Plate Solving with ASTAP

[Dale3152]

Good Evening. Clear skies but my Plate Solving is driving me nuts. I use the Polar Allign and get an excellent polar alignment ( Also took extra care that my mount was level.) and then return the mount to Home position. What happens next has happened twice. I use CPWI to drive my mount to a target reasonably close to Polaris just to start. I get a good plate solve and sync. When I go to my target for the night I cannot ever get it to solve. One time and I'm done. Doesn't make sense. I move the gain and exposure up and down to get many stars all the way down to 100 stars. This has happened several nights where it is just hit and miss. So I never know if I will be able to solve and go to my target or spend all night moving from place to place trying different gains and exposures. Something is not right but I just do not have a clue what will get it to solve sometimes and other times not ever a chance. I am doing something wrong but I can't figure it out.

[admin]

Hi,

so the plate solve + sync works for you near the celestial pole, but not in other locations. I think the best way forward is for you to post two things here

1) An image captured in the area where the plate solve fails - just press the 'snapshot' button and share the saved file (if it is too large to upload here then you can use something like dropbox or google drive and post the sharing link)

2) The log from SharpCap captured after the initial plate solve success near the pole and then the later failure elsewhere. The log should contain useful information like the exact command sent to ASTAP including any information on estimated position, field of view, etc. Along with the image that should allow us to recreate the problem you are seeing and work out what is going on.

cheers,

Robin

[Dale3152]

Robin,

I accidently found a way that I can now plate solve every time. Not sure why it works but it does. Literally I set the exposure to a low number like 2-3 seconds and a very low gain. Then I go and do the auto stretch and leave it. With the stretch, I can see how many stars are actually recognized. With those things done it solves everytime first time.

Happy Days
Dale

[admin]

Hi Dale,

good to hear that it is working. I have also noticed that sometimes a dimmer image works in Astap where a brighter one does not - I keep meaning to follow up with Han (who writes Astap) to see if there is a reason for this...

cheers,

Robin