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APT or SGP?


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On 22/07/2018 at 19:50, Jkulin said:

Yeah I know, all the parameters are checked but it just doesn't want to solve, if I want to guarantee 100% a platesolve the Astrotortilla in conjunction with APT does work

Never really  had a problem found it very accurate provided you download correct indexes and have correct scope  focal length in your apt settings 

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Its been working 80% of the time, but the recent problems with the Mosaic and Framing wizard meant that it wouldn't plate solve over the last few nights imaging and when I let it do an auto Meridian Flip last night, I ended up wasting 2 hours of subs because it didn't solve the image properly and I was asleep in my chair!

SGP have just released a fix after acknowledging the problem.

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21 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

Its been working 80% of the time, but the recent problems with the Mosaic and Framing wizard meant that it wouldn't plate solve over the last few nights imaging and when I let it do an auto Meridian Flip last night, I ended up wasting 2 hours of subs because it didn't solve the image properly and I was asleep in my chair!

SGP have just released a fix after acknowledging the problem.

I might be wrong but I dont think the mosaic and framing wizard has anything to do with platesolving?

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On 22 July 2018 at 11:44, Jkulin said:

. I have also found the plate solving to be next to useless, so I use Astro Tortilla interfaced through APT

 

Once you've got the CCD/dslr chip size and FOV set up correctly (easy), I found the pointcraft feature of APT reliable. Take an 8 sec sub and hit Solve, which it often does within 30s.

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On 05/08/2018 at 18:44, adyj1 said:

Follow-up question; Any CCDers happily using APT for their imaging?

I used APT for a couple of years running my Atik 460 mono, Atik EFW2 etc without any issues at all.

For this year I have swapped over to SGP to try it mainly due to the framing and mosaic facility - time will tell !!

I think the bottom line is they are both good - work well and its just down to personal preference.

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21 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

I used APT for a couple of years running my Atik 460 mono, Atik EFW2 etc without any issues at all.

For this year I have swapped over to SGP to try it mainly due to the framing and mosaic facility - time will tell !!

I think the bottom line is they are both good - work well and its just down to personal preference.

Thanks for posting that - good to hear positives on both sides for CCD as well. I am going to have to look at the SGP framing and mosaic stuff,as that is certainly a recurring benefit. 

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35 minutes ago, adyj1 said:

Thanks for posting that - good to hear positives on both sides for CCD as well. I am going to have to look at the SGP framing and mosaic stuff,as that is certainly a recurring benefit. 

There is also EQMosaic of course :)

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Framing masks in APT are also very useful. I don't know how the SGP framing and mosaic works, but I don't feel I miss anything around this. Most of my images are mosaics lately and all the data is acquired with APT. I center on an area where I want to start, make a mask, then for another panel, I slew with live view on until the stars towards an edge move to the opposite edge, make a mask for this too and the next night slew to fit the mask. It takes me less than a couple of minutes to get where I want. OTOH, my sensor is a CMOS and live view is fast with short exposures. Perhaps there are more efficient ways to do this, but I've plenty of time to align the mount, focus and frame while the camera cools.

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I've used both and really wanted to use APT because I find its user interface much nicer but ... two things made me bite the bullet and commit to SGP instead. One was auto-focusing: it was slow in APT and relatively quick in SGP. If you have or plan to have an autofocuser, I think that's a point for SGP. The second thing was meridian flips, which was my whole goal in getting automation software. I want more lights and more sleep! ?  ATP, unfortunately, does not support fully automated meridian flips. SGP does, and once you have it down it is almost magical. Start your sequence, hang out for a few exposures to make sure things are going okay, and then call it a night. Wake up in the morning to a whole new set of lights and a telescope that has flipped across the meridian and recentered all on its own (though hopefully you parked in a bird-safe position at the end of your sequence). The framing and mosaic wizard is pretty slick too (and it relates to plate-solving because SGP will use plate-solving to center you on the area you selected in the F&M wizard before starting the sequence, automagically. SGP is a little more daunting, but now that I've gotten the hang of it I won't be going back.

