SGP Plate Solving - More Reliable Solving - ASTAP

[Aidi]

Many of you i know use SGP.. and probably the default Platesolve2 software for Platesolving. I have always found mostly reliable, but on quite a few occassions it just did not work.

I have since been informed of a different Platesolver which i thought i would give a try as it easily integrated into SGP. I've been out this evening and had my mount and scope slewing all over the sky stopping at different targets, plate solving instantly and accurately everytime.. I have never seen this degree of consistancy with PS2.

The only difference when running a platesolve is that the Platesolve2 window does not appear.. other than that (and the fact that its pretty much instantanious) the process is the same

Those of you who use NINA will probably already be familiar with it

Its called ASTAP - Astrometric STAcking Program. You download two files - The Platesolver software and the database it references. Once those are installed, its a simple case of copying the files from where they were installed to SGP, renamaming a file and thats it.

Here's a link to the website: https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm

And this is the installation instructions for SGP: https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm#sgp

Based on my initial testing - and the skies are not that great this evening it has far exceeded my expectations.. and i will certianly be keeping this as my default platesolver.

Oh, and just to add, its standalone... and does not need an internet connection!

[bladekeeper]

I love ASTAP!

I've been using it with NINA and it is so much faster than Platesolve2.

Get ASTAP ASAP!

[OhNo]

Ah!!!!! That's better! I had almost given up on SGP. Endless failures to plate solve had me wondering IF I'd wasted my money. Seeing it wasn't working I figured I had nothing to lose..... Jumped through the hoops of downloading, copy this-rename that...

Tonight was gonna be a bust for DSO imaging because of the evil orb so out I go to TEST. To my relief ASTAP solved my target in great time and away I went.... With dyslexia some time we just need that one more link (to the instructions that were already there) to get us rolling.

Thanks for starting this thread!