Plate Solving

[Forum_2015]

I'm struggling with the AstroArt plate solving, all I get is "Cannot Find Coordinates", your help would be greatly appreciated.

Hopefully the screenshots may provide the insight to where I'm being stupid.

I have just taken these screenshots this morning to replicate the errors I had last night. The goto telescope coordinates were present for the plate solving.

Telescope is a William Optics Megrez 80/480
Camera is an Atik 314l+

[Forum_2015]

You have set an Horizontal Field of View of 64 arcminutes ( = 1 degree!) while your actual FOV is approx 20 arcminutes.
For the first tests I suggest a tolerance ("Error") of +- 50% instead of 10%, until you measure your actual FOV, using the Statistics Window (when the image is calibrated yet). See the tutorial in the Help about "Find coordinates".

Later, you may also decrease the Maximum Rotation (tolerance) to 20-30 degrees (if you continue to use your camera aligned) so that the plate solve is even faster.

[Forum_2015]

Many thanks for the help but ticking the "vertical flip" box appears to have fixed it.

[Forum_2015]

Any others using the Plate solve routine in AA5?
How faint can we go?
UCAC4??

[Forum_2015]

It does not use any star catalog, it uses a internal pattern catalog. On a typical ccd image (10 - 20 arcminutes wide) if you take a five seconds exposure you have enough stars to make it work (usually 5 stars). If you need to work with only 4 stars then you need to decrease the tolarances to avoid false positives.
Until july 2014 the plate solve catalog was not included in the demo version (too big), but now it is. In my opionion it's one of the best features of AA5. Maybe it's not very "useful" since there are other freeware alternatives.

[Forum_2015]

Yes, now that I have it set up the plate solving routine in AA5 is superb. Very, very quick and didn't fail to solve once.

Thank you very much.

[Forum_2015]

wuthton,

Plate solve works really well in AA5 and is essential in automation of a nights observing. Every target right in the centre of the image.
A real benefit when checking the variable stars the next day. You know it is the one dead centre even if it is too dim to detect.
If you are using EQMOD it will remember the mount errors and the solve error will reduce with each solve.

All the best,
John