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Jean-Francois
That first link has a great lead to just what I was looking for. Thank you.

[Jean-Francois]

Hello,

Robin, yes, my SharpCap is every week up-to-date

For the people searching a catalog ... here all the catalog mentioned in CloudyNight forum.
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/8069 ... ry12875331
or directly
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21A ... A8907ECE6C

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Jean-Francois]

Hell Robin,

Few days ago, I had an idea ... an today I test it ... and it works

It is possible to read a part of the UCAC4 catalog and past it in the Deep Sky Annotation as Custom Object Info.

For that I modified the C code from the UCAC4 CD files. Now the code generate an output text file with only the stars in the RA/DEC coordinates with the width x height field. It is a little bit too early to upload the program.

Here an result with the Sky Simulator camera (compare with the PPM stars):

Star_catalog_annotation_UCAC4.jpg (194.34 KiB) Viewed 228 times

Note: I reduce the size of the image. More annotation are visible on my full screen.


So, I have the next question ... how is it possible to paste the object list from a Python script directly to the Deep Sky Annotation ?
I wish to do it automatically from my Occultation script.


Regards,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi Jean-Francois,

right now there isn't a way to use scripting or sequencer to paste annotation data or force a reload of custom catalogs - I would have to do some work to clean up the catalog loading code and remove the duplications to make that possible.

Would a reload/refresh call work best? Rather than pasting you could write data to a file in the custom catalogs folder (maybe 'currentroi.csv') and then trigger a reload?

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

I continue some programming.
It was not easy to find a simple way to concatenate 2 string in C. (it was more than 10 years ago that I program something in C).
It could be not more simple in Python => A + B when A and B are 2 strings.

So, I have now in my script the possibility to generate the UCAC4 field stars and then to read it again and then to paste it to the windows clipboard.
It is now with one additional click to show the stars in the Deep Sky Annotation (Paste button).

The solution with a custom catalogue ("currentroi.csv") is fine for me.
But now I need to search the path of the user\custom catalogues.
A script function for the trigger to reload is OK. But please only the reload of the "currentroi.csv" file, not all the catalogues.

In addition, I will search (I know it is somewhere in the forum) the information after a Plate Solving.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

I found the message with the result of the Plate Solve. viewtopic.php?p=38091#p38091

I test it. It works. But ...
I'm interested for more information, not only RA and DEC, ideally the X/Y field dimension and the image orientation to North.
Can you export all the information in an Array[] ?

Something similar as the manual Plate Solve (Solve Only) tool. Here after clicking "Copy":
Solution : RA=17:58:20.8,Dec=-15:26:16 (J2000)
Field of View : 0.8559x0.5350 degrees
Time : Mon, 08 Apr 2024 07:45:03 GMT
Orientation : up is 0.0 degrees E of N

I found an alternative in this message viewtopic.php?p=32951#p32951
It is not the best, but possible.

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi Jean-Francois,

I could perhaps add a 'SolveEx' method that returns more info to avoid breaking stuff already depending on the existing one returning just the position.

One other approach if you do not mind a little calculation - after the plate solve is completed, there is a 'PixelPositionProvider' property of the SharpCap object that becomes available to use. That gives methods to map pixel co-ordinates to sky co-ordinates (and the other way around) based on the plate solve data

Code: Select all

clr.AddReference("System.Drawing")
from System.Drawing import PointF
SharpCap.PixelPositionProvider.MapPixel(PointF(0,0))
<SharpCap.Base.RADecPosition object at 0x000000000000002C [RA=05:33:13.1,Dec=-04:30:20]>

You could use that to calculate the RA/Dec position of each corner of the image and then work out the FOV etc. It may be useful in other ways too.

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

Thank for both methods.
If you ask what I want ... then I will say "both"

It is OK for a little bit more calculation. One of my idea is to have in the future the camera exposure, offset and gain sets automatically from the script. I'm planning to have several occultation observations from the script. So it could be possible to have more observations and more sleep.
For that, it will be very important to find the correct star for the camera settings. So the "PixelPositionProvider" property will help.

For the "Orientation : up is 0.0 degrees E of N", can you explain a little bit the rule of the "degrees E of N".

Regards,
Jean-Francois

[admin]

Hi,

the 'degrees E of N' works like this...

Imagine an arrow starting at the center of the image pointing directly upward on the image. Now consider the direction pointed by that arrow if you transferred it to be drawn on the sky. Now imagine another arrow on the sky that starts at the same point, but points at the north celestial pole. The clockwise rotation needed to overlay the arrow pointing at the north celestial pole onto the arrow that points up in the image is the 'degrees E of N'.

cheers,

Robin

[Jean-Francois]

Hello Robin,

Thanks for the explanation.
But I need some time to understand the difference when an image flip is activated or after a meridian flip.

note: I upload a small version of my script for the UCAC4 catalogue in a different topic.

Regards,
Jean-Francois