NINA cant solve my Plates ?

[Newforestgimp]

Hi All,

I am very new to this whole hobby, and building up knowledge and testing indoors with the absence of anythink like clear skies, so I thought id try and get to grips with NINA as it seems a decent one stop shop for AP tasks, however, im struggling to get the Plate solving to work. I realise that i cant actually plate solve but the error im getting implies a set up issue on the laptop rather than unable to solve an image. The plate solving module ASTAP when used complains that no star database is available yet I've downloaded and installed both H17 and H18 databases for ASTAP, everything is contained in the same default install directory C:/programfiles/astap using the installers rather than the .zip packages.
Anyone else have these kind of issues ? or is it simply because im not giving it an image to solve ?

[Clarkey]

I use NINA and ASTAP without issue. Have you put the location of the exe file in the plate solving options? That would be the only reason I can think of why it could not find it. Even auto download / install does not fill in the file location. As I had ASTAP installed already I had it in another directory. 

[Newforestgimp]

1 hour ago, Clarkey said:

I use NINA and ASTAP without issue. Have you put the location of the exe file in the plate solving options? That would be the only reason I can think of why it could not find it. Even auto download / install does not fill in the file location. As I had ASTAP installed already I had it in another directory. 

yes ive pointed NINA to the location of ASTAP....

[The Lazy Astronomer]

The settings you've got there seem to be directing N.I.N.A. to use astrometry.net as your plate solving software. Try changing the the plate solver in the drop down box?

I just have ASTAP ser as both the plate solver and the blind solver - once I got it set up properly, it worked flawlessly.

[Newforestgimp]

7 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

The settings you've got there seem to be directing N.I.N.A. to use astrometry.net as your plate solving software. Try changing the the plate solver in the drop down box?

I just have ASTAP ser as both the plate solver and the blind solver - once I got it set up properly, it worked flawlessly.

Yes that was taken just to show the location of ASTAP, I've tried setting ASTAP as the both Plate and Blind with same location and it complains about no star database. If i open ASTAP separately i can change between H17 & H18 databases so ASTAP knows the databases are there. Very frustrating. What i cant test is if the error is because i cant actually take a night sky image (Cloudy) to test solving properly, but as mentioned i would think the solving would simply fail without message relating no database ? Frustrating.

[Clarkey]

Have you tried solving from a saved image? Here is a link explaining how. At least you would be able to get it working in advance.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/676773-nina-plate-solving-and-re-alignment/

Also, I'm sure you have, but some settings in NINA don't seem to update fully without restarting the program.

[Newforestgimp]

9 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Have you tried solving from a saved image? Here is a link explaining how. At least you would be able to get it working in advance.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/676773-nina-plate-solving-and-re-alignment/

Also, I'm sure you have, but some settings in NINA don't seem to update fully without restarting the program.

thank you, at this point ill try anything. So far out of all the new 'stuff' ive learnt and set up this is the only stumbling block.... so far 😉

 

[festoon]

I had the same problem and when I installed the g17/g18 database it then worked fine.

Try uninstalling the h databases and install the g database and see if that works.

If this does not work, the other things you can try are increase search radius to 180 degrees and set down sampling to 0 or 1

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by festoon

[Newforestgimp]

1 minute ago, festoon said:

I had the same problem and when I installed the g17/g18 database it then worked fine.

Try uninstalling the h databases and install the g database and see if that works.

 

You've read my mind ! that was the only other thing i could think of that NINA is looking for G17/18, not sure How I uninstall though, it just seemed to place 1000's of files in the ASTAP directory, I will have a look though.

[festoon]

If you are on windows go to programs (where you install and uninstall programs) find the star directory and click uninstalll

Edited February 1, 2021 by festoon

[Newforestgimp]

It appears that NINA is indeed dependent on the G17/18 databases, uninstalled H DBs and installed the G17 DB and NINA stopped complaining about lack of database, still didn't solve the image but I expected that all along.

Thanks all.

[festoon]

To test it you can use the camera simulator and use any image eg from your previous imaging or even an image file from SGL and ask it to solve it

Glad the fix worked. Don’t know why G17/18 database is needed over H DB but it’ll at least you are making progress

[han59]

Nina is testing for the G databases. They removed that  in the latest nightly build. There was no need for since this will be done by ASTAP. The new H databases are faster. So in the long term it is better to switch to the H version and remove the G versions.