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On 05/08/2018 at 20:44, adyj1 said:

Well, for me the jury has returned a verdict;

1. For DSLR AP'ers  both apps are widely used, with no obvious feature deficiency in either, and so it seems down to personal choice. 

2. For CCD photography there seems to be a preference for SGP. 

Follow-up question; Any CCDers happily using APT for their imaging?

Thanks

Ady

(Loving the hot days and frequent clear nights, coinciding with the return of Astro darkness to the UK and me fixing all outstanding issues with my AstroEQ-converted EQ5 :)

Hi Ady,

 

SGP has more features and as you said preferred by CCD imagers. I have never used it, maybe because APT has been more than enough for me, or I have been too cheap to buy the SGP :p

But APT works great with EQMOD and Astrotortilla for plate solving. And it is definitely better than Backyardeos. I've also made an arduino based focuser(myfocuserpro) and it works great with APT. Autofocus is a hit and miss though. Maybe I've been doing something wrong.

 

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On 16/08/2018 at 05:33, Joel Shepherd said:

I've used both and really wanted to use APT because I find its user interface much nicer but ... two things made me bite the bullet and commit to SGP instead. One was auto-focusing: it was slow in APT and relatively quick in SGP. If you have or plan to have an autofocuser, I think that's a point for SGP. The second thing was meridian flips, which was my whole goal in getting automation software. I want more lights and more sleep! ?  ATP, unfortunately, does not support fully automated meridian flips. SGP does, and once you have it down it is almost magical. Start your sequence, hang out for a few exposures to make sure things are going okay, and then call it a night. Wake up in the morning to a whole new set of lights and a telescope that has flipped across the meridian and recentered all on its own (though hopefully you parked in a bird-safe position at the end of your sequence). The framing and mosaic wizard is pretty slick too (and it relates to plate-solving because SGP will use plate-solving to center you on the area you selected in the F&M wizard before starting the sequence, automagically. SGP is a little more daunting, but now that I've gotten the hang of it I won't be going back.

I totally agree.

I really like APT but in terms of autofocus - an indisposable imaging technology for those of us who cannot be at the scope all night - it comes nowhere near SGP.  With SGP you don't need to slew away to do an autofocus, no matter how faint the stars in the FoV are.  Again the Framing Wizard is brilliant too.  Platesolve is a fabulous mechanism as is blind solve.

I had to invest the time to learn SGP (which is not that complicated) and I wasted numerous nights in getting SGP working fully and there were considerable frustrations in this process.  But once you have the hang of it there is no going back.  SGP has its share of freezes and issues but I have largely learned to work around them.

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I still use APT for testing and to double check platesolving with Astro tortilla.

APT is less buggy as well, never had a crash with APT, but get at a number with SGP that the devs refuse to do anything about and ignore the reports as well.

Ivo at APT is brilliant at responding and works very hard to get things working right, but the profile side of things is the biggest benefit of SGP along with the framing and Mosaic wizard, Ivo is aware of this and is working on a plan as well as the meridian flip.

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Yes indeed.  Ivo is indeed a top guy and I also like APT and use it with my DSLR.  But on my "main" rig, the lack of the sophisticated autofocus and meridian flip forced me to SGP.  I worked with Ivo to get the backup and restore option developed and he was open to this.

I agree, the developers of SGP pretty useless.  Most of my queries go unanswered.

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I use APT and have done for a good while now. I must say that if I was starting out again and reading this post then I would choose APT. Yes it lacks some functions found in SGP but at the end of the day you need to be able to rely on support.

Ivo has always answered any questions I have thrown at him an he more than happy to hear suggestions on how to improve APT.  I am not sure how many devs are working on APT as this could be one reason that it has not caught up with some of the functions found on SGP but I can more than live with this.

I have just paid for the full version of APT for the grand sum of £17 and feel this is way more than your monies worth.

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11 hours ago, Jkulin said:

Yes I told Ivo he was far too cheap but he was adamant that he wanted APT available for everyone, what a lovely bloke.?

Ivo is indeed a top bloke.  Friendly, polite, approachable and generous.

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