APT and Stellarium synchronisation

[Padraic M]

Hi all, I had an interesting/frustrating problem with imaging last night, which looks like an issue in alignment between APT and Stellarium. Here's a summary:

I plate solve in APT, Sync to the mount, and send the coordinates to Stellarium. Check Stellarium to see how I'm aligned. Worked perfectly as expected with M57 and M13 - as below.

However, when I tried M75, plate solve succeeds, but Stellarium is out of alignment. This is not a big problem as I have the DSO in my camera fov, but the problem is when I try to use Stellarium to slew to other objects, they don't appear in my fov. For example, M92 couldn't be found, even though M13 and M57 are perfectly aligned. The reason I want to select an object in Stellarium and slew rather than using APT and its object catalog, is that I wanted to find Saturn and Jupiter which aren't in APT. When I selected either planet in Stellarium, the scope slew was quite a good distance out, and I had to manually adjust (not easy when you're fully camera-d up).

Any ideas as to how APT and Stellarium keep their coordinate systems in sync, and anything that I need to set in common between them?

I'm using Stellarium 0.19.3 and APT 3.84, and ASCOM HEQ5 driver.

 

 

M57 successfully synced:

 

M13 successfully synced:

 

 

M75 out of alignment: 

[david_taurus83]

I never got on with Stellarium and syncing so always have, and still use, CdC. APT can also still send the FOV to CdC as well.

[geordie85]

Once you've plate solved to your intended target and its the center of your field of view, swith over to stellarium, hold ctrl and press 3. That will sync to where your scope is actually pointing and not where it thinks its pointing. 

[Padraic M]

Thanks all for the comments. Scope for more experimenting on the next clear night.

@david_taurus83 I may take a look at CdC as I know a lot of experts on here use it, but I'd like to see if I can get Stellarium working as I'm more familiar with it for now. 

 @geordie85 I did not know that! Another read of the manual required I think.

[Aramcheck]

16 hours ago, Padraic M said:

I want to select an object in Stellarium and slew rather than using APT and its object catalog, is that I wanted to find Saturn and Jupiter which aren't in APT

I had the same problem earlier this morning... but took the old school approach & copied the current RA/DEC position of Jupiter from Stellarium & then created a custom object in APT...

I'll have to try the "Ctrl + 3" suggestion by @geordie85 as that will make life a lot easier!

Cheers
Ivor

 

[Padraic M]

45 minutes ago, Aramcheck said:

took the old school approach

Isn't it amazing how simple solutions sometimes don't occur to you at 3am?