A couple of nights ago I was able to successfully get APT and it’s platesolving function to operate quite successfully along with PHD2 for guiding.
After doing a Quick Align on my Celestron AVX mount I pointed the scope at a random location and did their Auto++ platesolve. It quickly solved and at the completion synced the mount to the location in the sky it was pointed at. The Goto++ function automatically syncs the mount to match with the coordinates that their plate solver was able to identify as the current location. It then automatically synced the scope with the location the platesolver identified as it’s current location.
If I then told it to go to a new target the scope would slew to that location and do 2-3 plate solves until it was within n pixels shy of being within the center of the view finder. I was able to find several targets with the plate solver in APT.
Now I am trying to figure out how to get started using SGP. I have all the proper parameters entered and saved in SGP… The part of the setup procedure, I don’t seem to be able to get my head around is how do I get the mount initially synchronized with the plate solver so both are on the same page location wise?
- Can I get away with doing a Polar Align, then Quick Align, slew to a random location far from Polaris, then have PlateSolve 2 solve for my initial location? How do I get it to do this initial Plate Solve? Is it required?
2 Once the scope and PlateSolve 2 and both know where they are pointed, It should be easy for it to find the new target(s). I just don’t understand how to get it to solve for initial position.