settings plate solver 2 in sgp

[iwols]

hi guys seems plate solver 2 works better on some objects than other ,is there anything i can change in the parameters or anything for example is the default location worth changing and the degrees (this number seems to auto populate with different numbers) or any other tweaks,see below for my settings,thanks guys

 

[symmetal]

I  had a similar problem and found these recommendations on another forum (can't remember which one)

Max Star Size 12, Min Star Size 3, Max Stars 55, Detection Threshold 8. Other parameters as default.

I've put my own location as the default location which it keeps. I leave the other dialog box alone as it seems to auto populate the values from the fits file header and what SGP passes to it. Make sure your camera specifications are set correctly in the SGP control panel (Scale and Pixels)

I use these and never fail to solve now. 

 

[iwols]

right guys thanks for the answers after another night of frustration just gone through all my settings wwhen i came in and realised i had put 6.45 in for my camera scale and not 2.21 maybe this could lead to irratic solving

[MattJenko]

Also, you can use the show image feature to see which stars it uses when doing the solving and adjust accordingly as it is easily repeatable and platesolve2 is FAST. sometimes doing galaxy imaging caused issues as they are picked up and sometimes bright stars are missed and a little experimental tweak can sort things out.

[Andyb90]

I've had some issues with getting Platesolve2 to work so ended up using Astrometry.net instead. However from reading some posts the recommended setup seems to be Platesolve2 as the primary solver with Astrometry.net setup as a backup/failover. If Platesolve2 fails Astrometry.net would do a blind solve. Once the blind solve is done Platesolve2 should work. From what I understand the blind solve doesn't need to know where the telescope is pointing, but platesolve2 needs a fairly close approximation of where the scope is pointing.

I haven't tried this setup in SGP yet but plan to.

Andy.

[MattJenko]

PlateSolve2 works by doing a circular based solve around the current pointing coordinates, so if you are not close, it will fail as it expects the image to be in the area in which it thinks it is currently pointing, whereas a blind solve via astrometry.net is exactly that, a solve based on no known pointing location. This is why PlateSolve2 will start working on a successful blind solve.

[Andyb90]

Just reading this thread on CN:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/540484-platesolve2-with-sgp/

Post 22 recommends setting the search regions to 100. The reason given is that if it doesn't solve within 100 regions its unlikely to work. Hopefully that would make any failover to a blind solve more timely.

Andy.

[iapa]

I have just had a night where I could get SGPro using plate solve2 - until I let it run to completion and it eventually succeeded.

After that, it would solve every time I slewed to a target.

It took me some hair pulling (not that there is much) before a checked PA - which was quite far off. Mount has been outside for a few days but I guess with the cover on and the breeze it's dragged bit (CGEM -DX is quite heavy tho')

Anyway, after that it would not centre - error was always the same - even when I let it run to 20 attempts.

Gave up in frustration about 2:30am.

Reading this thread, I realised, I had done an alignment on the mount, then corrected PA, then did NOT redo alignment.

SGPro was always directing the scope to the same point - the scope reported it was point at that spot, but wasn't actually pointing there.

I'll double check this tonight.