Help with PlateSolving in APT

[astro mick]

Hi.

Having recently tried to swop over to APT,i just cant get the pointcraft plate solve to work.Everything connects ok,the scope slews to the target,i take a 20sec image,load the correct co-ordinates for the object and press solve.It starts counting as if trying to solve,but just times out.

I have loaded the catalogues,both showing ok in Plate solve,i loaded them into pointcraft,and ticked the boxes,and have now run out of ideas.If i cant sort this i will go back to Astrotortilla.

Is their somewhere i should be adding the camera and sensor settingd?

Any help with this would be most appreciated.

Mick.

[Atreta]

1 hour ago, astro mick said:

Is their somewhere i should be adding the camera and sensor settingd?

Hi, did you set your scope focal length under the tools tab in apt? 

[Budgie1]

Have you tried using Blind Solve?

As long as you've downloaded the catalogues for the focal lengths of the scopes you're likely to use/are using then it should work.

I'm still on the learning curve with APT as well, I only started using it last week and had to download All Sky Plate Solver, then the catalogues before it would solve anything.  Although APT did give warnings if something was missing.

[david_taurus83]

Did you follow the tutorial on here? Sometime you need to change a few settings in PS2.

[astro mick]

8 hours ago, Atreta said:

Hi, did you set your scope focal length under the tools tab in apt? 

Hi Frank.

Where in the Tools/APT do you do that.All i see is the object calculator at the bottom.

Mick.

[astro mick]

7 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

Have you tried using Blind Solve?

As long as you've downloaded the catalogues for the focal lengths of the scopes you're likely to use/are using then it should work.

I'm still on the learning curve with APT as well, I only started using it last week and had to download All Sky Plate Solver, then the catalogues before it would solve anything.  Although APT did give warnings if something was missing.

It wont blind solve as it says it cant locate the files,although i downloaded evething in the description as mention in the foremost Tutorial.

Mick.

[astro mick]

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Did you follow the tutorial on here? Sometime you need to change a few settings in PS2.

Yes i did.

Cheers.

Mick.

[astro mick]

Thanks for the replys though guys.

Mick.

[david_taurus83]

50 minutes ago, astro mick said:

Yes i did.

Cheers.

Mick.

Can you post up a sub and I can try and solve it on my laptop? And your focal lengyh as well.

[Hughsie]

I used to use APT but moved over to Sequence Generator Pro. I see mentioned here that you need to input your focal length for your scope which is correct but I want to clarify a point. It should be your focal length taking into account any reducer/flattener in your image train. So my scope has a f/l of 710mm and a 0.8 x reducer. So the focal length I should record is 710*0.8=568mm.

If your focal length is recorded incorrectly it will never platesolve.

Select the ‘Tools’ tab and at the bottom you will see a box called object calculator. Here you can record your focal length, camera pixel size and sensor size all of which will be needed to ensure platesolving can work.

Hope that helps.

[Z3roCool]

Hughsie is right with the 'Object Calculator' I had mine set to another focal length and it failed all the time. Also make sure you have the latest version (I had one from a long time ago and the PS failed as I was binning 4x4. If I halved the focal length it worked (Fixed now in new version).

Main parts are to make sure the PL software knows where to look for the software you installed (Should be Green I think and say OK). Cannot remember exactly where this is off the top of my head but in the settings somewhere at the bottom of the Point Craft screen.

Also when solving an image try adding RA and DEC or an object that is near the target as it will be a lot quicker. 

 

Good Luck.

 

[astro mick]

1 hour ago, Hughsie said:

I used to use APT but moved over to Sequence Generator Pro. I see mentioned here that you need to input your focal length for your scope which is correct but I want to clarify a point. It should be your focal length taking into account any reducer/flattener in your image train. So my scope has a f/l of 710mm and a 0.8 x reducer. So the focal length I should record is 710*0.8=568mm.

If your focal length is recorded incorrectly it will never platesolve.

Select the ‘Tools’ tab and at the bottom you will see a box called object calculator. Here you can record your focal length, camera pixel size and sensor size all of which will be needed to ensure platesolving can work.

Hope that helps.

Hi Hugh.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head,i had forgotten the reducer.

Many thanks,will try this later and see how it goes.

Mick.