Hi Ken,
I see that Nina now includes PS3, would this be something that Planewave would be open to possibly now that Nina has support for it? I see many years ago they said no due to contracts with other companies.
Cheers, Mike
The ASTAP plate solving software is fast and accurate. Doesn’t seem like there is a need to use anything else.
charlie
I think people just like options 
We had initially implemented PS3 support years ago but when we talked to Plane Wave we were asked to stop due to some IP concerns. I think enabling it should pretty simple. We can likely look at adding it into the Beta.
Jared
Except for the fact that I (and I have read others) have problems with ASTAP centering targets. If I right click on a star that is say1/2 way between the center and the edge of the image and select center here, the star will end up on the edge of the image and ASTAP says it is centered.
For this reason, I use Plate Solve 2.
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We’ll go ahead and enable the already implemented PlateSolve3 in SGPro, but we feel obligated to at least run it through a series of light-weight testing before we send it out into the wild. We typically use Pinpoint so this particular solver has almost 0 mileage atm.
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For the longerst time I have used PS2 and had no issues.
I shoot mainly mosaics ranging from 2,4,6 & 8 panels and always had great overlaps between the panels using the 10% overlap setting. The mount is an iOptron GEM45.
Recently I tried ASTAP and installed the D50 catalog and for a simple 4 panel mosaic, the session ran and reported successful centering (20 px limit & < 1 degree rotation error) but when I processed and assembled the panels, there was a large alignment discrepancy between the overlapping panels and in one recent image it had an empty void in the center of the assembled mosaic image. I tried the session twice and it did the same thing, so I switched back to PS2 and the panels aligned normally. I could never figure out why ASTAP didn’t give the proper plate solves though it reported successes.
Mike
I have installed PlateSolve3 on the Obs computer and can solve an image through the App’s own interface. When I try using it in SGP (Ver: 4.3.0.1223) I get the following error messages:
Within SGP - PS3 settings point to the correct directory - any ideas on the reason for the errors?
I am using the exact same image in SGP as within PS3 stand-alone APP.
Just further to my previous message about PS3. Had a short clear spell to do a test “on the run”. When the I send the scope to center on target…PS3 as the plate solver works fine. It will platesolve the image direct from the camera and put the scope on target as expected. However - if I then right click on the plate solve image on the desktop, PS3 fails to solve it even though it had done so direct from the camera. At this stage - changed over to ASTAP and it plate solved the image on the desktop.
Likewise PS3 would not recenter to a selected star on the desktop image whereas ASTAP would.
It appears when SGP actually saves the image something is amiss between SGP and PS3 with regard to the saved Header. (Maybe it is my computer…I have no idea.) Link to the “on the run” image I did a short while ago…if you wish to look at the Header info.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtJt1OQNx5vWj0fHhGrshU6ahRBM?e=SFhHXM
I ran into this error as well, what I had to do is copy all the files in the Platesolve 3.80 folder (not the catalog folders)
into the SGP folder located at:
C: Program files/ Sequence Generator Pro 64 bit
I copied the original SRSLib.DLL file from that location and pasted it onto my desktop before overwriting it just in case but both Platesolve 2 and platesolve 3 worked with the new DLL file.
I have not tried any centering action yet as my telescope is not set up. but it plate solves with previously acquired images without the error messages.
Thanks for that idea re copying files over to SGP directory. I can get around to doing that later today if another option does not work for me. When I woke up this morning, it hit me that my Obs computer (Gaius) is in Spanish Language and perhaps the FITS headers are written with comma (,) rather than stop (.) between the digits. I will check that first - less invasive - before trying your solution. Either way - I hope that I can come back within 18 hours to update the thread, especially if I found one or other of the above worked.
Well…I just had to go for it. My Fits headers were OK - that was not the problem. I tried your solution - copying files to the SGP folder and it worked just fine. (I now have all working, PS3, PS2, ASTAP and even the local & remote astrometry.net).
Thanks very much for your input on this…very much appreciated and I am sure this will help others too.
Thanks for letting us know. The SRSLib.dll file we use is pretty old. I’ll see about updating it in the installer so that you don’t need to do that every time you update SGPro
Also… in the very near future, I think I will alter the PlateSolve 2 and 3 integrations such that SGPro no longer distributes them. With PS2 it was just a convenience since it really never changed. With PS3, at the time of implementation, was not downloadable so we added it. It is easier for everyone if we just allow you to install the one you want and point to it.
Sounds good Ken 
No time like the present I suppose. I spent a couple hours today retooling SGPro to use PlateSolve 2 and 3 and not distribute them. I am still figuring out how to transition existing sequences, but in any case you’ll need PlateSolve 2 and or 3 installed AND you’ll need to tell SGPro where you have installed them (usually in your equipment profile, but can be in the sequence too). Other than this, there aren’t any remarkable changes.
Please see here for more info regarding these changes:
So, this explains why I had to re-copy the files after the latest update.
You’re welcome, Kinch. I’m glad I was able to help.Hopefully the centering will work as well.
This will need to be done after the next Beta release, correct?
Correct. Anything after 4.3.0.1223 will no longer ship with PlateSolve apps. SGPro will tell you if your sequence uses a PlateSolve solver and will fail during a sequence because it doesnt know where to find it. Should be no surprises there…
All the details for PlateSolve3 will be in the help file. A preview of the yet unreleased help file is here:
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