When it comes to polar alignment, ascom and all of the software... The ASI Air Pro is EVERYTHING in 1 tiny box for $250. It's controls cameras, aligning, guiding, live image stacking and so much more. Yes I learned all of things but when I got my ASI Air Pro.....Game Over.
Thanks for making this! I've been looking for an in-depth video on plate-solving. I'm glad you addressed the "manual rotator" thing. Before, I was wondering how the plate-solve could be successful if your rotation was off and you didn't have a motorized rotator.
Yeah, the "manual rotator" terminology is really dumb, but once you state you have that in SGP, it's pretty easy to eyeball it and get it good enough via trial and error. I don't have any markings on the focuser or anything, just turning by feel works well enough.
Got to watch this a second time and take notes to create a step-by-step instructions. I've got the stuff installed (both SharpCap and SGP and the plate solve database), but never really got around to using it.
Great Tutorial! I am using Sharpcap now and going to give plate solving through Sharpcap a try. I have one question for you: The setting for min and max field of view that were entered in your tutorial were set based on one telescope. What values would you enter if you were using multiple scopes with sharpcap? Would you set the max for your widest scope nd the min for your narrowest?
@@lazyastronomy3348 Thank you for all your help and for posting these great tutorials. The only thing I didn't expect when I got into the hobby about a year ago was the steep learning curve related to some aspects of the hobby and in particular astrophotography......Thanks again, keep the videos coming...Do you also post on Rumble? I am trying to get off the youtube platform.....
Does Planewave's Plate Solve 2 require an Internet connection after the data files are downloaded? In other words, will it work like the ANSRV (Local) once Plate Solve 2 is installed?
Hi John, I have enjoyed several of your videos. Recently I watched the Plate Solving video. It inspired me to attempt to attempt to install and use plate solving in SharpCap. I believe that I was able to follow along with your video and get the plate solving software and index files installed. I attempted to plate solve an image from my guide scope on which I have an ASI120mm attached. The image is a very short exposure with just a few stars showing (12 ?). SharpCap returns a failure message saying only one star detected. I have tried adjusting the sigma all the way down to 1 with no change in the result. This same image is able to be solved by the online Astrometry.net interface. Have you encountered any similar problems? I searched the SharpCap forum and found several questions about a similar error message (only one star detected) but none of the answers were any help. Do you have any suggestions about where else to look for help?
Hey George! If you're only detecting 1 star even at the lowest Sigma, I would look at the gain/exposure info. This is on Sharpcap's platesolve page at the bottom "Make sure that you set the exposure, gain and other camera controls to sensible values before plate solving - the plate solver needs to be able to detect a good number of stars". You might want to try to set up with dark frame removal as well, especially with a guide camera, that will help the signal to noise. Astrometry.net is always the gold standard for solving, so you know you're getting good images. I'd just play around with getting the strongest signal possible to make sure you get matches, then dial it back down to find a happy medium.
@@lazyastronomy3348 John, I have been continuing to look into my plate solving problem. I notice that as SharpCap is attempting to plate solve it produces an error message "failure to read xylist field" which is quickly overwritten by the error message about only able to find one star. Does that have any significance? I have read several places where the xylist is basically the encoded FITS image. Could the FITS image be improperly formatted? When I look at the Astrometry.net output "red-green" file there are numerous faint stars in the image that are circled in red but not circled in green. If I interpret the documentation correctly circled in red means that they are star locations from the database, and circled in green means that those are stars in the submitted image that are recognized to match the database. When I next get a chance, I will attempt to take a better image as you suggest. But I still wonder why this is not working. I am in over my head with this problem.
You’ve officially gone deeper than I know on it. I would post the info in the Sharpcap forums along with a sample image to see what they can help figure out.
I am so glad i found this channel (subsc) i am a total noobie to astrophoto but i've been observing for some years now ,and you guys have all the fun , so i'm gathering parts and hardware to start ,so i found your channel ,and its so well explained even i understand it , answering all my questions (doubts) ,you mentioned to start with one plate solving program ,get familiar ,then go to the next one , best advice , anyways awesome info ,amazing work ,keep them videos coming ,quick question though ,the qhy polemaster does it work with these plate solving programs? thanks again
Thanks Neslon, welcome to the dark side! I haven't put an eyepiece on my scopes in a couple years. The Polemaster uses it's own software, which is super simple and has some baby platesolving built in just for the polar align. But it's not meant to be used in other programs as a guide or imaging camera, so I haven't seen it used that way. If the price of the polemaster is troubleing, try using the Polar Align feature in Shyarpcap Pro. It's like $20, and works with whatever CMOS camera you have. I have a lot of friends who prefer it to using the polemaster.
