a good reliable plate solving program required

[red dwalf]

hi all,

i have currently been using astrotorila as my plate solving program which has served me well over the last 18 months, but just recently it seems unable to plate solve, even when the target is in the ccd frame, i`ve tried a few things to sort this out but to no avail, so i`m looking to find something better and more reliable but which is just as easy to use, so if you have any suggestions please.ideally free to use would be good, many thanks.

[swag72]

What capture software do you use? I ask as this could well affect the answers given. For example with SGP I use the free Platesolve2, but I dont think you could use that in a stand alone capacity.

[alacant]

+1. E.g. I use APT which has built in interfaces for both platesolve2 and asps. Enter your focal length and that's it. HTH.

[MCinAZ]

14 minutes ago, swag72 said:

What capture software do you use? I ask as this could well affect the answers given. For example with SGP I use the free Platesolve2, but I dont think you could use that in a stand alone capacity.

You can certainly use PS2 stand-alone. I would think in most cases it is more useful to use it as part of a tool chain, and that appears to be possible as well.

Another alternative is the astrometry.net tools, either on-line or installed locally. Most of the time, the results are essentially identical, however I've found some particular cases (very small or very crowded fields) in which PS3 could determine a solution where astrometry.net could not. I haven't performed tests to see how well PS2 does in such situations.

[steppenwolf]

I use several depending on the exact scenario but I am currently experimenting with this free blind solver 'All Sky Plate Solver' and it is showing some promise.

[Merlin66]

+1 from me.

ASPS seems to work very well for me. Well worth trying.

[red dwalf]

i use nebulosity 3 for capturing, i have a full copy of astro photography tool but find it not as easy to use, i`m quite happy with a stand alone program but of course needs to be ascom compatible, i`m not sure which ones are or not, i would think all are nowadays  

[StuartJPP]

Agree with above comments regarding PlateSolve2 and All Sky Plate Solver (ASPS). I also use APT which has support for both, fairly quick to blind solve (~30 seconds) on a slowish netbook.

I just didn't get along with AstroTortilla, way too fiddly and if you have various focal lengths you end up downloading the entire internet onto your poor astro netbook!

[spillage]

+1 for APT