Han

[Newforestgimp]

I had a brief weather window last night so tried NINA/ASTAP/PHD2 in anger for the first time and disappointed to say ASTAP plate solving kept failing, this time with an error relating to REFERENCE OBJECT ? I'm kicking myself now I didn't screenshot the error DOH! but the message meant nothing to point to something obviously wrong which was frustrating, at least it didn't fail due to lack of DB.

I wish I'd known PHD2 takes a long time to calibrate itself when starting as i was convinced i was doing something wrong in NINA with guiding sequence step never seeming to come to any conclusion, so I shutdown NINA and went back to APT to attempt to use PHD2 (standalone) only to find the same delays GRRRRRR! However, PHD2 did eventually calibrate & start guiding (patience needed) so i set an APT sequence running on Pleiades as a test for ease of framing/guide star selection/Live view. I think it worked well and pleased i managed to get a guided set of 2min frames on first evening of trying. Now if I could JUST get NINA to plate solve !!, My hunch is something to do with target selection method and sensor & focal length details of my DSLR and scope, but next time I'll expect the PHD2 delays before it begins guiding and should be good to go with or without plate solving.

[Clarkey]

I had the same problem with Phd2 taking an age to calibrate. My issue was the guide speed in Eqmod was set up at 0.1 rather than 0.5 and it was having to carry out far too many calibration steps. Worth checking as it reduced the calibration time from about 20 minutes to under 5.

The Reference object error sounds like it was trying to go to a location which would depend on the settings. Try selecting an object in the framing assistant first, then plate solve. It should slew to the object then keep plate solving until it is with the tolerance you have given it. (I think the default is 0.5 arc minutes).

[bottletopburly]

Best to test in Astap stand-alone first you may need to populate ra/ dec coordinates first ask @han59 he will guide you 

[Newforestgimp]

I’ll check the guide speed thanks 🙏🏼 

[Paul M]

A problem I have with the combo of 250PDS and ASI178 camera is that ASTAP really struggles to solve un-binned images. So I've set sync/solve frames be taken a 2x2 binned and ASTAP flies.

There is also a setting in ASTAP to downsample images for solving. Setting that to 2 works for me also. If you open ASTAP standalone and change any setting then close it, those settings should persist.

Han, ASTAP's creator points out that this shouldn't be necessary. Maybe it's just my lousy images it struggles with.

[Newforestgimp]

Thanks I’ll take a look at Binning values next time I try, I know I have the downsampling set to 2.

ive also set error logging to trace so hopefully when it fails next time I’ll have something other than a cryptic message to go by.

[Paul M]

You can always play with ASTAP as a standalone program. I often use it for stacking and image viewing as well as solving after-the-fact.

You can load any stored image you may have on file and ask it to solve that. You can play with settings at your leisure then rather than wasting a precious clear night on problem solving, or is that solving problems? 

APT saves images taken for solve/sync (GoTo++ utility) and I've looked back on them frequently to practice on. Maybe NINA saves out solving images too??

[Newforestgimp]

Yesterday I tried with a Pleiades image I captured Wednesday night thinking a 5 yr old could solve what it is and I still couldn’t get it to work in ASTAP standalone, I must have something fundamentally wrong I think, but I turned my back on it, will try again today with a clearer head & record the error.

[bottletopburly]

Did you input approx coordinates?.

[Newforestgimp]

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

Did you input approx coordinates?.

No I didnt, bare in mind I've never done any form of platesolving, i assumed it can work things out as id never seen people manually putting coords in ?

 

[bottletopburly]

Drop @han59 a message send him the image file with your camera settings  iso /exposure he will soon have you sorted .👍

[Mr Thingy]

1 hour ago, Newforestgimp said:

No I didnt, bare in mind I've never done any form of platesolving, i assumed it can work things out as id never seen people manually putting coords in ?

 

I'm not sure how the system operates but it seems to work through the database in a systematic way, sweeping around the sky, so it makes much quicker/easier for the software  if it's got a starting point close to where the object should be.

I've tried "blind" solving, giving it no starting coordinates, and had very mixed results. 

Keep at it though. I recently got it working and it's a really powerful tool.