Plate Solving Data Files and Symbolic Link

Hello,

When I learned about the Symbolic Link feature of Windows I decided to move the Ansvr plate solving data files somewhere outside the limited solid state drive space of the single-board computer that I use to operate my imaging system, such as a USB drive. But Astronomy.net local plate solving then won’t work and it reports that it failed to plate solve. I am not sure if this is something thaat Astronomy.net is interested in or if this is something that is in control of SGP. I thought to report it in.

Farzad

SGP doesn’t have much to do with it. We just ask ANSVR to solve and it is responsible for finding the files. I would image with a USB drive that you’d have problems with Symbolic links when the disk is unmounted/remounted. As it is you’re kind of “outside” of the normal use case for things. If anything maybe install ANSVR on the USB drive? But I think you’d still have issues as you’d need to manually start it up rather than it starting up with windows.

Thanks,
Jared

Well, I wanted to make the most of the resources that my imaging computer
has and I thought diverting the plate solving index files using symbolic
link could save me some space - it has done wonders for my use of SN7 Pro.
I have contacted astronomy.net also and wanted to check and see if SGP has
anything to do with it and it seems it doesn’t. Everything works as it is
though, and as it is supposed to. Maybe Astronomy.net can do something to
their Ansvr to solve this issue and save us some resources. It would be a
good thing.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Farzad

Farzad,

Impersonally use another implementation for astronomy.net locally. It’s on github. If you search for astrometry-api-lite, you will find this package.

Michel

The following post shows the index downloader has an option to select folder to save files to.

I recommend reinstalling ANSVR and when downloading index files, select folder on USB drive or microSD card. This is how I have installed ANSVR and it works just fine. I’m also using a Compute Stick M3 with 64GB storage and 4GB RAM running Windows 10 Pro.

Ciao,
Mel

I have a NUC computer with minimum memory, 128GB drive, so I installed a 128GB MicroSDxc card in the NUC card reader slot. I have all of the indexes stored on the MicroSDxc card and it works very well. I even installed Stellarium and Sterllarium Scope on the SD card is it works fine off of the SD card. This leaves me about 80GB free on the main computer drive to store my images after which I download to my main computer after each run.

Cheers,
Mark

…don’t know what NUC stands for but it looks like it has a lot of internal storage. Mine only has 32 GB. Other issue I have is that sometime during imaging, SGP is unable to save to the Micro SD card for me and it appears the Micro SD is no longer available. Computer supplier is baffled and recommends reinstalling windows, so I cannot rely on the Micro SD card.

Thanks, that is a good point.

Farzad

Mitchel,

I just tried that and it looks like I have to have something else installed so it runs. Installing that something else could defeat the purpose; plus I don’t know if it could throw my PC off balance.

image

I tried and almost succeeded to install, but I am getting more serious error messages that I don’t understand. I think I am gonna wait a while for the API to become more simple user friendly. Thanks.

image

Just realized it needs to be run as an admin. I have it installed now.

The configuration file lets you specify where the index files are, either by listing each file in the configuration file, or by specifying the folder they are in (which is what I do).
I don’t remember the name of the config file and am not by my computer, but it was easy to find.

Eric