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Astrometry.net local (SGP) doesnt solve ??

Skipper Billy

By Skipper Billy
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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

Posted
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I installed SGP last night and all is working well.

I want to have a plate solving function that doesnt need an internet connection.

I installed local astrometry.net solver from here - https://adgsoftware.com/ansvr/ and follwed the instructions to the letter. Including telling SGO which plate solving option to use.

I installed the data files to cover 20% of my narrowest view (8') to the maximum 1º

If I open an image that I want to add more data to and right click and cjoose plate solve - blind solve it works away but always reaches about 6 minutes before reporting image cannot be solved.

I have tried several different images - same result.

I have opened 'watch ansvr log' and data is whizzing up the screen.

Any ideas ???

Untitled.jpg

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Jonk

Jonk

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20 minutes ago, PhotoGav said:

You should try installing PlateSolve2, it works without internet and is extremely efficient, far more so than astrometry. Here’s a link to the SGP instructions:

http://mainsequencesoftware.com/Content/SGPHelp/SequenceGeneratorPro.html?Modules.html

Good luck.

+2 works every time once set up correctly.

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

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OK - not having much success with this blind solving mallarkey !!

Plate solve doesn't work either.

SGP always defaults to Astrometry.net

Just a thought - does it matter that the images I am trying to blind solve were not taken via SGP ??

Clutching at straws now !!

My understanding is that virtually any image can be opened - right click then blind solve and it should give the RA/DEC to be entered into the goto box ??

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RayD

RayD

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26 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

OK - not having much success with this blind solving mallarkey !!

Plate solve doesn't work either.

SGP always defaults to Astrometry.net

Just a thought - does it matter that the images I am trying to blind solve were not taken via SGP ??

Clutching at straws now !!

My understanding is that virtually any image can be opened - right click then blind solve and it should give the RA/DEC to be entered into the goto box ??

No it shouldn't matter.

Have you set your plate solving section to the right library path for the newly downloaded files?  You will need to do this on your equipment profile manager so the settings stay permanently.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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How frustrating...

I will have to check my own installation of all of this to be able to help completely, which won’t be until this evening at the earliest - the irritation of work.

As Ray suggests, the image can be from anywhere for a blind solve and make sure you have all the settings correct in SGP. Thankfully the SGP online manual is very helpful, so give the relevant sections a good read. Ensure that the blind solve settings are pointing to PlateSolve2:

http://mainsequencesoftware.com/Content/SGPHelp/SequenceGeneratorPro.html?HelpersWizards.html

At least this is something that you can work on in daylight and cloud!

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MCinAZ

MCinAZ

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  While I have no experience with SGP, I have solved a lot of images using both Nova (astrometry.net web based tool) and PlateSolve 3. PlateSolve is usually somewhat better at blind solving fields (no user-supplied detail regarding coordinates or image scale) and can often solve fields which Nova cannot even when very specific detail is provided. Unless things have changed recently with Nova, Dave Rowe's plate solution algorithm is clearly better. That said, there are some circumstances where PlateSolve fails to solve a field even given the exact center coordinates and image scale. This typically occurs only when a very small (< 1 arcmin) field of view is involved or very few stars are present in the image.

  I haven't used PlateSolve 2 so I don't know how it compares to PlateSolve 3.

  If you're using a planetary camera in long focal length optical path, plate solution may not be reliable, particularly where sparse fields are involved. There also seems to be a point where taking longer exposures to bring out fainter stars does little to improve the odds of a successful solution. I suspect this is due to the limiting magnitude of reference catalog data, which appears to be somewhere are 11 or 12 for both Nova and PlateSolve 3.

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

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Aaaarrrgggghhhh  !!!!

Spent 10 hours now trying to get this to blind solve to work - I have tried everything I can think of - I cant get SGP to try any programme except ANSVR local then when that fails - remote ANSVR.

Everyone (even the developer of SGP is saying Platesolve2 is the thing to go for but I cant make SGP look at PS2.

Its driving me nuts!! So annoying - I have got everything else working ! I would love to bin Maxim, Astrtortilla, FocusMax etc but at least they all work !!

I cant even figure out how to fully uninstall SGP so I can try a clean install !!

ANY help very gratefully received !!

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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This should not be this hard to get working... I’m sure it’s something silly preventing it from happening. Please can you make available the image you are trying to blind solve. I will put it through my system and, given success there, I’m sure we can get your system working properly. Deep breaths...

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Dr_Ju_ju

Dr_Ju_ju

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Which version of SGPro are you using? as I've just downloaded & installed the latest (2.6.0.25)...

Before opening SGPro, make sure you have the two sets of catalogue files in c:\users\xxxx\AppData\Local\SequenceGenerator\  APM & UCAC3PS (you get these from the PlaneWave website)

Start SGPro & open control panel, goto the Plate Solve tab, select PlateSolve2 from the drop down list, then click on settings. This will open a PlaneWave, PlateSolve 2.29 window.

From the File \ "Configure Catalog Directories" check that Status is OK for both catalog sets. If not, browse to the folder above, so that both show as OK. 

From File "Open Image", select a FITs file for a well known object e.g. M31 (I have some, but they are large). Click on "Show Image" & adjust the size so you can see the whole image (not really necessary but useful to see what is going on). 

Then click on "Plate Match"...  after some time (seconds to minute or five) the Status should show "Plate Match Found - Searched one region"

 

 

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RayD

RayD

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10 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

Aaaarrrgggghhhh  !!!!

