After years of no issues, I am having trouble in several areas with plate solving. SGP 4.4.1.1441, Win 11. Blind solving won’t work. Using Astrometry.net local server or ANSVR, it tells me it can’t solve without RA and DEC hints. If I had those, I wouldn’t be trying to blind solve. ANSVR seems to be running, and has the correct path to the local ansvr catologue.
If I try to solve an image by clicking on “populate from link”, and provide an Astrobin link, it tells me it can’t solve it if it has not been previously solved at Astrobin, even if the image HAS been solved by Astrobin. If I just download an image from Astrobin, none of the solvers will solve it. Not Plate Solve2, or ASTAP, ANSRV, Astrometry.net. All of them fail to solve images downloaded from Astrobin. If I try to solve an image taken by me using SGP, all solvers work instantly.
I have been away from AP for six months, and when I updated SGP recently that seems to be when the problems began. Any help appreciated.
Dean
Valley of the Gods, Utah
Yes, of course, if a blind solver is asking for hints data it is a bug.
- Is this the first time you have attempted to use the Chain Solver?
- Are you attempting to solve with the chain solver or are you explicitly invoking solve with a blind solver?
- Are you solving images taken with SGPro? FITS images? Other?
If you are just using the Chain Solver, it almost certainly has a non-blind solver earlier in the chain than the blind solver and this solver will want hints. If you just want to go direct to the blind solve, you can also do so from the context menu. Lastly, clicking on the settings icon for ANSVR has a series of tools and metrics that will give you insight into the health of ANSVR.
I posted a reply to this by replying to the email I received, but I don’t see my reply here so I will post it again below.
Hi Ken and thanks for the reply.
If I try to solve an image taken with SGP all solvers work fine. The problem comes with an image taken from say Astrobin that I just copy to my desktop. If I open it in SGP and right click and tell it to solve it, it can’t with ASTAP, ansvr, PlateSolve2, etc. It tells me the image needs to first be solved by Astrobin before SGP can solve it. Even if I give it a pixel scale. Images downloaded from Astrobin are JPGs, and I don’t see an option to download it as FITS.
So if I go to blind solvers Astrometry.net or ansvr, both of which seem to be healthy, it wants RA and DEC hints or it won’t solve. It is not enough to give it a name (Spaghetti Nebula) and a pixel scale. It demands RA and DEC hints.
Even if I try to solve an image by populating the target from a link to an Astrobin image that has already been solved by Astrobin, it will not solve it without RA and DEC hints.
Sorry I am not familiar with the term Chain Solver. I am just getting back to AP after 6 months away. Does this mean having it try with for example ASTAP, and if that won’t solve it, going to a blind solver like ansvr?
Here is a screenshot of what happens when I try to solve without RA and DEC hints with ansvr.
Thanks again!
Dean
OK! Thx for the details here. This definitely seems like a bug and is likely an overlooked path for images that dont carry metadata (e.g. FITS headers). I’ll take a look at this.
Hi Ken,
I am set up at the moment in Kofa Wildlife Refuge in western Arizona. I still have the same issue of not being able to solve an image not taken with SGP.
I am also having a problem with doing a meridian flip that I assume is probably somehow plate solver related. Last night I was on Abel 370 until it had passed the meridian and gone counterweight up for an image or two. I do the meridian flip by just clicking the “slew now” button, followed by an autofocus run, and then I get precisely on target with a click of the “center now” button. But when I click “slew now”, it tells me it can’t slew to the target because it is below the horizon, which it clearly is not. I’ll attach the SGP log files from last night. Thanks!
edit: I can’t find a way to send log files. And the “report a problem” route to do so gives me an error message when I try to upload the logs to you.
Dean
Hello again Ken,
Don’t waste any time on this. I think my AP mount got lost and I will go through the process to reset it tomorrow night. I’m pretty sure this is going to solve the problem. I’ll get back to you if it doesn’t.
Dean
Hi Ken,
No such luck. The Mach 1 mount has been reoriented and is fine. I started tonight by opening a past SGP image of Abel 370 and it solved it and centered on it no problem. The scope is now approaching the meridian, and I stopped to do an autofocus run, then I do a “center now” to get precisely back on target in case the mirror moved a little during focusing. And the attached error message is what comes up.
I see the RA and DEC in the error box doesn’t match the RA and DEC in the target settings, and it seems to be out about 90 degrees. It think s the target is below the horizon when I am almost on it close to the meridian.
My night appears to be done, as I can’t find a way to get it to slew the few pixels back to the target. Thanks for any help. The weather forecast is good for the next few days and I am stopped cold by this.
Dean
