Hi all,

Disclaimer: I'm pretty new to practical astronomy and astrophotography, but I have a fair bit of general understanding of software stuff and data processing.

I'm approaching the forum with the following observation: I set up Stellarmate (OS download on an existing RPi v4, 4GB) with my AZ GTi mount, taking pictures through a 72/420 refractor with a ZWO ASI178MC. When I first used my setup with automatic GOTO, Stellarmate worked like a charm (a few UI inconsistencies aside): Scope pointed north, mount homed in on target, and after a few slew-to-target iterations I was in business. However, despite my night sky becoming better due to weather, the last few evenings have been frustrating. Every single plate solve seems to fail. I tried numerous permutations of exposure time (1-30 sec), gain, offset as well as solving parameters (those available within the app as well as directly in EKOS), FOV and focal length are indicated correctly, and still I can't get it to work. I also tried installing additional index files as well as ASTAP, to no avail. I'm pretty much stuck.

I think my questions are: Is this a common issue and/or have a potentially broken my system? What's the best approach for debugging in that situation? Is there an easy check whether my index files have been corrupted? I appreciate I'm taking pictures from a heavily light-polluted environment, which of course is a variable source of noise, despite the weather conditions becoming better. However, in a few videos I saw on YouTube, people seemed to say that Stellarmate was ideal for EAA in city environments.

Before annoying Stellarmate support with something I could have easily ruled out myself, I thought I'd give it a shot here on the forum.

Any hints?

Boris

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