Plate solve toolbar button

Sequence Generator Feature Requests
1

Could you add the plate solve button to the quick access toolbar so you don’t have to right click on each image to plate solve it? In relation to this, it would also be nice to be able to save the image scale so you don’t have to type it in every time.

Thanks!

2

The image scale of your equipment is saved in the equipment profile, as far as I can see. You only need to type it once and save the profile.

3

Sounds like you’re solving images that have already been taken with SGP? What is the reason for this? Just trying to better understand why the button is needed vs right clicking on the image. I can see it if you’re doing a lot of images like this but I don’t really understand why you would use SGP to do this vs some other application that could batch all the solves at once.

Just trying to understand the reasoning for this request so if we do decide to implement it we understand why we’re doing it and can make better decisions than just adding a button.

Thanks,
Jared

4

Okay, I’ll try to be as clear as I can about what I’m doing.

  1. I am doing minor body astrometry and using SGP as my capture program.
  2. Other plate solvers don’t seem to work as well as the ansvr add-in for SGP, it is excellent when configured right.
  3. I only connect a camera and a focuser to the SGP equipment list.

I am having to right click to solve the images, it would be cool to have a quick button on the toolbar for this. It also appears that even though I can save the successfully solved location as part of the sequence, it is not writing that solved location to the fits header. That would be a fantastic feature because as I pointed out in another thread, the location of the mount is not exact to where you are actually shooting. Having it write the mount location to the fits header if the mount is connected is one thing, but having it write the solved image location / image scale would be better imo as it is usually close to exact.

I guess this might be a unique case, but it seems like it would be a natural flow of things. If you have a solution for getting plate solves that are accurate, why not also write that info to the fits header once it is obtained?

In the end this would save me a lot of time, as I solve the images with SGP to get the accurate location for the astrometry software I use which does not have any kind of auto plate solving in it. It is very widely used, Astrometrica.

Thanks for the consideration :slight_smile:

5

This seems to me to be another case of a user with special, possibly unique, needs wanting an additional button that does something that’s already available in a slightly more complex way.

Adding multiple buttons like this would turn the SGP UI into a sea of buttons.

It seems to me that if you have an unusual requirement, something that very few people will want to do, especially if it isn’t in the normal run of things, then you need to accept that you have to do this in a slightly more complex way. Using a context menu isn’t really very complex.

Incidentally I’ve also been doing this - loading images and plate solving them - because I’m developing some software that is collecting images and plate solving them. SGP was convenient to check that what I was getting was correct. But I’ve no intention of asking for a personal button to do this because I see this as not what SGP is designed for.

Wouldn’t it be better to lobby the Astrometrica developers for auto plate solving?

6

Chris,

I’m not asking for some new obscure feature to be added for my own personal benefit. The software already does plate solving, and the button already exists, I’m just asking for easier access to an existing feature. I don’t think this is some unusual requirement that would clog up the GUI. I highly doubt that I’m the only user using SGP for plate solving.

7

You might like to try this as it has a batch processing mode

http://www.astrogb.com/astrogb/All_Sky_Plate_Solver.html

8

I have used All Sky Plate Solver for some time. It hasn’t been updated in years, is very buggy, and doesn’t work very well. I don’t think it writes the solved results to the fits header either.

9

Why don’t you have a telescope connected in sgp? If you connect a telescope in SGP the ra and Dec will be populated in the fits headers. If you don’t have a computer controlled mount, consider attaching the simulator and it will still populates your coordinates. Just do a solve and sync to get the scope position to be accurate.

Hope that helps.
Jared

10

I wasn’t aware of the solve and sync feature. I’ll give that a shot.

Thanks Jared

11

I don’t use it but I seem to remember reading that it could be run in batch mode with some flags set to change the behavior.
Anyway Jared seems to have offered a solution to your problem using SGP.

Regards

Mick

12

Jared,

FYI, the solve and sync feature is great. Solved my issues. Thanks!