seeking help with image where plate solving failed
Stacking program, astrometric (plate) solver, fits file viewer
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I'm trying to get up-to-speed in using NINA + ASTAP to plate solve guide camera fits files. My first attempt (file attached) produces no solution in ASTAP. I was able to solve it via astrometry.net. Any guidance or suggestions would be very much appreciated so I can utilize ASTAP with NINA.
Michael
additional info: I'm using ASTAP v2023.09.11 with the D50 database.
The Astrometry.net solution is located here: https://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/8643340#original
Hi Michael.
I got a solve but the match is only based on a few quads. Main problem seems to be to spread out stars. It looks as the focus was not so good. Do you have images which are better in focus?
I will have look again tomorrow.
Han
Best for your setup is to force binning to 2. Change in Nina the ASTAP binning from 0 (auto) to 2. That helps with solving. After that the number of quads used for solving is about 3 times higher. so star detection works better.
Do you have an uv/ir block filter in place? That could help to improve focus.
Han
your suggestion about focus is spot-on (pun intended). Regretably, I don't have an image with better focus because (a) I'm an absolute newbie at using my just-purchased equipment and hence working up a steep learning curve with NINA, ASTAP, PHD2, etc. and (b) my only "telescope" at the moment is a William Optics 50mm f/4 guide scope with an ASI guide camera on a brand-new Losmandy G811 mount. I'm finding focusing to be a challange due, again, to my inexperience coupled with the nature of this simple guidescope (next step is to purchase a quality APO refractor with a ZWO EAF which shoudl improve things). I have been using PHD2 to try to gauge the focusing (the best I can do is an HFD of 4 to 5 pixels, corresponding to ~8"). the good news is that despite this marginal focusing I am getting a guiding rms of 0.75" so I making some progress.
I will try changing the binning to 2 and also I'll look into a uv/ir block filter.
the good news is that I noticed you selected the "slow" option when you solved my image. I tried this on my pc and ... presto ... ASTAP was able to solve the image!
thank you for your suggestions and thank you also for your amazing program.
best regards,
Michael