Astrophotography Tool Support Forum

[Juno16]

Hi Everyone,

I am a relatively new user of Astro photography tool. My experience level is a “one”.
I’ve only imaged twice with APT. M16, the Eagle Nebula with only 30 minutes exposure (nowhere near enough) and got clouded out.
Another opportunity that I had was to image M20 the Trifid Nebula. I got 90 minutes and captured a decent image (for me).

During the M20 imaging session, I tried and failed the automatic meridian flip. Failure occurred when APT unsuccessfully plate solved a pre-flip image. Then tracking stopped and that really freaked me out until I read in the User Guide that any AMF failure would shut down all functions.

I was having a few issues with solving until I figured out that a short (2 sec.) exposure with a high iso (3200) worked the best for me.

Looking into the plate solving (Pointcraft) settings, the exposure time is settable. The iso defaults to whatever iso is set in the imaging plan. I’m my case it was 400.
I couldn’t find a way to set a default iso for automatic plate solving so I posted the question to the APT support forum.

Got a response from Ivo (APT creator) that having a default iso in Pointcraft settings was a good idea and he would include it in a future beta version.

Well, I looked on the forum that evening, and there was the new beta 3.75.3. I downloaded it and there in the Pointcrast settings was the default iso for Pointcraft. Amazing!
I posted to the forum how quick that was and ivo responded that I asked the right question at the right time.

I just wanted to share my great experience with APT and their support. Amazing that it is only a $23 imaging package.

Thanks,
Jim

[JayTee]

OH BTW, Ivo is a member of these forums!

Cheers,
JT

[Juno16]

Just to be clear though, Startools Ivo and APT Ivo are different people.

Thanks,
Jim

[bobharmony]

Thanks for relating your experience with APT Ivo, Jim, and congrats on getting your request acted on so quickly.

Also, thanks for the clarification on the two Ivo situation. I had assumed they were one and the same. My experience with ST Ivo has been very satisfying, and it sounds like APT Ivo is cut from the same cloth (which makes me happy as I am running some initial inside tests of APT considering it as a step up from BYE.

[Juno16]

Hi Bob,

I thought they were the same Ivo too, but the APT Ivo told me they were different people. Both very friendly and very helpful people and have come up with great Astrophotography software.

Please let me know how APT works out for you. It is the first full featured imaging application that I have used and I really like it so far.

Thanks,
Jim