How long to plate solve?

So I’ve been trying to do some imaging tonight and this is my first time running sgp, it’s configured with all the specifications of my scope and camera, and it’s been plate solving for 30 minutes…

How long does plate solving typically take? I’m running playesolver 2.

Thanks

It should only take a couple of minutes, max.

Did the first platesolve fail? Has it switched over to the blind solver? What kinds of error or warning messages are you seeing?

Thanks for getting back to me! It went to a blind solver, then took 30 minutes. It finally confirmed though the rotation was off, but I think I had increased my tolerance to give a bit more wiggle room.

No errors! I just watched it cycle through.

I’m probably just annoyed cause it was really cold outside… once it solved, it then took 10 minutes to focus, then there were issues guiding… might be due to cable drag…?

I think the seeing might have been not too good either.

Funny thing is that whenever I use my full spectrum dslr connected to a scope with my eq6-r I don’t have as many issues as when I setup to use my qhy183m camera with sgp. I’ve had this camera for 6 months and haven’t had a decent imaging session. Hopefully when it warms up I’ll be able to take some more time with it to figure it out.

Couple minutes? It should take seconds… I use a local version of astrometry.net and a blind plate solve typically takes 6-8 seconds…

From what I hear Platesolve2 is fairly quick too.

Just giving you a typical scenario. May want to give a local astrometry a try.

If you want to try it, download it here: ansvr - Astrometry.net Local Plate solver for Windows

Make sure you change your SGP control panel to point to the local astrometry not remote.

If the new camera image is failing to solve but the old one did then it suggests your image scale isn’t set up correctly.

Have you got a separate equipment profile set up for the new camera and does it have the correct image scale, you can check by loading an image and blind solving it in sgp.

Platesolve takes seconds for me, it fails maybe one in fifty times and the local blind solver takes a minute or two max. It sounds like you have a setting wrong somewhere, most likely the image scale.

Cheers,
Ian

Are you using a rotator as part of your setup? If so, have you configured the rotation angle correctly?

As others have suggested, the main reason I’ve seen the initial plate solve fail is if the camera pixel scale is not set correctly on the Camera settings tab, so you should definitely double check that.

And re: how long plat solving should take: If the initial platsolve succeeds, the process is indeed very quick, maybe with one or two small slews to fine tune the centering. If it has to fall back to the blind solver for any reason then it can take a couple of minutes.

In your case, if it’s taking 30 minutes then it is clearly “lost” :slight_smile: