The other night I was trying to Polar Align with my guide camera, an ASI290mini at F4. It went well, plate solving and determing a solution for me to work with. Then after several "Refresh" images that resovled, some that didn't, the error came up. {bug?}
"Could not determine mount position."
This was the end of it, the process stopped. I tried several more times and the same failure. Then I switched from the guidescope to my 8" EdgeHD at F10
You may think, as it was pointed out to me later, that I went from easy plate solving to hard. (I was thinking more light, more stars.)
The exact same thing happened with the longer focal length. I got very close to finishing the overall process,only needing to adjust the mount. I did 2 or3 adjustments only to end up with the same error.
I would say the seeing was poor. Transparency is something I am working on understanding in relation to my location. I will say this night was a better one in terms of how many stars I could see nearer to the horizons, but the sky STILL did seem washed out. In other words you could see the bright stars but little besides that. {seeing/transparency?}
Question is: would unchecking "Use Position" have let me continue? {setting?}
It is frustrating when PA doesn't work! While I don't have any experience using my guide camera for PA (Looks like you're using guide scope at F4 - alignment between the guide scope and your main OTC for PA purposes must be tricky!), I have had the occasional PA issue for different reasons. In no particular order:
- Sometimes, often with software updates and sometimes due to user error, the EKOS settings have the wrong focal length/FOV/etc. and these make the whole plate solving thing a challenge or impossible. I don't always check that in advance since I assume it doesn't change - it has bitten me a few times.
- I have an 11" EdgeHD and when I shoot at F10 I find I'm using longer exposures and/or binning to get more stars to resolve.
- I have become a bit more anal about focusing first thing. While PA can be forgiving of some out of focus conditions, I've found the whole process is so much more reliable if I do a focus run first.
If you have any logs or examples of the image captures you can share, many here are great at using those to diagnose things.
Thanks for the reply,
I did plate solve almost all the way through the process. I did play around and use 2x2 binning and various exposure times.
I was at the point with the arrows to adjust the Alt and AZ, and past it with a few adjustments made when the error came up.
I will have to try again when the clouds cooperate. I have enabled the logs to provide more information.
I am afraid this may just be terrible seeing but have never seen the error I mentioned before.