So it actually does log a warning if there are no index files loaded at all, but currently to see the messages from StellarSolver in KStars, you need to have alignment logging turned on. We should definitely think about that.

The problem with having index files included with KStars is that index files are very large and the index files a person will need are very different for different setups. Your statement that it would be good to have the index files needed to solve the simulator images installed from the beginning to encourage users is a good one, except that the index files will take up valuable space that they could be using for the index files they actually need. Also I would worry that having it work out of the box for the simulators would give the user a false sense of security that it would work just fine under the stars with no intervention. I would hate for a user to have it solving just fine with simulators inside and then to go outside only to have it fail under the stars. I would rather have the user find out that they need to download the appropriate index files inside with simulators and be forced to think about which index files they need, get used to that, and then when they get ready to go out under the stars, to think about it again and download the right ones.

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