@@lazyastronomy3348 Thank you so much for taking the time to answer , i already have the pole master ,im just waiting on some cameras and filters , i do have another question ,would you do a filter video , its overwhelming the amount of filters there are , am sure i don't need all of them ,thank so again ,
Using SharpCap, no matter what I set Sigma to (1 or 50 or anywhere in between), and working with several different images, Plate Solve always returns an error saying that only 1 star was found.
John Carter do a search on the Sharpcap forum for stars found. There are several things that can be tweaked like black level, sigma, digital gain, etc. that can help with that, but I’m not an expert on their best use.
I thought this was going to be a good video but it didn't help me do a mock up plate solve in sharpcap. I have my mount connected. I moved a light sub into the sharp cap capture folder....yadayada yada...nothing!
@@lazyastronomy3348 All because of my odd cameras: Mallincamsky. These are not supported by APT or Sharpcap so I have had to learn as many way of plate solving an image as I can. I really thought Sharpcap was going to be easy and I have solved images in SGP although not had it move the connected mount.
@@lazyastronomy3348 another thing: Plate solving is something new to Sharpcap. I doubt their online manual will have anything on it. Probably the forum is best to address the issue.
![COLOMBIA vs. CHILE [4-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 10](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TDjN4W3yy1k/mqdefault.jpg)
When it comes to polar alignment, ascom and all of the software... The ASI Air Pro is EVERYTHING in 1 tiny box for $250. It's controls cameras, aligning, guiding, live image stacking and so much more. Yes I learned all of things but when I got my ASI Air Pro.....Game Over.
Love that shot of Orions belt - the way you have composed it. Brilliant.
Thanks!
You saved me so much potential frustration. Thank you!
Thanks for making this! I've been looking for an in-depth video on plate-solving. I'm glad you addressed the "manual rotator" thing. Before, I was wondering how the plate-solve could be successful if your rotation was off and you didn't have a motorized rotator.
Yeah, the "manual rotator" terminology is really dumb, but once you state you have that in SGP, it's pretty easy to eyeball it and get it good enough via trial and error. I don't have any markings on the focuser or anything, just turning by feel works well enough.
Got to watch this a second time and take notes to create a step-by-step instructions. I've got the stuff installed (both SharpCap and SGP and the plate solve database), but never really got around to using it.
Great Tutorial! I am using Sharpcap now and going to give plate solving through Sharpcap a try. I have one question for you: The setting for min and max field of view that were entered in your tutorial were set based on one telescope. What values would you enter if you were using multiple scopes with sharpcap? Would you set the max for your widest scope nd the min for your narrowest?
That's exactly right, you got it. Good luck!
@@lazyastronomy3348 Thank you for all your help and for posting these great tutorials. The only thing I didn't expect when I got into the hobby about a year ago was the steep learning curve related to some aspects of the hobby and in particular astrophotography......Thanks again, keep the videos coming...Do you also post on Rumble? I am trying to get off the youtube platform.....
Does Planewave's Plate Solve 2 require an Internet connection after the data files are downloaded? In other words, will it work like the ANSRV (Local) once Plate Solve 2 is installed?
Plate Solve 2 is entirely offline, no internet connection required.
Man !best video on plate solving ever! could you make same videos how to set up SGpro and how to use it
please?
Excellent results using ASTAP in APT but no luck so far in Sharpcap.
Hi John, I have enjoyed several of your videos. Recently I watched the Plate Solving video. It inspired me to attempt to attempt to install and use plate solving in SharpCap. I believe that I was able to follow along with your video and get the plate solving software and index files installed. I attempted to plate solve an image from my guide scope on which I have an ASI120mm attached. The image is a very short exposure with just a few stars showing (12 ?). SharpCap returns a failure message saying only one star detected. I have tried adjusting the sigma all the way down to 1 with no change in the result. This same image is able to be solved by the online Astrometry.net interface. Have you encountered any similar problems? I searched the SharpCap forum and found several questions about a similar error message (only one star detected) but none of the answers were any help. Do you have any suggestions about where else to look for help?
