I’m having very inconsistent results with Plate Solver 2 in centering my images. One image there is no problems, but then the next it can’t see it. On that second image I can plate solve the image itself, but it can’t be solved by the centering. I’m befuddled. I have no idea why. It seems to have something to do with scaling, but I’m not sure. I just know that if I leave multiple events running. I can’t go to bed for fear that the centering on the next image will fail.
Another problem has cropped up relative to plate solving, the Astrometry.net has ceased to function, so there is no backup if Plate Solver 2 fails. I tried stetting Astrometry.net as the main plate solver and use it to solve an image but it doesn’t even initialize. It did yesterday, but today its gone.
i think nova.astrometry.net is back up, but if it is not, nova2.astrometry.net (backup) seems to still be there. they had some planned downtime for the server so if things have not already returned to normal, they should shortly.
as for PS2, maybe try increasing your plate solve exposure lengths. for me PS2 fails from time to time, somewhat mysteriously - i have a local copy of astrometry.net installed so that i can fall back to a local blind solve instead of relying on the astrometry.net web service. look into “ansvr” if you want to set this up for yourself.
Rob, thanks for your reply. I had downloaded and installed ANVR. That’s probably the most confusing thing. I could see that the online server was down, but couldn’t understand why the local was not working.
I’ve noticed that Plate Solver 2 seems to have the most trouble with two areas: m27 and the Veil Nebula. I had increased exposure time 2x2 bined to 20 seconds and the sequence recovery doubled that with no positive result. I have pretty accurate mount and both problem areas were very close to center before centering started.
I hate to spend the money, but is Pin Point more reliable?
IMO no reason to go to pinpoint - PS2 works probably in 95% of cases i’ve thrown at it.
i agree that PS2 seems to get lost when there are too many stars - i have also had failures in the veil region. SGP kinda takes care of configuring PS2, but i do wonder if there is a setting to only take the brightest, say 200 stars. astrometry.net/ansvr does have that kind of a setting and it is somewhat important to get it set right (–sigma) so in fact the problem with PS2 could be the opposite of what i was supposing above - too many stars instead of not enough.
as for ansvr, i think you can only have one backup solver configured in SGP. even if ansvr is installed and the server is running, if SGP is pointed at astrometry.net it will never ask ansvr for a solution.
i think you’ll be ok if you get SGP to talk to ansvr (and you have the right indices installed) - i think i’ve never had a double PS2/ansvr solve failure ever.
I thought I had pointed it at ANVR when I pointed it at astrometry.net. How do you point it at ANVR?i don’t know if this relevant, but both of the problem targets are north of the equator whereas the ones that did not fail, M8 and M16, are south of the equator.
dunno about the pointing, i can’t see too much of anything south of the celestial equator due to my house being in the way, but i’ve been able to solve down to -5 degrees with PS2.