Solve settings?

[Corpze]

Hi, i just can't get my head around why on earth i can't make a three-star PA autopoint in seq.

I managed to do a 3-star PA a few weekends ago and made the first rough PA (well within 10arc minutes) so the physical mount setup should be ok. the pinpoint Went fine that time.

 

​the last weekend i tried again with no luck. Now i am wondering if my settings in seq. is off?

i ahve a meade 102mm APO with a 0,79 reducer which takes me to a 1.44 as/px with my Atik 460.

​i have lowered the maximum magnitude to 11.

​i did get one succesful solve througout the night thoug.

 

​initially i do this;

​Power on

start AS

motors on

reset config

​homefind

near meridian Aquila Alpha in this case, center and new home pos.

 

heading over to Seq and... well, no luck there.

 

​What the heck am i doing wrong?

 

Got this error during my "test solve"

 

/Daniel

 

Ps... I might (fingers crossed) have manage to pinpointed out what i have been missing out.

I read the manual for AS (again) and have missed to save and closed down autoslew after i set the new home position.

Is this crucial?

I will also double check my pixelscale - my second calculation ended up with 1,643 as/px

Edited September 1, 2016 by Corpze

[MarkS]

Hi Daniel,

 

Two points: First, what is the focal length of the Meade 102 APO? The information I found was 920mm. If this is so, then I calculate a plate scale of 1.29"/px for your camera which has 4.54micron pixels.

 

Second, did you synchronise Sequence before running Autopoint?

 

Mark

[Corpze]

Hi Mark.

 

The original fl is 700mm f7, which i have mounted a .79 reducer to... so 553mm gives me 1,69 as/px... not 1,64. it was late last night (eyes rolling)

No i did not synch sequence (i presume you mean vai the synch-button in the left menu? - i only synched AS with aql aplha and set the new home pos...

/Daniel

[MarkS]

Hi Daniel,

 

1.69"/px is correct by my calculation - Sequence will calculate the figure if you enter the CCD and focal length details into the appropriate Settings windows.

 

I always synch Sequence before going to Autopoint. If synch is OK, it should ensure that the scope is pointing close enough for Pinpoint to work with the 3 star PA routine.

 

I also leave the Max. Magnitude in the Plate Solve Settings window at 14 and the Expansion% at 20.

 

Mark

[Corpze]

Hi Daniel,

 

1.69"/px is correct by my calculation - Sequence will calculate the figure if you enter the CCD and focal length details into the appropriate Settings windows.

 

I always synch Sequence before going to Autopoint. If synch is OK, it should ensure that the scope is pointing close enough for Pinpoint to work with the 3 star PA routine.

 

I also leave the Max. Magnitude in the Plate Solve Settings window at 14 and the Expansion% at 20.

 

Mark

The problem is that i haven't been able to do a sucessful synch with SEQ either.

The one point i am thinking of might have screwed things up for me is that i Did not restarted autoslew after i set new home position - is this crucial? if the mount doesn't know where it is pointing (even though i have made a manual synch in AS) it isn't that strange that SEQ pinpoint can't solve any images :/

 

I will check the settings again.

 

Daniel

[lukepower]

Daniel,

 

there are a couple of things that you need to get a successful solve of an image. First of all, your settings should be correct as far as focal lenght is concerned. Then, the image position reported by the mount needs to be somewhat close/correct. And third, the image should be well focused - I saw that even slightly defocused images yield errors or very long solve attemps.

 

Just my few cents

[Corpze]

Just a quick update... Seemed to be win 10 that made all fall apart... No problem what so ever with win 7.

Same settings, 5 itteration PA and the last one down to 1,2 arcminute in RA and 0,2 arcminute in Dec :-)

Running a 45 star pointing file right now.

I have documented all for the wiki.