Hi
I generally find AT pretty awesome! But... I've been getting a strange problem since I upgraded to the 64 bit version. I changed over to a ccd at about the same time so not sure which, if any, is the culprit. The problem is when re-slewing to target AT fails to solve. It is as though AT has a problem if there is no error after the first slew.
A second thing is that I use AT for polar aligning. I realise this is not normally a preferred method but I have a very limited view of the sky (from about 80deg up to 90 deg of azimuth i.e. East, and only up to about 32 degrees altitude). I was wondering if there is any information about how AT performs the calculations and if there is anything I can do to improve on it.
Many thanks for any help
Last edit: Louise Williams 2014-05-01
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Having a narrow, low window directly east makes it nearly impossible to do a polar alignment, since the error component low in east is dominated by altitude error. Azimuth error can be several magnitudes worse before it is seen as anything but tracking drift.
AT simulates drift align by moving a few minutes worth on the RA and comparing the plate-solve results relative to assumed perfect alignment for the given alt/az. It's not perfect and there is a better algorithm that hopefully makes it to AT2 "Real Soon Now(tm)" in the coming weeks, months or years.
-Antti
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hi
I generally find AT pretty awesome! But... I've been getting a strange problem since I upgraded to the 64 bit version. I changed over to a ccd at about the same time so not sure which, if any, is the culprit. The problem is when re-slewing to target AT fails to solve. It is as though AT has a problem if there is no error after the first slew.
A second thing is that I use AT for polar aligning. I realise this is not normally a preferred method but I have a very limited view of the sky (from about 80deg up to 90 deg of azimuth i.e. East, and only up to about 32 degrees altitude). I was wondering if there is any information about how AT performs the calculations and if there is anything I can do to improve on it.
Many thanks for any help
Last edit: Louise Williams 2014-05-01
Having a narrow, low window directly east makes it nearly impossible to do a polar alignment, since the error component low in east is dominated by altitude error. Azimuth error can be several magnitudes worse before it is seen as anything but tracking drift.
AT simulates drift align by moving a few minutes worth on the RA and comparing the plate-solve results relative to assumed perfect alignment for the given alt/az. It's not perfect and there is a better algorithm that hopefully makes it to AT2 "Real Soon Now(tm)" in the coming weeks, months or years.
-Antti