ONAG Related, Purpose of the Optec FocusLock auto-focus radio button
Hi Bob,
We met at AIC, I live in Sahuarita (physically in Green Valley almost at the foot of Mt Hopkins). I’m the guy who uses an ONAG-XM (with an AP1200, C-14ED@f11 (!), ST8XME (& Canon 6D), ASI-1600MM) using FocusLock.
I just started the APC-Expert trial license. After getting reacquainted with MaximDL (having used CCDCommander, TSX and PHD2) and resolving some Windows 10 issues I’m very happy to say last night I was able to acquire a guide star after 2 meridian flips with FocusLock running continuously in the background using the guide star provided by Maxim. This is great!
PinPoint isn’t working but I should figure that out on my own tonight (your All-Sky Solving does plate solve nicely however).
Question: What is the purpose of the Optec FocusLock auto-focus radio button on ACP Preferences-AutoFocus?
Thanks,
Mike
ACP controlled plated solving, No matching stars found. Check your estimated center-
Hi Bob,
After 2 nights of additional testing I still have problems. The good news is guiding works as does FocusLock with FocusMax disabled. ACP always finds my odd guide+focus stars and FocusLock does its thing in the background. I have not tried multi target runs yet, however.
I got PinPoint (PP) working from the Maxim window with UCAC4, USNOB1, and USNOA2. I don’t think my small FOV is an issue. All manually executed plate solves work fine with all 3 catalogs.
I still have never seen an ACP controlled plate solve using the catalogs work, however. (All-Sky does work.) The most common error is “** No matching stars found. Check your estimated center-point RA/Dec, and your image scaling and quality.” I also sometimes get ”Failed to solve plate, possibly due to input plate scale being too far off.” In other applications I’ve seen this with incorrectly specified image scale or RA/DEC bad/missing in the FITS header. In parallel I have been using my manually acquired plate solve images in ImageLink and I get good solves and pointing verification in TheSkyX and with Maxim produced verification images.
Once I see the ACP plate solve error, I abort the run, immediately manually take an identical exposure and then manually use PP and it solves. ACP executed plate solve exposures always set binning to 4, why is that? As in “(taking 45 sec. exposure, Luminance filter, binning = 4)”.
I have successfully manually acquired images with binning set at both 1 and 4. PP solutions present a slightly different focal lengths from of 3880 (seems too small) to 3948 (likely) vs 3910 per Celestron. I’ve tried these in Preference>Telescope too. Is there a time out in APC plate solving, from my small FOV with few stars taking too long to automatically solve?
ACP calculated plate scale moves a bit between 0.41 and 0.47. I typically use 0.45. However, I nominally image binned 2X2.
The ACP generated 45sec plate solving images vanish. I don’t think they are saved so I can’t examine their FITS header and try to manually solve them. Any way to save them?
In Maxim>Observatory>Setup I have Telescope disconnected, though I’ve tired connected too. How is ACP (or PP) getting the RA/Dec info to use in the plate solve? This may be the problem. In TSX I’m using the V2 driver.
I am using APCC. Does that play in this somehow?
Sorry, don't see how to attach a log file.
Any thought?
Thanks,
Mike
Computer: Dell Inspiron 5482, Windows 10 Home, 1909 OS Build 18363.535, i7-8565U@1.80GHz, x64 processor, 16GB
Astro Software: ACP Build 10, V8.2.2 Maint Rel (60-Day Trial), Maxim 6.2 (30-Day Trial), FM 4.1.0.96, PinPoint GSC/1.1 and USNO A2.0, ASCOM 6.4 SP1, TheSkyX Pro Build 12304, APCC-PRO v1.7.1.5, AP V2 Driver v5.20.09, FocusLynx Commander 3.1.0.0, FocusLock 1.1.1.0
Astro Hardware: C-14Edge (no reducer!), ONAG-XM, Guide Camera ASI-1600MM, SBIG ST-8XME, Optec Secondary Mirror Fast Focuser System, Dimension 4, connect to equipment with an Icron USB Extender, COM 5 (FocusLynx) and COM 12 (AP1200)
1 Attachment(s)
ONAG Related, Purpose of the Optec FocusLock auto-focus radio button ?
Hi Bob,
I continue to get good results with guiding and focusing using the ONAG and FocusLock running autonomously with FocusMax disabled. Still no multitarget runs yet or multiple images across the meridian. ACP has been so good at finding very faint guide+focus stars that my confidence is high it will ultimately work with complex plans.
My plate solving issue is resolved. ACP plate solving is working fine. I was connecting ACP>Telescope with the AstroPhysics GTO V2 Mount driver and not the ASCOM Telescope Driver for TheSky. I have a suggestion for you. In your Help File Index>Telescope Mount Specifics, recommend changing “Software Bisque Paramount” to “TheSky Controlled Telescopes”, and in Getting Started>Step 4 add a new item: If using a telescope controlled by TheSky review the section on “TheSky Controlled Telescopes” for proper ASCOM driver selection.
Can you help with the following that is in the hopefully attached log file?
**CAUTION: Mount tracking cannot be controlled.
I have looked at the instructions for both the AstroPhysics GTO V2 Mount driver v5.20.09 and ASCOM Telescope Drive for TheSky Version 6.1.5813.27525 and its not apparent to me how to change the configuration(s) to correct this.
I’m making progress!
Looks like rainy weather for the next week so my testing will be delayed.
Happy Holidays!
Thanks, Mike