Spent 10 hours now trying to get this to blind solve to work - I have tried everything I can think of - I cant get SGP to try any programme except ANSVR local then when that fails - remote ANSVR.

Everyone (even the developer of SGP is saying Platesolve2 is the thing to go for but I cant make SGP look at PS2.

Its driving me nuts!! So annoying - I have got everything else working ! I would love to bin Maxim, Astrtortilla, FocusMax etc but at least they all work !!

I cant even figure out how to fully uninstall SGP so I can try a clean install !!

ANY help very gratefully received !!

As noted by both guys above David it is probably something quite small within settings somewhere so don't lose faith, it really is a very good bit of software.  I use Pinpoint personally as it used to be needed for the F&M wizard (isn't any more) but I downloaded the Pinpoint2 libraries yesterday and ran some tests and it worked fine.

I've done a video showing the process of downloading, installing and running Platesolve2 so will send you the link later today.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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OK, I have just fired up my obsy pc and had a look at my Plate Solve control panel settings. First thing to note is that Blind Solve will only use Astrometry.net and the only options you can select are either the remote version or a local version. So, no wonder you can't get it to do anything other than that for the Blind Solve option.

However, have you tried solving the image with the 'Solve' button rather than 'Blind Solve'? 'Solve' will take the image to PlateSolve2 (or whichever plate solving software solution you have set up). You need to put in some starting points for RA, DEC, angle & scale, but hopefully you have enough idea of the image you are using to be able to put something sensible in for that. I am trying out an image at the moment and have changed the RA/DEC/Angle/Scale figures from what it read in from the FITS file header and seeing what happens. It is taking a long time... and failed. I then tried solving with slightly (rather than radically) altered RA & DEC hints, but deleted out the Angle and Scale hints. It solved quickly. So, it seems that fairly close RA & DEC hints are required, but not Angle and Scale hints.

Perhaps the best thing to do if the Blind Solve with Astrometry.net, remote or local, is not satisfying, is to go for a Parially Sighted solve!

I hope that Skipper Billy, you can post the image that you are trying to solve soon as I would like to put that into my system and see what happens.

As for why astrometry.net doesn't work - good question! Hopefully it won't need an answer though...

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Further update-

I tried downloading a random image from the deep sky imaging section (thank you Allinthehead and your Orion Wide Ha!) and putting in the rough RA & DEC values - the image is roughly centred on the Horsehead Nebula, so I put in the RA & DEC of that. I didn't input any angle or scale. Clicked 'Solve' and it immediately asked me for a scale. I tried a few values around 3, 4 and 5, but it didn't work. I resorted to a nova.astrometry online solve and it returned a scale of 27.8 "/px, so I tried to solve again in SGP, this time putting in 28 for the scale and it solved almost immediately...

Skipper Billy, if this is all about you being able to return to a previous target of yours by plate solving an image from a previous imaging session where you know the rough RA, DEC and Scale, this is going to work very easily! The lovely thing in SGP is that you save the RA & DEC values for your target and for future imaging sessions you just select the target from the list, click centre now and whir whir, click click, off you go, perfect fast centring to start the new imaging run.

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

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Thanks guys for your support and suggestions - I will have another go when I get home from work tonight.

Meantime here are the contents of our diaries from last night (just to amuse you!) ;-)

My wife’s Diary:

Tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment on it. Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn't say much. I asked him what was wrong; He said, 'Nothing.' I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said he wasn't upset, that it had nothing to do with me, and not to worry about it. On the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, and kept driving. I can't explain his behaviour I don't know why he didn't say, 'I love you, too.' When we got home, I felt as if I had lost him completely, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly, and watched TV. He continued to seem distant and absent. Finally, with silence all around us, I decided to go to bed. About 15 minutes later, he came to bed. But I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep - I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else. My life is a disaster.

 

 

My Diary:

Why doesn’t blind solving work…………….

 

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RayD

RayD

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I just tried @Allinthehead's Orion widelfield also (very nice btw) and it solved in 28 seconds using Astrometry blind with a 6.08 scale.  Obviously wouldn't solve with Platesolve2 as no coordinates being .jpg.  28 seconds is good blind though, and certainly useable to get you in the general vicinity using slew to then use a centre here command.

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

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Thanks everyone for your help and support.

With assistance from Andy Galasso - one of the developers of SGP - (at midnight on a Saturday night!!) it is now working and blind solving with local ANSVR - the problem was two fold - a number was missing in the ANSVR settings which should have been automatically populated and my scale was slightly off - I was using 1.17"/pixel and apparently my actual scale is 1.08"/pixel.

So locally installed blind solving is working now.

To answer the questions above -

The version of SGP is 2.6.0.24 - the latest is 2.6.0.25 but AFAIK the only difference is the link to Astrobin which I don't use any more.

The image I am trying to solve is attached.

Just tried solving the same image with Platesolve2 and that solved the image in 6 seconds with good hints given.

Just going to watch Rays video. Will update on progress!!

Thanks again everyone - progress is being made !!

 

L_HydrogenAlpha_2017-10-29_20-52-55__-10C_Bin1x1_300s.fit

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

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32 minutes ago, RayD said:

I've only just posted the PS2 video but you are past the stage of that now anyway so you're sailing (excuse the pun) :thumbright:

Thanks Ray - I will look it up in any case !! I can never know too much!!

Pun excused !

Thanks everyone for your help and support.

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