Looking for beta testers of new Polar Alignment utility.

[Earl]

Installing it in the c:\users\lappy has solved that and the api goes in fine, be aware that if you cut and paste the api text off astrometery.net via a click selection of the text it adds a space on the end

Edited November 25, 2014 by Earl

[Earl]

test from the images provided.

[themos]

Oh, that hasn't happened to me yet but I can trim blanks, I guess.

[themos]

You're all set up then, Earl, to try it for real. 

Do you know how to frame the images needed, now? There's discussion of it in this thread.

[Earl]

I get the gist that I take one image with the mount and scope and camera in a classical polar parked possition (ccd landscape), then another with the RA rotated 90 degees? moving the ccd to portrait

[themos]

Yes, just make sure you select the correct image, I take the portrait style first (corresponds to top left button) and then switch to landscape because I want subsequent checking frames to also be landscape.

[HuN73R666]

I'm up for giving this a go thermos. I'm just concerned that a lot of what I have read is over my head, at quite an altitude.

If your looking for the dummy test, I might just be your man.

Paul

[HuN73R666]

I get the bit about taking the portrait and landscape images, but how accurate do you need to be? Do have to make sure that the portrait image is exactly 90 degrees?

[themos]

I get the bit about taking the portrait and landscape images, but how accurate do you need to be? Do have to make sure that the portrait image is exactly 90 degrees?

The portrait doesn't matter, any large angle will do. The errors (Up Down Left Right) I display, as well as the annotated image, only make sense if the landscape image is horizontal. But  don't sweat it too much, you will do a small correction and check again.

[StevieDvd]

Hi Themos,

Have installed python and PPA and like Earl had the same issue with saving the api key.  Though thanks to Earl breaking the ground first I moved it from the defaulted directory (C:\Program Files (x86)) to my user directory and it was then accepted OK.

Loaded and solved the example images (h.jpg first then v.jpg) and finally the i.jpg and did the Find Polar Axis and then the Show Improvement. All worked as per your instructions.

I presume we would only iterate through the improvement (i.jpg) image(s) as we adjust and get better aligned.

Also, noted that the test images are shown as solved (in green) when re-doing the test after closing and restarting due to the saved wcs files. Would suggest a button for reset which deletes the wcs files in case people use the same names for each image - would make an interesting adjustment if they used the wrong ones I'd expect.

My next task is deciding which camera to use if we get a clear night.

So good work thus far.

PS Earl your api key is visible if that is a concern
 

PPS As a new purchaser of Astroart5 I too would be interested in using it for solving as well.

Edited November 26, 2014 by StevieDvd

[themos]

Thanks Stevie,

I should change the default directory of the installer, it seems. 

On the issue of persistent .wcs files, I'd rather keep things as they are but add a timestamp check on files to make sure that .wcs file is newer than the image file. At the moment, you can press the "Find Polar Axis" button at any time and it will do nothing if there are no .wcs files. I will add some logic to disable the button if there seems to be anything wrong with the .wcs file. 

Re: AstroArt, you should try saving a JPEG version and then solving the image and saving the solved FITS file as a .wcs file, just as if it had come from nova. And it should magically work.

Themos

[StuartJPP]

Hello,

if you would like to volunteer to try out a new Polar Alignment method, please let me know. The requirements are:

• You can see the Polaris/NCP region from where you usually set up. (South hemisphere? get in touch!)
• You can attach a camera to the mount and bring the JPEG image files to your computer.
• You can freely rotate the RA axis (this excludes AstroTrac mounts and similar, I think).
• You have Internet connectivity.
• You can run Python on your computer (e.g. Anaconda for Windows, Linux, MacOS X)

You might be able to verify your Polar Alignment within 2-3 minutes. The software will be in the public domain.

Regards

Themos Tsikas

Not if you have got the AstroTrac head (or similar). It has RA and DEC "controls"...I would be interested in people in the southern hemisphere trying this out...preferably before March next year

[Phillyo]

I'm up for it if this is still going...?

