I don’t know what I have done wrong. Last night, I decided to interrupt an ACP plan to make a small change. My first focus of the evening, before the interruption, had been good with no problems. Everything was fine and I started back up normally. However, from the first attempt at focus after the interruption through the rest of the night, AcquireStar and PinPoint did not play nicely together. The problem seemed to be primarily in pointing updates. The errors simply made no sense. The text with the ** in the lines shows the problem. Two almost identical plates - both with the same catalog star counts had 100x differences reported on the plates. This behavior continued the rest of the night. There was more time spent trying to successfully complete AcquireStar than there was actually imaging.

I imagine I have made a boo-boo somewhere. In talking with another member of our group, I learned that he has seen this same behavior, so it may be a setting that I have wrong. I could understand failures all of the time better than I understand what is going on here. I have sent an e-mail to both Bob and Steve B. with a few more details, but wanted to get this into the forum.



02:46:27 ** Taking pointing exposure **
02:46:27 Binning: 2
02:46:28 Exposure: 6 sec
**02:46:39 141 catalog stars found
**02:46:40 144 plate image stars found
02:46:42 ** Plate solved **
02:46:42 Roll angle= 0.45 Plate scale = 1.53V 1.53H
02:46:43 Alt= 49.64 Az= 287.25
02:46:43 Plate(J2000) RA: 12:39:53.6 Dec: -11:37:48.2
02:46:43 Plate(Topo) RA: 12:40:42.6 Dec: -11:42:57.1
02:46:44 Current pointing error = 1.6949 (arc-min)
02:46:44 Max pointing error = 1 (arc-min)
02:46:44 Refining telescope position (1 of 2)
02:46:44 Sync RA : 12:40:42.6 Dec: -11:42:57.1 (Topo)
02:46:50 Telescope settle time: 3 sec
02:46:57 ** Taking pointing exposure **
02:46:57 Binning: 2
02:46:57 Exposure: 6 sec
**02:47:09 141 catalog stars found
**02:47:13 15542 plate image stars found
02:47:47 PinPoint.Plate Error -2147220436: No matching stars found. Check your estimated center-point RA/Dec, and your image scaling and quality.
02:47:47 Plate solve error!
02:47:47 ** Taking pointing exposure **
02:47:47 Binning: 2
02:47:47 Exposure: 6 sec
02:47:58 PinPoint error - could not attach to image
02:47:58 please verify that image is FITS or FTS
02:47:58 Plate solve error!
02:47:58 ** Taking pointing exposure **
02:47:58 Binning: 2
02:47:59 Exposure: 6 sec
02:48:10 PinPoint error - could not attach to image
02:48:10 please verify that image is FITS or FTS
02:48:10 Plate solve error!
02:48:10 Error performing precision slew
02:48:10 Return slew is blind
02:48:10 AcquireStar focus run completed
02:48:10 ** AcquireStar not completed **

03:03:57 ** Taking pointing exposure **
03:03:57 Binning: 2
03:03:57 Exposure: 6 sec
**03:04:09 202 catalog stars found
**03:04:10 280 plate image stars found
03:04:11 ** Plate solved **
03:04:12 Roll angle= 0.44 Plate scale = 1.53V 1.53H
03:04:12 Alt= 75.67 Az= 264.1
03:04:12 Plate(J2000) RA: 14:28:18.6 Dec: -29:28:47.6
03:04:12 Plate(Topo) RA: 14:29:14.7 Dec: -29:32:56.8
03:04:13 Current pointing error = 1.8933 (arc-min)
03:04:13 Max pointing error = 1 (arc-min)
03:04:13 Refining telescope position (1 of 2)
03:04:14 Sync RA : 14:29:14.7 Dec: -29:32:56.8 (Topo)
03:04:26 Telescope settle time: 3 sec
03:04:32 ** Taking pointing exposure **
03:04:32 Binning: 2
03:04:32 Exposure: 6 sec
**03:04:44 202 catalog stars found
**03:04:50 15920 plate image stars found
03:05:44 PinPoint.Plate Error -2147220436: No matching stars found. Check your estimated center-point RA/Dec, and your image scaling and quality.
03:05:44 Plate solve error!
03:05:44 ** Taking pointing exposure **
03:05:45 Binning: 2
03:05:45 Exposure: 6 sec
03:05:57 PinPoint error - could not attach to image
03:05:57 please verify that image is FITS or FTS
03:05:57 Plate solve error!
03:05:58 ** Taking pointing exposure **
03:05:58 Binning: 2
03:05:59 Exposure: 6 sec
03:06:09 PinPoint error - could not attach to image
03:06:10 please verify that image is FITS or FTS
03:06:10 Plate solve error!
03:06:10 Could not center target star!!