SiTech and Sharpcap

[hdman1]

It has been awhile since my last visit.
I am trying some new projects, for the past two years I have been using SharpCap for all my imaging, simple manual use for the most part, but now I have been looking at some simple sequences which will require plates solving from SC. I have setup and tested plate solve 2 and verified it works, but when I tried to solve and sync I hit a bump. SC gives me an error: Plate solve failed need FOV the telescope ASCOM driver failed to provide the focal length, As I am not sure if this is SiTech driver or a problem in SC, I decided to post at both forums. Any help is appreciated.

BR

[admin]

Hi,

this error arises because PlateSolve2 is quite limited in comparison to other plate solving engines, and it needs to know the field of view of the image in order to work (other engines can work out the field of view if necessary). You can set the focal length in SharpCap's plate solving settings if you can't set it in your ASCOM driver.

However, you might want to skip the whole complexity of that and try using SharpCap's own built in plate solving engine - update to the latest version of SharpCap 4.1 and enable 'SharpSolve' as your plate solving engine. The built in index will work down to a field of view of 0.5 by 0.5 degrees, or you can download an extended index to work down to 0.25x0.25 degrees. It should be significantly faster than PlateSolve2 as well...

cheers,

Robin

[hdman1]

Thanks Robin, will give Sharp Solve a shot. If I choose the option to set focal length in SC Then it can't talk to Si Tech and I see no way to set the fl in ps2. So my hope is your suggestion works I got my sequence written finally got a clear night, never saw the platesolve problem coming.......

Br

[hdman1]

Well Robin, I'm back! The sharp solve works BUT, The platesolve and sync are greyed out as well as just sync. The mount is set in hardware. What am I missing now?

BR

[admin]

Hi,

have you ticked the box to connect the mount in SharpCap so that you see the current mount co-ordinates in the controls on the right? As shown here : https://docs.sharpcap.co.uk/4.1/#GOTO%20Mount%20Control

cheers,

Robin

[hdman1]

Ok, So now I get the dumb ass of the year award! Thanks Robin made an assumption without checking. Feel bad I wasted your time.

BR

[admin]

Hi,

no worries

cheers,

Robin