Sequence aborted due to possible bad solve

Sequence Generator Plate Solving
1

I recently upgraded from a Losmandy G8 to Losmandy G811 mount. I’ve been trying to plate solve unsuccessfully after the upgrade. Here’s my workflow after the mount is connected to my PC:

  1. Successful PA (Pole align)
  2. Approximate focus (Manual, successful)
  3. Blind Solve - Successful
  4. Start the sequence: At this point, SGP starts its Plate Solve flow.
  5. The solve fails with the error above. My log file is located here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5dQyRvWibXZUmxlbmNHY1NCSVE?usp=sharing

Other info:

  1. Search for the word “LOSMANDY” in the log file - to see where solve starts and fails (I marked it)
  2. Am using a Takahashi FS 60 with a reducer (Scale = 3.15) and a Nikon D7100.
  3. This is just one example of the solve failing - it has been consistently failing at the same point for the last 2 attempts
  4. I defaulted to Astrometry.NET (Local or Remote) - PlateSove2 doesn’t seem to work.
  5. In this example, the telescope starts to slew towards J2000 RA: 21.019525 (21h01m10.29s) Dec: 68.0746333333333 (68°04’28.68")…and ends up at DEC:43.5779012664 and RA:309.239078336.
2

Make sure you cold start the G11 and do not worry about building a pointing
model.
PS2 is very sensitive to accurate image scale. Are you saying that
Astrometry.net successfully solves the image? If so take that image scale
and make sure it matches the image scale in the PS2 setup.

3

Yup… done that - I cold started the G811 at CWD position and didn’t build a pointing model.
For issue #1: I use Astrometry.net for Blind Solve - that was successful. I’ll try copying that scale in PS2 tonight.
For issue #2: The issue still is that when I start the sequence and Astrometry goes through it’s workflow, it seems it’s issuing a slew command to my mount that’s not interpreted right - the slew is off significantly.

4

When you say the slew is off significantly, is the scope pointed in the
right direction just off some, or that the scope is off in another quadrant
of the sky, like WAY off?

It’s been a while since I used a Gemini but I’m wondering if this is a
J2000 vs JNow thing? Especially since Astrometry solves correctly.

5

For example, I was requesting the mount to slew to NGC 7023 (Iris nebula) and the mount ended up pointing in the Daneb neighborhood. So, it was pointed in the right direction, not in a different quadrant of the sky, but missed the target significantly.

6

Yeah that’s way off, so it’s not a J2000/JNow thing. You have your
location set correctly in the planetarium and in the Gemini Ascom driver?
I don’t know…

7

Well, if my blind solve worked, I’d assume that my location was set correctly. Although I did notice something odd…
My Gemini hand controller has a setting to set mount types - I picked “G-11”. I have a “GM811”, which is a hybrid between a G8 and a G11, so I thought that to be the best choice.
But I just found out that Losmandy / Gemini people have a new / updated Gemini software, which offers “G811” option as well. The gear ratio of the DEC worm gear is different between the G11 (360) and the G811 (180). Obviously, that is a possible debugging step I’ll try out tonight - is there anything else you would recommend?