PushTo direction

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

I missed our answer from 25.9. Thanks for the investigation of the method.

The script of Norman "no_polaris_no_problem" can take more than 3 images and it compensates the atmosphere refraction.
During reading your message ... I was thinking that the script of Norman allows a "Test" directory.

I will try it. First I will take several images with a movement only in RA (note the mount has to be initialised so that the mount coordinates are in the FITS header). And then moves the images in one of the "Test" directory and then perform the plate solve and other steps.
In this way I'm sure that the telescope was moving only in RA.

May be the script "no_polaris_no_problem" could be used in this way.

But, it has a small "but" ... the script is written for the version 4.0 or below, not the version 4.1.
It is possible to use the 4.0 for polar alignment and then switch to 4.1 for the rest of the night.

Note that the script "no_polaris_no_problem" needs an additional installation of the R programming language.
That is a little bit limiting the use of the script.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi Jean-Francois,

oops, I had forgotten about the need for 'R'. I had to maintain some code written in R once by a data scientist and it was not a pretty task... I wonder if whatever calculations are in R could be converted to Python?

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

I had a long answer ... but, again when I wanted to "submit", then the webpage change to the login ... and all my text was lost.
Normally I "copy" before doing "Preview" or "Submit" ... this time not.

Yes, it should be possible to convert the R code in Python.
But ... no Numpy directly from the IronPython script language. (it exist some numpy.net clone, but sometimes not easy to activate).

Regards,
Jean-Francois

Note: !! 2 times in a row !!

[Gfischer]

Robin,

I have been using 2 different solvers for plate solving, astap and ansvr. I have noticed a difference in the way they react when you push the stop button in push to window then the start button.
The reason I push these two button is to avoid the blurry frames from moving scope. Ansvr clears the distance and direction display and re starts the solve. Astap does not clear direction and distance display and immediate solves showing no movement in scope location. This happens when I am getting close to target.
I figure it must be on the solver side but thought I’d let you know.

George

[admin]

Hi George,

sounds like there is some difference in the way the cancellation is being handled - I will look into it.

cheers,

Robin

[Gfischer]

Robin,

I think I found out what has been making the push to work strange sometimes. My laptop is about 5 yrs old but I put in 16G of ram and an ssd. I installed the latest sc 4.1. I looked at memory in settings. I realized I was allocating a lot of memory to the high speed imaging. I reduced that slider way. Down and brought the other way up. Now everything is solving great and faster.
I had a thought, I use phd for my ra on my platform and click on the button to not stack in live stacking until guiding is active. I’m using 30 sec subs and have to wait for a while to start stacking once phd is ready. It would be nice if once pjs is ready sc starts the first sub immediately. Thanks for all the great work you do.

George

[admin]

Hi George,

good to hear that the memory adjustment helped.

For the PHD issue, I think you should see an improvement if you put the camera into still mode before you start live stacking. In still mode, the live stacking code can control exactly when the frames happen, so it should start frames when PHD moves into guiding mode (although I haven't tested that exact scenario).

I have also been fine tuning the PushTo user interface - I have added a slider to change the search radius so that you can alter it manually if required between 15 and 180 degrees. Additionally the search radius now increases by 10 degrees on each failed solve rather than staying at 15 for 3 failures then jumping to 180. This will be in next week's update.

cheers,

Robin

[Gfischer]

Robin
I’ll give it a try and let you know.

Thanks

[Gfischer]

Robin,
That works.

Thanks

[just Klaas]

Hi all.

I just recently got my Sharpcap pro license and have been experimenting with the "push to" tool. I am using a 12" dobsonian and I am very happy with this push to feature.

Yesterday, something strange happened. after aligning on polaris and nudging the telescope a little bit to the right, I performed a push to action to check whether movement instrcuctions to center polaris again (left/right and up/down) where correct.
The normal push to window was visible, except for the bottom row in which the left/right up/down directions are given. Just nothing.
I tried to punch in a different object to go to: M101, M31 and Jupiter. Nothing... By this I mean that the text: "move telescope" is visible, but not directions.

Now I am puzzling what causes this: Prior to using the push to function, I performed a reset to restore all factory settings, and after entering the focal length of the telescope and connecting the camera the same issue occured. Plate solving succeeded, no directions given in up/down left/right...

Clearly, I did something wrong. But what could this be? Is it important to have a correct orientation of the camera (rotation around optical axis)? I doubt this, since normal plate solving works just fine...