The skies are a friendlier place with a focal reducer!

[JayStar]

My scope is a CPC925 and I have recently started to use an f6.3 reducer/ corrector - what an amazing difference in terms of making life easy!

If you are struggling with plate solving and pointing then do yourself a favour and consider a reducer.

With Pinpoint astrometry at f/10 my plates would fail to solve at least 60% of the time (of course this also depends on the camera) , but with my camera the FOV was just not suitable.  I switched to the FR and 99-100% solved plates.  Now pointing and framing is so much easier and I have also halved the required exposure time (estimate).

One of those eureka moments for me having struggled for weeks with plate solving and pointing

[Sonicfishcake42]

I've just bought a 6.3 reducer from a chap on here for my Evo 9.25. Looking forward to giving it a shot  

[JayStar]

I've just bought a 6.3 reducer from a chap on here for my Evo 9.25. Looking forward to giving it a shot

Cant believe the difference for plate solving - Pinpoint now seems to nail it eveyr time and I got the added benefit of being able to place an articifical star only 12-13 metres away from scope at the bottom of the garden for collimation purposes (at f/10 i needed about 25 metres - which I dont have -  to get close enough to focus)

[Sonicfishcake42]

this is going to seem like a newbie question, what exactly is plate solving? I've not come across the term before? 

[lensman57]

this is going to seem like a newbie question, what exactly is plate solving? I've not come across the term before? 

Plate solving is an expression that has survived from the time of the beginning of Astro Photography when large telescopes used what we call plate cameras , 5x4", 10x8" using either glass plates coated with photosensitive emulsion or negatives in another word, and the likes to take photographs of the deep space. The  " plates " would then be examined by the astronomers and location of key stars noted for further investigation.

Today plate solving is more or less the same procedure carried out by your imaging device. The camera takes a 10 seconds image of a particular portion of the sky and the image is then fed to a Plate Solving software, AstroTortilla, Pinpoint and the likes. These will compare the image to a catalogue of images taken from the sky, identify the area using stars and then slew the mount to the pre determined target Coordinates. Using plate solving makes sure that if needed you can return to a particular target for multiple imaging sessions or just to find a target.

I do not use it as it is just another step using software that can cause headache and I really like to find the targets manually but it can be invaluable in some cases and others are very happy with plate solving.

A.G

[Sonicfishcake42]

That couldn't have been any more thorough! Thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, to be fair I didn't know anything like that existed, I've not managed to branch into AP as of yet but with reducer I'm going to have a crack! Thanks for the info A.G, appreciated  

[JayStar]

Thanks lensman - didnt know about the history of the name 'plate solving'.