate solver working properly without a clear night? There has been a lot of frustration already witht the sparse clear nights over the last three monts and plate solving letting me down.

[admin]

Hi,

the best way to test the plate solver is as follows:

* Find saved FITS files from a previous session
* Load one of them into 'Test Camera 1 (Deep Sky)' using the 'Browse' button for the 'Image' control on the right.
* Connect your mount and adjust it to point fairly close to the area of sky of the image you have loaded (alternative - use the ASCOM 'Telescope Simulator for .NET' simulated mount).
* Press the plate solve button in SharpCap.

This should run the plate solving process on the loaded image, starting from the mount co-ordinates, so basically simulates what you would do under clear skies.

cheers,

Robin

[FstarGazer]

Thank you, I will try that.

[FstarGazer]

It worked, Finally. Had a single raw frame of M42 uploaded, 30 seconds at Gain 101 or so. Went with Starry Night for it and the plate solve gave a green signal. I am so happy that it worked. Now I can attempt the coming clear nights (if there will be any at all) with some confidence.
What an effort, that came from a windows update and some incompatibility between ioptron commander and the 4.0 version.

Thank you so much for your fast help on this one.