Hi

I thought plate solving was working, for me, but when I was using the polar alignment routine, after the first of 3 images used in the process, the mount slews to the next area based on target rotation (30 degrees to the west as set in the alignment panel) however it seems to continue slewing beyond 30 degrees and wont stop and I had to unplug the mount to get it to stop. Restart everything works ok until I try the alignment again. I didn’t check whether the plate-solve showed correct coordinates but I did note that the polar alignment error was huge despite being roughly aligned. I wonder if it was not correctly registering the solve. But that wouldn’t explain why it was slewing essentially non stop.

Anyone else have the problem 

Alright, I need to check this. I verified nearest algorithm actually works, so this is perhaps an issue with the mount driver itself.

Hi Abdi,

I have had maybe one or two occasions where the mount continued to slew in RA when it was given a command and one time that was during polar alignment, but yesterday no such thing happened to me. Just no syncing the mount to a platesolve is all.

Cheers,

Peter

Hi Sameer,

Reading back I saw you were able to center all your targets. Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by differential solving?
I had good working goto’s last night but they were constantly off by almost a degree. At least that offset was constant;)

In the Astrotrac driver settings, go to Options (the area where u choose plate solving settings)

There is an option there to choose “differential solving”. I think it’s mainly for Paramounts where you don’t sync but use a differential offset so that the t-point model is not affected.

In any case, with that checked, it perfectly plate solves every time. However, the final centered image doesn’t show in the plate solved window and it still shows a huge error. But if u go to camera and take a shot, you will did that it’s centered on the object you wanted. You can also select capture and solve (and do nothing option) in the PS window in the end, and then you will see the object.

Ok, got it, will try that next, will be a while because of work.
When you say ‘it perfectly solves every time”, is that an automatic process or do you select a solving option?
In ASIAIR, when performing a goto, it automatically solves and then corrects its position. Is that what is supposed to happen here as well?

Thanks,

Peter

Hi Sameer,

I am looking at the driver right now, but under options I don’t see anything about platesolving. Any idea why?
Am I using a non-updated driver. Under connection it tells me I have version 1 interface 5.

It should be in the plate solving options. It’s the options button on the bottom right of the screen with tabs for all the devices.

Peter,
You can also email me offline at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We can share numbers and talk if u like. 

What time zone are u in?

Sameer

Hi Sameer,

Thanks I'll send you a mail. I am mostly in the Netherlands (central european) , but on the road quite a bit. So often in different timezones.

It appears after some testing with Jasem that the RA values during slewing are changing rapidly from say 2hr to 14hr.

It appears there is jitter in the dec encoder which is changing the sign from + to -ve randomly and that affects the calculation for the coordinates.

We tried an updated driver that accounts for the jitter but it continued to show similar behaviour in my indoor testing today.

Out of curiosity instead of leaving the Dec access at home position I changed it to + or - 1 or something more or less than 0. I did similar for the RA access. In that mode all the SLEWs showed correct Ra values as you would expect at say x800 speed. I also tried the polar alignment module with these slight offsets to the starting position and it worked consistently every time (indoors under simulation) did not matter if I was slewing east or west or the speed of the mount. 

I removed the offset and began in the home position with encoders at 0.00 inn both axises and polar alignment would fail sometimes. It failed precisely at the time the RA values jumped around probably related to the dec jitter and the message mount aborted changed speed came up. I the checked again with my little offset and again it worked again consistently.

Might help some of you whilst it can be figured out, I cannot test outdoors I haven't seen the clear sky in 3 months.

Jasem is working on it.

Glad to see you guys are still working on this. As far as the weather is concerned I am in the same boat here I’m afraid, never seen such a terrible summer in a long time.
This jitter you are talking about, is that something that happens on the mount’s side or the driver’s side?
I am still not sure if I have the latest driver. I updated every way I could think of, but I am still at version 1.0 built 5.
Anyway hope to be able to do some more testing as well this week.