The current nightly works flawlessly for me. I suggest installing that for the time being.

Hello Rob,

Thanks for the update. I wanted to test the Windows version 1.5 but failed to find the correct executable. There are 121 executable files but none with a name like Stellarsolver.exe or something similar. How to run this tester?

Han

I’ve been using the nightly build for the last couple of days. This would appear to include the new stellar solver update. Someone asked above if this does contain the most current release. I don’t think it’s been confirmed but it would appear so. This has been working well for me on the simulators. Clouds have prevented any real world testing for the last couple of days.

binary-factory.kde.org/job/KStars_Nightly_win64/

Han I will have to check that, it might be my recipe or it might be an issue with Craft. I believe on Windows it should be called StellarSolverTester.exe. I will test that later today and see if there was some sort of packaging issue. I would like to make sure the Tester's Mac Windows and Linux versions are all working great and easy to use and distribute.

But the good news is that it is fully integrated into KStars and the release should be happening in the next couple of days. Sorry it hasn't happened yet, I am the one holding it up, but I found a couple of extremely critical but unrelated bugs in the Mac version that I am sorting out. The KStars startup wizard wasn't working and for any new users that is critical!

Sorry, the 3.5.0 release of KStars has been held up a little. I'm working out some issues for Macs at the moment and I will have that done hopefully later today. To release a stable version we should make sure its stable . Right now the beta crashes on Mac if you run the startup wizard. I have the fix already implemented, but I will need to package it up and try it again later today.

Han, you were absolutely right. Apparently I had made a mistake in an update I was making to the craft recipe for building the tester on windows. I updated it and rebuilt it. Then I updated the release with the correct binaries Please try it again.

Ron,

Thanks. It got the new test program now running in Windows. Looks all okay. Solves all in a few seconds. The default option and "all stars" seems most reliable.

Han

Rob,
I just updated my Raspberry Pi to the latest KSARS using the AstroPi3 script with the new StellarSolver. During testing with the simulators I kept getting failed to solve errors. I eventually realised that the reason for the failure was I had only downloaded the relevant index files for my 80mm x 500mm FL imaging setup, the default simulator scope setup at 120mm x 900mm FL would not solve as the relevant index files were not present. On the Astronomy.net solver it would flash a warning that the index files were missing. Would it be possible to add the warning message to StellarSolver? It may help out newcomers to resolve any setup issues.

I must say once I had changed the simulator telescope settings to match those of my imaging setup, it worked flawlessly on both GSC and uploaded images, very nice work indeed.

Many Thanks

Alan

@El Corazon
you pointed me in the right direction.
Finally I used Synaptic to install libraw-dev while downgrading the libraw package.

Hi Alan,

So the message you are referring to was actually a function of KStars, not astrometry.net. Yes we could make it print that message again saying that you don't have the right indexes, but actually I didn't like that message because it was often incorrect. It would just say you don't have such and such index files even though you didn't need them for your image scale and I got tired of seeing that message. It is actually hard to say which index files you actually need to solve a particular field size. Yes, the index files are definitely meant for certain scales, and we could just do a table lookup based upon the scale size you/Kstars indicate the image should be and to just search for the index files with sky marks that size and the ones a little larger and a little smaller than your scale. But one issue you might encounter is that sometimes the index files that are significantly larger or smaller than your scale are the ones that actually solve the image. So it can be hard to say exactly which ones should be included. I did write an algorithm in the index file downloader a few years ago that attempts this. Maybe we could use similar code here. I mean I guess it is just a warning so you could ignore if it is wrong. We can look into it.

Thanks,

Rob

Rob,
Yes I see that, I have seen the message when I did have all the relevant indexes installed. Also what you have said explains why I found if I was slightly over generous when downloading the index files with Astronomy.net, the solving speeds actually improved. On a good night a first solve of 15 to 20 seconds and subsequent solves in 8 to 12 seconds. I wonder if the message could be made more of a basic / some type of prompt to check the installed index files, rather than just fail. It would act as a guide or starting point to sorting the issue of a failed solve.

By the way, we had the first clear night here for a few weeks last night and the new StellarSolver in KSTARS worked great right from the off, not a single failed solve during the session.

Many thanks

Alan

Rob,

The parallel solving speeds up the solver significantly (about 4-5 fold under my conditions). It now solves routinely in under 1 s on my Pi4/8Gb, but it takes up to 5 seconds otherwise. However, for this to work I need to restrict the astrometry files the Solver loads into RAM to a minimum. Since I am using a wide-field scope at 250 mm focal length, that is feasible on a Pi4. However, when I select all the astrometry files needed to solve on any of my scopes, including an 8" RC, then the file size exceeds the RAM available and solving slows down dramatically.
At the moment, I am managing this by manually moving the astrometry files that are not needed for my short focal length into a subfolder from which they are not loaded. I then can manually move them back when I am putting a larger scope on the mount.

What I am wondering is whether it would be possible for the Solver to just load those files it ANTICIPATES it needs for parallel solving BASED ON FOV into RAM and ignore the rest for first pass. Only when solving is unsuccessful, it would then include the remainder of the astrometry files for sequential solving.

That way, it would not be necessary for the observer to make that decision and then, if solving fails, having to move back larger astrometry files into the folder on which the Solver is looking for them.

I would think it should be possible to do that in an automated fashion?

Thoughts?

Jo