Plate Solve in Goto Target/Coordinates not working

[ScopesNC]

This current version 4.1.10523 is working rather well for gotos now. The selection check box for allowing SC to adjust the gain and exposure seems to disappear a lot of the time. One time it is there as an option and the next time it isn't. Not sure why that is.

[admin]

Hi,

good to hear that it is working better now

The option to reduce exposure only shows when it is relevant - to be precise, that means that the current camera exposure has to be more than 5s for it to show up. If the exposure is already less than 5s then it's not really worth showing the option to reduce it to 4s.

cheers,

Robin

[ScopesNC]

Thank you. That makes perfect sense.

[Oberon510]

Hi Robin,

I finally got some clear skies and have been testing with some galaxies. My plate solve will work with ~30s exposures but the 4s one does not. Is it possible to allow us to set the exposure and camera settings prior to catalog gotos?

Ken

[admin]

Hi Ken,

certainly something that I could consider - out of interest, what exposure do you usually work with if you are reducing to 30s for plate solving? Does an increase in gain not allow you to get below 30s for plate solving?

cheers,

Robin

[Oberon510]

out of interest, what exposure do you usually work with if you are reducing to 30s for plate solving? Does an increase in gain not allow you to get below 30s for plate solving?

My work on M81 last night was set at 30s exposure, 100 gain, 15 brightness with an ASI6200MC. I also use the local ANSRV server (https://adgsoftware.com/ansvr/) for my plate solving. I have used these settings for live stacking on M81/other DSOs for months and plate solving worked when set to the above settings before the goto - will try some lower exposures, higher gains, .. when the sky clears again (Tuesday PST) and maybe capture some images to test with if you are interested. Maybe I just have the bad bortle genie in my bottle.

Does the mount solve/align button use the 4s exposure also as I may just click that after the goto if it uses my camera settings?

NOTE - this is just applicable to faint DSO objects and expect the 4s exposure to work for planetary and other brighter objects/sky areas.

Thanks,
Ken

[admin]

Hi Ken,

thanks for the info...

The normal mount solve/align button just uses the exposure you currently have running, but it will try to use the frame that was just captured (the one being displayed) rather than waiting for the next frame, so can still work fairly quickly. With the GOTO procedure, that approach doesn't work because the mount has just been slewing - the frame being display will probably have badly trailed stars. My goal was to speed up the entire procedure by using shorter exposures.

If you have 30s exposures, then the procedure has to wait for the end of the current frame in progress when the slew stops and discard that frame (that frame will almost certainly be trailed). Then wait for the next full frame to finish. That could mean waiting up to 60s to proceed if the slew finished just after a new frame started.

Anyway, I suspect that I will have to make this an option in the end - it's on my list to investigate again once I have the lunar/solar mosaic tools working well.

cheers,

Robin

[Oberon510]

Great - will work with the solve/align button for now and look forward to see what comes out of your thinking cap later.

Ken

[Oberon510]

My last goto was more successful with M65 and M66 but M81 remained elusive and I used the mount find/center button with my camera settings for that one.

ken