Polar Alignment via Platesolving

[Lulubell]

Here is the home page for NINA:

https://nighttime-imaging.eu/

The videos you would want to watch on NINA are here Astro Patriot is absolutely the best:

https://www.youtube.com/@PatriotAstro/videos

Oh and NINA is free but acts like a million bucks. Alot of people use NINA for Polar Alignment and Hocus Focus (focusing) and then fire up SharpCap. For myself personally, I use SharpCap for almost everything including Deep Sky Photography as SC will save frames for me to postprocess. I am trying to convince Dr Glover to utilize port 8090 so I can use the planetarium software of my choice for GoTo but no luck so far... If that were to happen I would b happier than... well you name it.

Hiya

I've been using Sharpcap with Stellarium (plus Stellarium scope). It lets me select and goto the selected object, plate solve and resync/re-center. It always seems to work very well for me This is with a Skywatcher EQ3 pro and EQmod/Ascom.

Lu

[Jean-Francois]

Hello L(o)u,

The Polar Alignment in NINA is done with the camera connected (to NINA) and an extern Plate Solve software (for example ASTAP).
After the polar alignment (in NINA), you disconnect the camera and then connect the camera in SharpCap for the capture session.
It means that you have no communication between NINA and SharpCap.

You say that you use your mount (or the handset) with your laptop ... it means that you can control the movement of the telescope from the laptop.
Is that correct ?

Alternative method for Polar Alignment ... some years ago, Norman upload a script for this: viewtopic.php?t=2331
Note that I did not use the script with the last version of SharpCap.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Lulubell]

Hello L(o)u,

The Polar Alignment in NINA is done with the camera connected (to NINA) and an extern Plate Solve software (for example ASTAP).
After the polar alignment (in NINA), you disconnect the camera and then connect the camera in SharpCap for the capture session.
It means that you have no communication between NINA and SharpCap.

You say that you use your mount (or the handset) with your laptop ... it means that you can control the movement of the telescope from the laptop.
Is that correct ?

Alternative method for Polar Alignment ... some years ago, Norman upload a script for this: viewtopic.php?t=2331
Note that I did not use the script with the last version of SharpCap.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

Hi

Yes I can connect/disconnect the camera under NINA and use Stellarium ok and control the mount. But it sounds like you're confirming that I can't use Sharpcap with its standalone plate solving after all That's annoying because the Sharpcap plate solve works so well. I suppose it would work if I installed yet another plate solver together with astrometry index files. All so messy when it could be so simple! Sigh.
Yes, I only use the mount via the laptop, eqmod, and Stellarium plus Stellarium Scope.

Lou

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Lou,

You have several possibilities to perform a Plate Solve in SharpCap.

- SharpSolve (SharpCap's built in plate solver) ... very quick and good performances
- AstroTortilla / Ansvr / ASPS
- ASTAP
- PlateSolve2
- PlateSolve3

At least the ASTAP and the PlateSolve2/3 are standalone plate solver.
Yes, you can use SharpCap with extern plate solver software.
On the other side ... other software (NINA or Stellarium) can not use the SharpSolve solver from SharpCap. It is only intern to SharpCap.

You use the mount with the laptop and EQMOD.
If you can connect EQMOD, then I guess that you can connect the SynScan Pro software too.
If so, then you can perform the Polar Alignment process from the SynScan software.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Lulubell]

Hello Lou,

You have several possibilities to perform a Plate Solve in SharpCap.

- SharpSolve (SharpCap's built in plate solver) ... very quick and good performances
- AstroTortilla / Ansvr / ASPS
- ASTAP
- PlateSolve2
- PlateSolve3

At least the ASTAP and the PlateSolve2/3 are standalone plate solver.
Yes, you can use SharpCap with extern plate solver software.
On the other side ... other software (NINA or Stellarium) can not use the SharpSolve solver from SharpCap. It is only intern to SharpCap.

