Plate solve failed

[Mike Dodd]

Tonight, a very clear night with very good seeing, was an excellent opportunity to image the Tadpoles again. I started my plan as normal, but after slewing to the target, ACP could not plate solve the pointing image. It slewed to an offset and took another pointing image, but that plate solve failed as well, so ACP parked the scope and closed the roof. I waited a while, then started everything again, and again ACP could not plate solve the pointing image.

Does this have anything to to with the time change back to Eastern Standard Time? I double-checked my PC clock, and it's correct, and I used the ASCOM driver to set the AP1200 mount's clock to the PC clock, so everything looks correct. The ASCOM driver shows the time as 21:50 (correct) and the time zone as -5 (correct). ACP shows the UTC time as 02:58, (also correct ).

The coordinates in my plan are 05:22:29.11 33° 28' 24.8", and ACP displays these coordinates. The ASCOM driver's coordinates are very close, at 05:23:50 33 30 08.

Everything worked perfectly three nights ago on the Cocoon Nebula. The only thing that's changed since then is the time change. I thought I didn't have to worry about that once I set up ACP to honor automatic time changes. Did i miss something?

I've attached a screen shot of the PC just after ACP downloaded the pointing image on the second run, and the log from that same run.

Please help! Thanks.

--- Mike