SharpCap Forums

Hi
I initiated a plate solve after a poor slew and plate solves repeated failed - this is atypical. I first tried ASTAP and then Astrotortilla - neither worked. I adjusted gamma from 50 upward on successive attempts, eventually giving up at gamma=70. From the error message visible in the image below, I suspect something is wrong that I cannot overcome since the image clearly shows adequate stars while the error message indicates that none were found. I'd appreciate any insights anyone can offer on how to deal more successfully with the error message.
regards,
Gary

Hi Gary,

it's possible that SharpCap failed to extract the number of stars found from the plate solve results, which would leave the default value of zero and trigger the 'not enough stars' message. If you can post the full log file then I can track back through the plate solve output to see if I can work out what is going on.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin
I will find and attach the log.
Meanwhile, I woke this morning and realized I had not changed the FL of the little refractor I was trying for the first time last night. I had it set to 800 for my other scope and just forgot to reset it to 250 mm. Could that make enough of a difference to cause problems??
Gary

Hi Gary,

yes, that could well be the problem. If you don't set a focal length then SharpCap tells the plate solving application to try a range of possible fields of view - that approach works, but is slower. If you do set the focal length the SharpCap works out the field of view from the focal length and pixel size/count and tells the plate solving application to only try near that one set FOV. If the FOV is right then the results are very quick. If its wrong then it will almost certainly fail.

cheers,

Robin

Hi,

one more thing... I should say that I would still appreciate it if you could dig out the log file - it might let me improve the error messaging when ASTAP fails if I could work out why it showed 'zero stars' instead of a more sensible error.

cheers,

Robin

Robin:
I hope I did this right. It seemed the two files below were created at about the time that the problem occurred - per the SC window screenshot I attached above. Please let me know if these aren't the correct ones and I'll dig into this again.
Gary

Hi Gary,

thanks for sharing - the larger log file contains the info I wanted. I can see that it does have the star count from ASTAP but for some reason ignores it - I will investigate.

cheers,

Robin

I encountered the same ‘complete crashing of laptop’ problem again last night when I tried the spiral search routine. All I did was hold down the button and I started getting a series of relentless message boxes that I could only stop by shutting down the computer with the ‘on button’. What could I be doing wrong?
Gary

Hi Gary,

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, it's just that the mount has stopped responding to movement requests (and is giving an error when asked to move). Unfortunately the spiral search just shows an error message box and keeps on trying, so the errors mount up. I have now fixed that (will be in tomorrow's update) - if there is an error from trying to move the mount then you should only get 1 (maybe 2) errors and the spiral search will stop automatically rather than try to continue.

What has caused the mount to stop moving on request is of course a much harder question to answer...

cheers,

Robin