SharpCap Forums

I'm so frustrated I've had so many issues across two different mounts and this is the last straw. I can plate solve fine, I can slew the mount fine, but I cannot do the two together. When I try to sync I get a "no solution could be found" error and it gets stuck whenever I try to do GoTo functionality. When I plate solved independently I noted there was a significant difference in the plate solve position and the mount's internal position and I assume this is the issue. How do I fix this, has anyone else had this problem, what is going onnnnn?

My full setup is ZWO AM3, qhy 5 iii 715 C camera, and with apertura 75Q With the .75x reducer for an approx 300mm equivalent OTA.

Possible factors that may contribute it the issue, 1 am in Brooklyn and there's light pollution, at a pretty narrow FOV so maybe there's not enough stars and it's plate solving incorrectly? Not sure. Also on my roof there are rubber tiles down that shift slightly when I step right next to the mount, but it's not a super big shift and it settles when I step away.

Hi,

I guess the first step would be to pick a target that is fairly obvious in the sky (right now maybe Jupiter, Mars or Orion) and tell the mount to go to that target. Then make sure the telescope is (at least roughly) pointing where it should. If it is obviously in the wrong place by eye then problem you have is that the mount is going to the wrong co-ordinates but the plate solving results are (probably) right - in this case you need to concentrate on the mount setup etc to work out why it is doing the wrong thing...

On the other hand, if the mount looks like it has gone to the right place but you are still having issues then you need to start thinking about why the plate solving results could be wrong and start investigating that one.

On the mount side, worth checking that your latitude, longitude, time and time zone are set correctly in any handset and in the ASCOM driver setup.

On the plate solving side, you might get better results by reducing the resolution by using binning. It's also worth saving some image files as you can then later upload them to the online plate solver at nova.astrometry.net and see if the results there agree with the results that SharpCap is producing.

cheers,

Robin