Why do I have to supply an angle to the astrometry local solver?

Sequence Generator Plate Solving
1

I was trying to setup the solver on the weekend, and I found that I must manually supply an angle to every attempt. Why is this? When I used astrotortilla it was not required, and I don’t have to provide it to the blind solvervon the web, so why is it required in the local solver?
Thanks,
Richard Sewards

2

What “local solver” are you using? ASTAP? PlateSolve2?
The local plate solvers are not “blind” solvers. They require the angle to be somewhat close to get a successful solve. ANSVR is a local blind solver but it takes longer than the others. Most people use Either ASTAP or Platesolve2 as the primary solver, and then use ANSVR as a blind backup. In this way even if the the primary solver fails the backup blind solver (ANSVR) should solve it. So look into setting up ANSVR as your backup.

You should not have to enter the angle every time. If you are able to solve the image on the web, put that angle in the camera setup tab of the control panel. Then try to solve again with ASTAP or PS2. Once you get a successful solve in SGP it will automatically update the camera setup tab with the correct angle, which will remain in place until you remove or rotate the camera.

3

Thanks for the reply,
I was using ANSVR as my local server. This is why I was puzzled. The blind solver reports an angle of 270, and when I entered that ANSVR solved very quickly. I don’t understand why it needs this as input since it’s the same solver.

4

Hint data (angle, location, scale) isn’t required but if available we pass it along and ANSVR will utilize it to solve faster than a complete blind solve.

Thank you,
Jared

5

Thanks, I’ll experiment further.