TheSkySearchers

Hi,

I wanted to get some input as to what my plate solving woes may be. I have two scopes, an ES ED102 and an Edge1100HD. I have four equipment profiles stored, two for each, one for my Nikon D7100 and one for my ASI1600mmPro. All profiles use the PlaneWave routine built into SGPro.

Plate solving works for both profiles for the ED102 scope. For the Edge100HD, if I take a Frame & Focus image and ask it to plate solve, it will solve and give the correct location. If I ask SGPro to slew to an image that was previously captured, it fails.

When I plate solve off of a Frame and Focus image, the correct image scale is shown (0.28"/pixel), and that is the value in the equipment profile.

I have been using SGPro for about 18 months, and most of that is with the ED102. When I use the Edge1100HD, it is always more time consuming to get on target, and pier-flip is not an option since it won't return to the target automatically.

Any suggestions for things to check would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

For the long focal length of the SCT your Center Pixel error may be too low.

I can only solve a captured frame fits file. Will not do a solve on a saved frame and focus image that has been reloaded.

As ohno mentioned, you could try setting the solved settings to 2x2 bin for the camera

The reason I Suggested what I did was based on a couple things. When I swap out my scope/Camera combo from a 800 focal length to a 2032 focal length it becomes a real PITA to get the target centered. And Yobbo89 may be on to something I forgot about. The long focal length rig would require a longer exposure time or like yobbo says 2x2 binning to get an image with bright enough stars showing for any plate solving program to work.

I have experienced this with a couple capture programs. I opted for capturing my plate solve image at 2x2 binning. Works like a champ now. I also changed my plate solving program, which decreased the solving time to next to nothing compared to what I was using before...

Yobbo/OhNo,

Thank you for the suggestions. I was considering 2x2 as an approach, but will also increase the exposure now as well. I think by default, it set it to 5 seconds. Increasing to 2x2 will give me a 4x intensity, and maybe increase to 10 seconds may be enough. That would explain the success on Frame&Focus since it was a longer exposure.

Ohno: What plate solving did you switch to?

Mike

ASTAP

using bin 2x2 will not give you a brighter image ie more signal when using a cmos chip, that is strictly for ccd camera technology.

it seems mbocca is using an asi1600 which is a cmos chip, using bin 2x2 will scale down the resolution incase there is any oversampling which could help plate solve find a better centroid on the stars .and this will quicken the download speeds per frame so they can be analyzed , the frame may seem to be brighter but they don't containt more signal , the diagnamic ranged has been reduced when using bin on a cmos chip .

mbocca wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 4:50 pm Yobbo/OhNo,

Thank you for the suggestions. I was considering 2x2 as an approach, but will also increase the exposure now as well. I think by default, it set it to 5 seconds. Increasing to 2x2 will give me a 4x intensity, and maybe increase to 10 seconds may be enough. That would explain the success on Frame&Focus since it was a longer exposure.

Ohno: What plate solving did you switch to?

Mike

I use Platesolve and have always used 2x2 for my platesolve, Also the exposure time will depend on your filter you use. If i'm shooting with a OSC and a filter in the slider I use 10-15 seconds. If I'm using my Mono setup, I have the filterwheel move to my lumance filter and do a 5 sec exposure. There has been times when I needed to bump it up to 10 sec depending on the area of the sky. Some areas are bright than others.

Thanks for the follow-up. I did figure out the problem. The scope is 2800mm so the FOV is pretty low. I do use Lum for the filter with the mono camera. The key was bumping up the exposure to get a few more stars to work on. At 2800mm and f10, the system just did not have enough information to work properly.

Mike