Thank you for the help with the WCS files. I don't think the BITPIX needs to actually be 8, it is just looking for the second keyword to be BITPIX. Looking in the WCS file you save, BITPIX is there, it is just on the second line. Due to the way that the WCS file is formatted, it can't read the second keyword, I think that is all it is saying. Yes, I can certainly test WCS files that you send, or a better option might be for me to just release this version of the program, send it to you, and you can test changes to the output of ASTAP until it accepts the WCS file.
So one purpose of my library is certainly to solve the images and get back the solution information for the program using it, but it has other uses. Another purpose is to get back the sextracted sources and HFR in the image for purposes of focusing, guiding, and source information. And another purpose is to that after an image is solved, you can get the RA and DEC of all the stars in your image, or the RA and DEC of where your mouse cursor is in the image. The program can use this information to do photometry and light curves on the data. I am attaching a screenshot so that you can see what I use the information for:
Yes you are probably right that we should change the defaults. Maybe 20 would be a better setting for minarea. Maybe that should be a setting that is determined based on my setFWHM function that I made that already produces a conv filter. The main thing that I need feedback on is what all the defaults for the many many settings we have at our disposal should be. I'm still playing with all of that I think.
I believe astrometry.net automatically limits it to the 500 brightest stars in the image when it does a solve?
Thanks for the help,
Rob