I had a night a dark site and I pre-planned my target in Frame and Mosaic Wizard, saved the sequence ready to go. When I was ready I commanded “Slew To” from the dropdown attached to the target, and the slew was WAAAY off. I was in no mood to troubleshoot the slewing issue, so I framed it up manually according the the Help File - first using Nudge, then Center Here on my frame and focus image.
In both cases when I tried to run the sequence, it slewed back to its original (incorrect) position, even though I had un-checked “Slew To” and “Center” in the sequence dropdown box. I went to the Equipment Profile Manager and disabled Plate Solver (ie No Solver), and when none of these worked, I did the same in the Control Panel - Plate Solver - No Solver. SGP then refused to start my sequence, gave me the dreaded “Something Terrible…” screen, and then another warning screen pretty much saying it must have a Plate Solver or else. I re-read the “Center Here” help file - it said that SGP should have skipped the Slew To step in the Plate Solve routine, but it just refused to let it go.
My only option was to run the sequence using Frame and Focus, my subs were fine, but it was without all the usual benefits of FITS info, reviewing of subs, dithering etc etc. At a dark site, time is at a premium, and I had to grab what I could.
I love SGP for its amazing automation and taking care of things when I sleep, but I’ve got to give some feedback and say it definitely falls down in not allowing the user to take manual control in instances like this. Nudge and Center Here have failed me a few times in the past.
Ken, my apologies for not uploading a log file, here’s a link from my session last night which had identical problems. In the two logs here I set the target as Antares and Shaula respectively, Slew To got very close, but Center on Target (ie Plate Solve) just didn’t work, in fact in several previous attempts (not logged here), it actually caused SGP to lock up completely and I needed to restart the program.
Right at the end I realised the pixel scale was very different from my normal scope - in these two logs I am using a 135mm and 14mm camera lens on my ASI294, giving massively different scales to the usual 600/480FL of my main scope. I will amend these in the Equipment Profiles before I try again - I had changed the focal length for these profiles, but the pixel scale remained as it had been, and I assume that interfered with the plate solve functionality.
Nevertheless, my request stands for a very simple, manual sequence option. With my 14mm lens, for example, I was doing some Milky Way shots, I framed it easily by hand, but I just could not get SGP to do a simple run of lights and darks. Completely refused to do it without a plate solve, despite my attempts to disable PlateSolve2 in the profile and control panel, and the Slew To and Center in the target menu.