You use the mount with the laptop and EQMOD.
If you can connect EQMOD, then I guess that you can connect the SynScan Pro software too.
If so, then you can perform the Polar Alignment process from the SynScan software.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

Hi again
Yes, that's what I said. Sharpcap's plate solver is very good but doesn't interface with NINA for the 3 star polar align which was all I wanted NINA for ..
No, I don't want to mess about with the Synscan Pro app. I'm guessing it will still expect a better view of the sky to do a polar align - I have a very limited view of the sky to work with. The NINA polar align via plate solve can be used in any part of the sky - the whole reason I want to use it. I will try ansvr if I can get it to work.
Thanks
Lou

Lou

[Lulubell]

Hi all
Just an update. I managed to get NINA running with ASTAP plate solver. I only achieved sporadic plate solves but I put that down to the sky conditions. However, it looks like it's working, sortof - it's going through the three star polar align routine, capturing images and attempting plate solves. It will have to wait for some clearer skies to try the three star polar align properly. At least I've made some progress with it and I have some optimism
Thanks for all your help.
Lou

[Beyondlumen]

I wanted to let you know that your SynScan application folder includes a SharpCap script for plate solve alignment. Additionally, make sure to visit the Sky-Watcher Global website, a new SynScan app driver (version 1.5) that resolves many issues. *Bonus Finally, once you’ve connected the SynScan Pro app to your mount, you can open the ASCOM Device Hub, select the SynScan ASCOM driver, and connect to it. The driver is now fully recognized as a proper ASCOM driver.

[Lulubell]

I wanted to let you know that your SynScan application folder includes a SharpCap script for plate solve alignment. Additionally, make sure to visit the Sky-Watcher Global website, a new SynScan app driver (version 1.5) that resolves many issues. *Bonus Finally, once you’ve connected the SynScan Pro app to your mount, you can open the ASCOM Device Hub, select the SynScan ASCOM driver, and connect to it. The driver is now fully recognized as a proper ASCOM driver.

I'm not interested in the synscan app. As you can see I've solved the issue with NINA and astap. Using that I should be able to polar align with the three star routine even with my limited view of the sky. It's currently snowing here and it's a Storm Bert weekend, so I'll have to be patient!
Thanks anyway.
Lou

[givoly]

Robin, hi, (not sure where to post this 'feature request') - if not here, point me to the right direction.

I'm a happy SharpCap user. However, I've set up a new portable rig with the QHY minicam8 (implication: I cannot use ASIAIR for polar alignment), and I don't have visible NCP for polar alignment, so cannot use SharpCap for polar alignment.
This is effectively forcing me to move to Nina (as PHD drift alignment is just painfully slow / time consuming).
But it is causing me a lot of grief.
The internal plate solving you implemented is 100% fast and accurate for me - and so much better than ASTAP (or any of the other plate solvers I've tried with Nina). Nina also poses a bunch of other issues.
I'm wondering if SharpCap might evolve to be able to completely replace NINA? Perhaps not its open plug-in architecture. But a few key features that would make it suitable for Mono-rig based imaging and EAA. And, in general, I love EAA and much prefer to see dynamic results being created rather than just long runs of image capture followed by processing for image production. That's the cool thing about SharpCap - both for DSO and planetary.
Here's what's missing for me in order of priority:
1. Top priority: All star polar alignment, as in Nina and in ASIAIR. Necessary to get going... otherwise, I need to polar align with something else...
2. Amazingly useful: Ability to perform multi-filter live stacking. Define a sequence, and perhaps even a palette - a function of how to incorporate a set of filters, and a simple sequencing for filter rotation, to capture, and dynamically show live stack results. Example: Say define a ratio of images per filter wheel (20% L, 10% R, G, and B, 20% Ha, 15% OIII, 15% S3) - just as an example, and then cycle these with 30/60 second exposures. Plus label the individual shots and incorporate to live stack with the relevant color palette. Keep the dithering capability.
3. Optional: In Seestar, ZWO recently add live drizzle... Can this be added in SharpCap? That would be very cool, to double resolution when dithering.

I'm thinking that if I had #1 and #2 I could basically avoid using Nina altogether. And we'd have two new capabilities not currently available with SharpCap.

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Givoly,

What mount do you use ?
If SkyWatcher ... then you have several possibilities to perform a Polar Alignment.
... with the hand controller in case you have one connected,
or the SynScan Pro software. In SynScan software you have several option for the Polar Alignment.

Note that the Polar Alignment with SynScan is all the time in two steps.
First step is a 2 or 3 stars alignment. After this step you can start the Polar Alignment.

It is here may be not sufficient clear ... the SynScan Polar Alignment does not need to see the Polar Star.

That is what I do on my terrace at home. With my moving tripod, I perform first the SynScan 2 stars alignment (for example with Altair and Deneb).
Then I switch to the Polar Alignment function and I reselect Deneb star as target for the Polar Alignment process.

For a SharpCap All Stars Polar Alignment ("SASPA" ) ... you have an old script somewhere on the forum that perform this.
I have some ideas for a new simplified script for the Polar Alignment ... but until today never started to write it.

Regards,
Jean-Francois