secrets of successful platesolving via synch?

[prefetch]

hi all,

 

i've been using sequence for many months now, and one thing that i've never really gotten to work consistently is the synch function in sequence.

 

through experimentation i've found that i have to be almost within about 15 minutes of center otherwise synch will fail.

 

however, if i use pinpoint through maximdl, i can be off by quite a bit.  it seems that pinpoint "tries harder" than sequence.  sequence fails after just a few seconds, whereas pinpoint keeps trying for up to a couple of minutes and many times succeeds after this long.

 

i've switched catalogs, i've played with the "Expansion %" variable, (which i don't believe actually does anything!!) the 5x5 spiral search option is disabled on sequence.  i've adjusted the Max Magnitude variable - i've increased my exposure time, decreased it (usually 7 seconds seem to get a good amount of stars) but nothing seems to help me get more area coverage for plate solving, unless of course i just use pinpoint from maximdl.

 

i just don't know what else to do, and since MLPT and sequence fundamentally requires platesolving to actually work through a long exposure, i feel like i'm kind of crippled here.

 

does anyone else feel like sequence synch is a lot weaker than pinpoint (even though they are supposed to be one in the same) ???  or is it just me??