Phil

[themos]

Hello Phil, the link for the download is further up, here it is again

[Merlin66]

Themos,

If you really want to get southern hemisphere user feedback you should cross post in IceInSpace

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/

[themos]

Probably should, yes. But I'd like a couple of pictures from the south to see what changes I should make first.

[SteveInNZ]

Does it work with a local astrometry.net engine installation (or will it in the future) ?

One of the joys of this hobby is that getting out to dark skies also means no inter-web.

Steve.

[themos]

I had an alternative that worked with a cygwin-based astrometry.net engine but it was quite clunky. You can find it at  https://code.google.com/p/eq-polar-alignment/

[themos]

We should ask astrometry.net folk to let us create our own nova-like web server and then we can just submit jobs to our own laptop!

[SteveInNZ]

Here's a successful result from a light polluted southern hemisphere site. Obviously the alpha and lambda circles are meaningless but the pole position is correct.

The Tk image viewer doesn't show the long thin image so I've shown it with a third party viewer. I've also duplicated your circles in CdC for reference.

None of the stars in the original frame (40mm lens on a 70D) were visible with the naked eye. This looks like a very useful tool. Thanks.

Steve.

[themos]

Excellent! I have made a few changes for the Southern skies so it would be really useful if you can send me those two image files, themos.tsikas@gmail.com

Many thanks!

[cthorpey]

Looking good for tonight...fingers crossed. 

Will report back.

The installation all went fine with one minor hiccup.

I installed to c:/users/lappy as instructed.

My system didn't know what to do with the ppa.py. I had to tell it what to open it with. No biggie at all, I just pointed it to the anaconda folder on c: and clicked the python 64 executable.
I did not have the extra space included when I copied and pasted my API key. 

Ran through the supplied images absolutely fine.

Loooking forward to trying it for real tonight.

[themos]

Hello, 

here is an update, it mostly fixes Southern Hemisphere  issues and might be more forgiving in installation.

[themos]

And the above example from the Southern Hemisphere should show this

[AndyKeogh]

Hello, 

here is an update, it mostly fixes Southern Hemisphere  issues and might be more forgiving in installation.

Hi Themos I have installed your latest version  but just cannot get it to solve an image

I have tried installing it on my F: drive and now in my user directory  but the results are the same.  Running on Windows 8.1.  Any ideas where the problem lies?  My API key has been successfully installed.  copy of command window for a portrait solve attempt is below..

TIA

Andy

{'parity': None, 'scale_est': None, 'myjobs': None, 'center_dec': None, 'scale_lower': None, 'radius': None, 'center_ra': None, 'scale_units

': None, 'wcs': u'C:/Users/Andrew/PPA/photopolaralign/v.wcs', 'allow_mod': 'd', 'job_id': None, 'downsample_factor': None, 'public': 'y', 'g

alex_wcs': None, 'kmz': None, 'scale_err': None, 'sdss_wcs': None, 'allow_commercial': 'd', 'scale_upper': None, 'crpix_center': None, 'uplo

ad_url': None, 'wait': None, 'apikey': 'zpbpcsncblmwxgkv', 'sub_id': None, 'tweak_order': None, 'upload': u'C:/Users/Andrew/PPA/photopolaral

ign/v.jpg', 'server': 'http://nova.astrometry.net/api/' 'jobs_by_exact_tag': None, 'jobs_by_tag': None}

Exception in Tkinter callback

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "C:\Python27\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1486, in __call__

    return self.func(*args)

  File "C:\Users\Andrew\PPA\photopolaralign\PPA.py", line 702, in solve_v

    img2wcs(self, self.apikey.get(), self.vimg_fn, self.vwcs_fn, "v")

  File "C:\Users\Andrew\PPA\photopolaralign\PPA.py", line 355, in img2wcs

    clnt.login(opt.apikey)

  File "C:\Users\Andrew\PPA\photopolaralign\PPA.py", line 156, in login

    result = self.send_request('login', args)

  File "C:\Users\Andrew\PPA\photopolaralign\PPA.py", line 71, in send_request

    json = python2json(args)

  File "C:\Users\Andrew\PPA\photopolaralign\PPA.py", line 35, in python2json

    import ujson

ImportError: No module named ujson