AAVSO report form error
Stacking program, astrometric (plate) solver, fits file viewer
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Hi Han,
when uploading an AAVSO report where KMAG = 'invalid'
Gaia DR3 1829789422558800128 ,2460907.40750,9.836,0.0351,TG,NO,STD,000-BJX-338,7.581,000-BLM-646,invalid,1.176,na,X40621ALE, ( aperture=3.0 HFD; annulus=6 HFD)
I receive an error that a decimal point is expected.
cs Axel
The KMAG field contains: invalid
That means likely the star was saturated. It should normally convert the line to comments by putting a # symbol at the beginning of the line. Was there no # in front of the line?
Han
no # symbol, the line looks exactly as I pasted into the first post above.
There is a line with a # symbol in the file but the KMAG entry is a number and the notes looks different:
#Gaia DR3 1829789422558800128 ,2460907.28806,9.895,0.0351,TG,NO,STD,000-BJX-338,7.581,000-BLM-646,10.671,1.741,na,X40621ALE,Ignored invalid 000-BJX-338. ( aperture=3.0 HFD; annulus=6 HFD)
Thanks. I found the missing detection. In the next ASTAP version there will be # in front of the line.
Great, thanks.
Hi Han,
the data display in the report form sometimes displays weird behavior. When selecting a variable a lot of variables are displayed instead of the expected single data line. Using "deselect all" does indeed deselect the select boxes in the list but the display is not erased. Again selecting one star adds data for this star but this does not erase all the data lines (see attachment).
I would propose to ALWAYS erase variable data points when the select box of the variable(s) is deselected. Right now this is not the case. I guess this might already solve the problem.
cs Axel
Hi Axel,
Thanks for the feedback. Yes that happens if you use the popup menu of the AAVSO report. I will fix that in the next (development) version.
cs, Han
Fixed in version 2025.10.23
cs, Han
thanks, will try the new version
cs Axel
Doesn't work yet. 'Deselect all' blanks the display as expected but selecting any other variable also selects all GAIA stars.
Strange. I downloaded and installed the latest version on an Mac M4 at is works as it should be. This is difficult to understand. Do you really have version 2025.10.23 ? Are we talking about the same popup menu? See attached
Definitely 2025.10.23 (the development version). And to my knowledge there is only one such menu which comes up when you use the "AAVSO report" button (see attachment in last email).
I should add that this behavior does not happen all the time. When opening the report window usually the first few times always work as expected.
I guess the problem occurs after I have checked one star after the other for variability, running more or less through the entire list. Could this be some kind of overload, with a pointer running in trouble?
I tried again but it doesn't happen here. However I the unselect for the comparison stars did not work and is now fixed in version 2025.10.25. Are you sure you didn't see comparison stars in the graph?
Han
Downloaded and installed 2025.10.25 but the result is the same. You can zoom in into the previous attachment to see that all the data points are actually GAIA variables. This is obvious: only GAIA variables are involved.
I finally deleted one image after the other but even with only one image the problem remains (attachment). As you don't have the problem it may be related to the images? I have attached the first image of the series and the resulting report.
cs Axel
Here the resulting report
I see in Windows that if you set the AAVSO annotation limiting magnitude to 15 or 99, the comparison stars are missing. Maybe something is overloaded since the field contains massive amount of variable Gaia stars. But the deselect and select works. I will try tomorrow on the Mac M4. Today I have no more time to test it.
Can you make a screen shot of your photometry tab so I can see your settings?
Photometry setting attached
Certainly not related to the bug and just to let you know: even in full screen mode my stack menu window is always slightly truncated at the right.
I tried Local DB mag 11 where only one GAIA star remains. The bug persist: whenever you select a variable star the GAIA star is added too
so the bug is somehow tied to the GAIA stars but it seems to be not a question of the number of GAIA stars
I do not see it here but I suspect the tiny little database I use for restoring the comp and check stars is causing it.
Can you go to the ASTAP viewer FILE menu, SETTING and SAVE SETTINGS and save the astap.cfg to your desktop or somewhere else and share it?
You could also open the astap.cfg in a text editor and look for the entry "report-stars" and just delete the line and save the astap.cfg again to your desktop. Then in ASTAP load this astap.cfg from the desktop again by FILE, SETTINGS, LOAD SETTINGS. See attached screenshot of the astap.cfg file.
Han
Deleting "report-stars" worked, variables can be switched on and off without additional GAIA stars automatically added to the display
cs Axel
Good it is solved. To fix it you could also just deleted the astap.cfg in the same menu. (reset all settings)
If there are more then thousend variables then there is no place anymore for the comp stars. I have changed it now to unlimited.
Great, runs as expected.
However, returning to default settings site coordinates are deleted. Starting new and running photometry the program crashes with a "error decoding site latitude or longitude" error. I guess that is related to HJD calculation which needs observatory coordinates.
cs Axel
Just noticed that a comparison star labelled in the image (000-BJP-944) is not included in the comparison star list. Maybe related to the location at the immediate edge of the image?