Grommit2013

Hi all, im trying to figure out the best way to build a cloud/rain detector. Then i had a crazy idea, as i use phd2 for guiding, is there some way to have it output a signal maybe to a mobile or email when it loses a star? It seems too simple but I’m sure it would have been done already if it was possible. thanks for any advice Alex

I know this is an old thread, but is there any way of installing over voltage protection Between this psu and the mount? i have one of these Maplin psus and so far it’s been rock solid, I was thinking of installing a permanent volt meter in line to monitor the output but thought, if there was to be a fault with it, a display telling me won’t stop it damaging the mounts circuit boards. as a matter of interest, which power supplies do most people use other than battery packs? Alex

Hi all, i'm getting to grips with APT and have had some success with imaging. Im using the asi224 non cooled osc for planetary and dso's, I know its not ideal and I intend to upgrade at some point maybe to mono, but I need to galvanise my knowledge and imaging/processing process before adding filters etc.. My main problem now is finding the right gain/exposure settings for dso's. For example last night I managed to get some time on M51. Where I had previously used unity gain of 135, and suffered from noise in processing (I need to up my game in that department too) I tried a gain setting of 60 to see if that helped reduce the amount of noise. Another thing my images suffer from in processing is star bloating, i'm wondering if that is down to my inexperience with Photoshop and finding the right techniques rather than imaging settings in APT as they look fairly sharp on screen as the subs are taken I've used different exposures ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes with various degrees of success. (I seem to have PHD2 guiding successfully although I'm sure there are improvements I can and will make to get more accurate guiding), and I'm taking a minimum of 20 each darks, bias and flats in each session. Using DeepSky Stacker and then PS to process. Like I said I'm still new to astrophotography and learning in fits (no pun intended) and starts but definitely improving. Any help of advice would be gratefully received. Alex

I'm sure its something really simple, but I just cant see what it is. As an aside, when you set up platesolving through APT it asksk you to download and install both Platesolve2 and ASPS but nowhere does it mention ansvr so I don't know why it is relevant. The main trouble is this is all still fairly new to me so I'm desperately trying to learn while I'm doing it. thanks again for the help, it is much appreciated Alex

I made sure ansvr was started then ran asps and got this

ok, so update.. installed and ran ansvr, has made no difference to all sky plate solver not working. Just tested trying to solve an image through APT using both 'blind' and 'solve' buttons. 'solve' button (as long as I give it a rough idea where its looking) solves the image within 3-4 secs. Using 'blind' button fails giving the same error as I get when using asps on its own. Hopefully the screen grabs I took have loaded so you can see the errors I get. To say this is frustrating is an understatement. Thanks for any help Alex

HTH, I'm installing it now; it was definitely not installed when I went through the pointcraft solver set up in APT and downloaded ASPS and Platesolve2. At least the GUI is very different, when it asks which indexes you want to download etc.. Thanks very much for your help, hopefully this will solve the problem. Alex

Hi HTH, yes I’m running windows 10. I don’t think ansvr was ever installed. I’m just looking at it now on the web and the install procedure is something I didn’t have to do while installing either APT, platesolver2 or All Sky Platesolver. Alex

Hi Steve, yes sorry I meant astrometry.net. As for the log file, I looked under File/view log file but it just says 'Reading input file 1 of 1: "/temp/stars.fit"... Processing duration: 2.2 seconds.' Alex

Hi, I've been trying to get ASPS to work but I keep getting this error. 'Error running astronomy.net plate solving. Check the processing log file.' I had been using plate solving successfully through APT, but since installing Bitdefender recently, I've had all kinds of warnings from it regarding various files and programs to do with APT/platesolving. In the end I have uninstalled Bitdefender but not before it said it had quarantined some files after which the latest error started to show. I have tried re installing both PS2 and ASPS through APT but I cannot find a solution to this current error. It makes no difference if I run ASPS by itself or through APT, I get the same problem. Can anyone please help as I've run out of ideas. thanks in advance Alex