Hey George! If you're only detecting 1 star even at the lowest Sigma, I would look at the gain/exposure info. This is on Sharpcap's platesolve page at the bottom "Make sure that you set the exposure, gain and other camera controls to sensible values before plate solving - the plate solver needs to be able to detect a good number of stars". You might want to try to set up with dark frame removal as well, especially with a guide camera, that will help the signal to noise.
Astrometry.net is always the gold standard for solving, so you know you're getting good images. I'd just play around with getting the strongest signal possible to make sure you get matches, then dial it back down to find a happy medium.
@@lazyastronomy3348 John, I have been continuing to look into my plate solving problem. I notice that as SharpCap is attempting to plate solve it produces an error message "failure to read xylist field" which is quickly overwritten by the error message about only able to find one star. Does that have any significance? I have read several places where the xylist is basically the encoded FITS image. Could the FITS image be improperly formatted? When I look at the Astrometry.net output "red-green" file there are numerous faint stars in the image that are circled in red but not circled in green. If I interpret the documentation correctly circled in red means that they are star locations from the database, and circled in green means that those are stars in the submitted image that are recognized to match the database. When I next get a chance, I will attempt to take a better image as you suggest. But I still wonder why this is not working. I am in over my head with this problem.
You’ve officially gone deeper than I know on it. I would post the info in the Sharpcap forums along with a sample image to see what they can help figure out.
I am so glad i found this channel (subsc) i am a total noobie to astrophoto but i've been observing for some years now ,and you guys have all the fun , so i'm gathering parts and hardware to start ,so i found your channel ,and its so well explained even i understand it , answering all my questions (doubts) ,you mentioned to start with one plate solving program ,get familiar ,then go to the next one , best advice , anyways awesome info ,amazing work ,keep them videos coming ,quick question though ,the qhy polemaster does it work with these plate solving programs? thanks again
Thanks Neslon, welcome to the dark side! I haven't put an eyepiece on my scopes in a couple years. The Polemaster uses it's own software, which is super simple and has some baby platesolving built in just for the polar align. But it's not meant to be used in other programs as a guide or imaging camera, so I haven't seen it used that way. If the price of the polemaster is troubleing, try using the Polar Align feature in Shyarpcap Pro. It's like $20, and works with whatever CMOS camera you have. I have a lot of friends who prefer it to using the polemaster.
@@lazyastronomy3348 Thank you so much for taking the time to answer , i already have the pole master ,im just waiting on some cameras and filters , i do have another question ,would you do a filter video , its overwhelming the amount of filters there are , am sure i don't need all of them ,thank so again ,
@@nelsonrivera6575 I went over several different filters in my recent accessories video. That would be a good start.
Using SharpCap, no matter what I set Sigma to (1 or 50 or anywhere in between), and working with several different images, Plate Solve always returns an error saying that only 1 star was found.
John Carter do a search on the Sharpcap forum for stars found. There are several things that can be tweaked like black level, sigma, digital gain, etc. that can help with that, but I’m not an expert on their best use.
Excellent video. Job well done.
Many of the things I want to photograph are not visible with my telescope in my Bortle 6 sky. So, I plate solve, using SharpCap.
Thank you very helpful
I thought this was going to be a good video but it didn't help me do a mock up plate solve in sharpcap. I have my mount connected. I moved a light sub into the sharp cap capture folder....yadayada yada...nothing!
Dan Kahraman sorry you’re still having trouble. You may want to check the Sharpcap documentation for more info.
@@lazyastronomy3348 All because of my odd cameras: Mallincamsky. These are not supported by APT or Sharpcap so I have had to learn as many way of plate solving an image as I can. I really thought Sharpcap was going to be easy and I have solved images in SGP although not had it move the connected mount.
@@lazyastronomy3348 another thing: Plate solving is something new to Sharpcap. I doubt their online manual will have anything on it. Probably the forum is best to address the issue.
docs.sharpcap.co.uk/3.2/#Plate%20Solve
@@lazyastronomy3348 I have one of my small scopes out tonight. I will try various options under a moonlit sky in January!