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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

optimizing plate solver

The warning message is an indicator that something is wrong. Can you go to Image Info tab of the camera INDI Control Panel and check that out? also the mount module, what's the focal length listed there?
2 years 6 months ago #75922

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Certainly! But I can't understand why and where else to look (beside that fact that nothing changed).

All those numbers looking good to me.

Certainly! But I can't understand why and where else to look (beside that fact that nothing changed).

All those numbers looking good to me.

  
2 years 6 months ago #75923
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The only thing remaining that would be possible is language and different between decimal point and comma, but that'd hardly an issue now as it was addressed long ago. But I'm running out of ideas and this is the only thing that would explains it.
2 years 6 months ago #75924

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Tried it. Nop, nothing changed :-(
2 years 6 months ago #75925

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An easy way to revert back or install from scratch the previous version? I am on a mini pc with Ubuntu mate.


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2 years 6 months ago #75940

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Replied by Mark Copper on topic optimizing plate solver

Here is a plate solve from last night, start and finish, with Vega as target.
   drive.google.com/file/d/1srApvSVSOMpSmFh...SWZ/view?usp=sharing
   drive.google.com/file/d/1EUJQm-UtZ_oHj7X...AT-/view?usp=sharing

Solving was again on the order of 50-60 seconds per frame. These are the options I used:
   drive.google.com/file/d/1elON7vnWqCWEExg...5Ud/view?usp=sharing

Note that I trimmed the area when I captured an image but neglected to do reflect that in the scaling options. I don't know if that had a deleterious effect.

Also, I ran solve-field on the remote computer, blind, without any options at all. Although I didn't record how long it took to solve, it was quite rapid. So I wonder if running the solver remotely created some kind of bottleneck.

There also seemed to be a problem with solving to coordinates for which Ekos had no object. Thus, for example, I tried solving to a star dimmer than 8.4, but the solver solved to a near by brighter star. But I'll investigate further and post separately if it continues to be a problem.

Thanks for reading.

 
2 years 6 months ago #75955

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Replied by Hy Murveit on topic optimizing plate solver

Mark,
I ran your fits file too, and like you got slow results with astrometry, but got virtually instant results from ASTAP (inside of EKos).
Why not install and use the ASTAP option (either permanently or until this gets worked out)?
You do need to install ASTAP to do that. www.hnsky.org/astap.htm
Hy
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2 years 6 months ago #75960

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Replied by Hy Murveit on topic optimizing plate solver

BTW, with ASTAP you would want to disable 'use position' and 'use scale'
2 years 6 months ago #75961

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Replied by Alfred on topic optimizing plate solver

I did play with the file that was linked (light23.fits).

After setting the telescope simulator location to Wega and doing an inital solve with "use scale OFF", Ekos calculated a focal length of 521.7mm (I should add that I used my CCD simulator config with 4144x2822 pixels of 4.63qm size resembling the ASI 294). After this

ASTAP solved in 0.6 seconds (use scale ON),
local astrometry solved in 15 seconds (use scale ON) and
the internal solver solved in 4.4 seconds (use scale ON).

All with builtin method for solver and default options profile.

The internal solver first reported 0 stars found in the picture. Initially it detected enough stars but after applying filters, 0 stars remained. I then set minimum star size to 1 pixel (instead of 8, dont know whether that was one of my previous modifications) and this did the trick.

I used an older laptop with 4GB ram and an Intel i5@2.5GHz.
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Last edit: 2 years 6 months ago by Alfred. Reason: Adding CCD info
2 years 6 months ago #75969

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Replied by wotalota on topic optimizing plate solver

I have been having the same issue getting solver to work and also see the polar alignment disable message.
Bringing up a new configuration having updated to the recent stable release. Redcat 51 scope and ASI294 camera. FOV: 264'x180'
After doing the following two things the solver started working but the polar alignment message was still there.

First I had 6 configurations defined as seen in the telescope indi panel under the options tab and deleted them all except the RedCat one.

Second and this is probably not generally useful. The ASI294 has two modes of operation.
2.32µm  8288x5644  22M    (bin1 14K Full Well, 12bit ADC)
4.64µm  4144x2822  11M    (bin2 66K Full Well, 14bit ADC)
I had made the mistake of deciding to use bin2 and setting up Ekos using those values. Instead changed all the values to the first mode. Then used the bin setting on the various screens as usual.

After making the changes it solved using [ bin1 and ] the internal guider for the first time various targets with good response times.
Lost the weather at that point so will see if it holds up next time.
Last edit: 2 years 6 months ago by wotalota.
2 years 6 months ago #76016
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Replied by Mark Copper on topic optimizing plate solver

Thanks, Hy.

I'm wondering about ASTAP. Does one need the full suite to run the solver under Ekos/indiserver? I notice there is an ASTAP-CLI package in the Debian repository.

Also, I wonder how the ASTAP database, H18, gets by with less than 1 gigabyte when the astrometry.net data files for my setup take up 32 gigabytes. From the ASTAP website, H18 includes stars down to 18th magnitude.
2 years 5 months ago #76133

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Replied by Alfred on topic optimizing plate solver

One thing I found problematic is images taken by non-cooled CMOS cams. I noticed Images taken with my 294Pro (-10°C) solve in record time but the solver has huge problems with images taken with my 294 (31°C) even when scale and the position in the sky are known.

The reason is the solver mistakes bright pixels for stars. To check this, just click at the "Detect stars in Image" icon and have a look at what "stars" have been marked. If the image looks like this

 

the solver will have a hard time and probably fail. Note the many one-pixel marks.

This

 

is the same image with dark subtraction. After clicking at "Detect stars in Image" you'll find the one-pixel fake stars are gone and the solver is successful.
Last edit: 2 years 5 months ago by Alfred.
2 years 5 months ago #76141
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