Well, my two questions would be why you (try to) solve without scale and position, and why do you do an initial sync close to polaris?
Especially the latter can be very dangerous if your setup has any inherent cone error: This will likely throw off the RA sync of the mount by a huge amount. So if the reason to deactivate position hints was that it didn't solve, that might have been the reason, and I'd rather start w/o an Polaris-sync and use the position hinting.

Peter,

I will need to check why scale would be an issue, nothing has been changed by me.

As far as Polaris goes, I am actually pointed near the equator, but the software seems to be ignoring this. To get pointed at Polaris I would need to point well below the horizon and that would be another issue for someone in the Southern Hemisphere

My steps were to slew to near the eastern side of the meridian near the equator.
Do a Synch, which worked but with the blind solver message, which is not normal.
Then Slew to Target, which fails.

Paul

I will need to check why scale would be an issue, nothing has been changed by me.
It should make solving easier and faster. Esp. on slow machines like a Pi a clear advantage. Not really sure if that can make the difference between a succeeded and a failed solve, but it definitely should not hurt.

As far as Polaris goes, I am actually pointed near the equator, but the software seems to be ignoring this.
I was looking at the solve from your last post:
2022-12-06T21:25:17 Syncing to RA (06h 37m 59s) DEC (-86° 58' 27")
2022-12-06T21:25:17 Solution coordinates: RA (06h 37m 59s) DEC (-86° 58' 27") Telescope Coordinates: RA (19h 05m 38s) DEC (-90° 00' 00") Target Coordinates: RA (23h 56m 00s) DEC ( 180° 00' 00")
(and had missed the minus sign indicating you're on the southern hemisphere). But that suggests you do a first solve in 'park' position, pointing at the (southern) celestial pole. The consequences are the same: A cone error can/will result in a huge RA error for the actual mount position.

The 180 degrees target DEC indeed are highly suspicious. Have you tried resetting the mount model? Is your hemisphere and park position properly set?
Have you confirmed (Align->Options) that 'Use Position' is 'on'?
(But that is more general questions - seems I'm not really able to help any further here )

Peter,

I think I may have confused you, I meant to say I have not changed the settings scale, and I believe it is enabled.

I still need to get access to the mount and check the settings again.

Paul

Peter,

Interesting. Or puzzling.
My only suspicion could be that indeed the pointing model (either of EKOS, or of the mount, if it has one) are somehow messed up. Like what I said about syncing close to the poles, if the coordinates that the mount slews to are badly off, the hinting ("Position") of course will not work if you are more than 30 degrees off. So that might explain why it falls back to blind solving.

The mount tab of EKOS has some button to discard mount models. I don't know if that also affects settings of the Gemini. Have you tried that? Else check the manual of the mount if there is a way (via HC?) to discard any stored models, and see if that helps.

Other than that, my pool of ideas is depleted...

Peter,

Okay, the real problem seems to be that it is not solving and then goes into a blind solve. The first blind solve seems to solve but if you then do another immediately after it never solves. I cannot find any parameters that would be an issue and I am assuming the software is broken.

The mount is pointing fine and the Gemini model is built each time as I do a cold start.

Paul

I am trying to test the alignment issues with the simulator but it always captures a dark image.
Is it possible to do a capture and solve with simulators?
I tried a load and slew and it solves one of my images almost immediately but does not slew to the solved position.
Is it supposed to do this?
Also, it shows the solution in the message box at the bottom of the screen but does not update it in the Solution Results box.
Is it supposed to do this?

2022-12-10T16:17:30 Slewing to target coordinates: RA (18h 09m 39s) DEC (-43° 43' 14").
2022-12-10T16:17:30 Solution coordinates: RA (18h 09m 39s) DEC (-43° 43' 14") Telescope Coordinates: RA (02h 13m 44s) DEC ( 00° 00' 00") Target Coordinates: RA (18h 09m 40s) DEC (-43° 43' 10")
2022-12-10T16:17:30 Solver RA (272.00987) DEC (-43.72309) Orientation (90.68484) Pixel Scale (1.58909) Parity (neg)
2022-12-10T16:17:30 Solver completed after 1.93 seconds.

After retesting this a few hours later I have realised it was slewing to the target after solving but the map was staying still so it was not centred on the object.
After slewing it captures another image which then fails to solve, which is expected because the it is an empty image which was my initial problem trying to duplicate the solving with simulators.

Paul

There are now two index file columns for plate solving. 2Mass Catalogue and Tycho2/Gaia Catalogue.

I have only downloaded the Tycho2/Gaia Catalogue.

Do I need to download both, could this be causing the plate solving to do a blind solve?

What is the purpose of having two.

Paul

Hi
Have you tried ASTAP? No fuss, it uses just a single catalogue file, works with the default settings (or any other settings for that matter), is fast and solves every time.
Cheers and clear skies,
Steve

Steve,

I have downloaded all the index files and will test again once dark enough.

If it continues to fail I will try using ASTAP.

It used to be an option to select but now all I get is stellarsolver.

Paul

Okay, I now have both the 2Mass and Tycho2/Gaia index Catalogues and it continues to fail.

The symptom is that it solves the first time, almost instantly, but never again until I restart kstars.

I installed ASTAP, as suggested, and it does the same thing,as seen below.

I loaded a FITS file and it solved it quickly, but a second attempt always fails.

2023-01-01T13:56:06 Solver Failed.
2023-01-01T13:56:00 Solving with blind image position...
2023-01-01T13:55:47 Solver aborted after 0.65 seconds.
2023-01-01T13:55:47 Capturing image...
2023-01-01T13:55:46 Solving with blind image scale...
2023-01-01T13:55:46 Image received.
2023-01-01T13:55:41 Capturing image...
2023-01-01T13:55:40 Image received.
2023-01-01T13:55:35 Capturing image...
2023-01-01T13:55:21 Slewing to target coordinates: RA (18h 09m 39s) DEC (-43° 43' 14").
2023-01-01T13:55:21 Solution coordinates: RA (18h 09m 39s) DEC (-43° 43' 14") Telescope Coordinates: RA (01h 17m 55s) DEC (-90° 00' 00") Target Coordinates: RA (23h 56m 00s) DEC ( 180° 00' 00")
2023-01-01T13:55:21 WCS information updated. Images captured from this point forward shall have valid WCS.
2023-01-01T13:55:21 Solver RA (272.00722) DEC (-43.72376) Orientation (269.32476) Pixel Scale (1.58864) Parity (neg)
2023-01-01T13:55:21 Solver completed after 2.15 seconds.
2023-01-01T13:54:39 World Coordinate System (WCS) is enabled.

It is entirely possible that something is not set up correctly, but it was working until I did a new build about two months ago.

I have noticed that the telescope details have been moved from the profile to the alignment page, under Train: Optical Trains - kstars and this may have something to do with it. After more investigation I found that the wrong telescope configuration has been selected and even though there is a Field of View difference it is not major.

Two things seem to be common, it frequently wants to do a blind solve and it always works the first time.

I am going to try this again when I next get a clear night.

Paul