Way too many plate stars in AcquireStar pointing updates.

[Howard Hedlund]

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!!

[Bob Denny]

Is there a way you can retrieve the images? The first and third ones look good. The second and fourth (the ones with 15000+ detected stars) may have been light polluted or ????

[Steve Brady]

Hi Bob & Howard--

The image file (pImage.fts) is overwritten once the image is downloaded so we will not be able to view the file.
There is a an error in the log PinPoint 'could not attach to image'.

Howard--
I will send you a new Beta in which I will delete the image file 'pImage.fts' at the start of the image acquisition process and eliminate overwriting the file. Not sure if this will help but it easy to implement and may help if there if file caching is occurring with OS.

Steve Brady

[Howard Hedlund]

Thanks, Steve! Otherwise, I may try to "capture" a screenshot, but that won't be easy over a VNC connection if the internet isn't running at top speed.

[Steve Brady]

Hi Hward--
New FocusMax4 RC12 Beta update was jsut sent for you to try...

Steve Brad

[Bob Denny]

Hey that's what I call fast response. Thanks Steve!!

[Howard Hedlund]

Yup! Steve ROCKS!! I've turned into a big headache for him!

[Steve Brady]

Howard--
Actually, no you are not a headache!!
I appreciate the feedback so I can make FocusMax V4 even better
Let me know how the beta update works for you.....

[Howard Hedlund]

We are making some progress. Last night started out great. After about midnight local time, things went south. The following is a sample from later in the run (while I was in bed). It is representative of every focus attempt. Times are UTC. Local time is UTC-3.

Question first: FM4's AcquireStar feature has a "Return Slew" option. Is that actually redundant when using ACP. Won't ACP perform the return slew and pointing update anyway?

FYI. I am copying this in an e-mail to Steve Brady.

06:13:40 06:13:39 ** Taking pointing exposure **
06:13:40 06:13:40 Binning: 4
06:13:41 06:13:40 Exposure: 6 sec
06:13:41 06:13:41 FileDelete Error -2147215504: Permission denied. File not deleted
06:13:41 06:13:41 Module modCameraImage function TakeImage
06:13:41 06:13:41 =======================
06:13:41 06:13:41 Imaging SW: MaxIm
06:13:41 06:13:41 Camera: FLI
06:13:41 06:13:41 BinX: 4
06:13:42 06:13:41 BinY: 4
06:13:42 06:13:42 StartX: 0
06:13:42 06:13:42 StartY: 0
06:13:42 06:13:42 Xsize: 4096
06:13:42 06:13:42 Ysize: 4096
06:13:43 06:13:42 NumX: 1024
06:13:43 06:13:43 NumY: 1024
06:13:43 06:13:43 Plate solve error!
06:13:43 06:13:43 ** Taking pointing exposure **
06:13:43 06:13:43 Binning: 4
06:13:44 06:13:43 Exposure: 6 sec
06:13:44 06:13:44 FileDelete Error -2147215504: Permission denied. File not deleted
06:13:44 06:13:44 Module modCameraImage function TakeImage
06:13:44 06:13:44 =======================
06:13:44 06:13:44 Imaging SW: MaxIm
06:13:45 06:13:45 Camera: FLI
06:13:45 06:13:45 BinX: 4
06:13:46 06:13:45 BinY: 4
06:13:46 06:13:46 StartX: 0
06:13:46 06:13:46 StartY: 0
06:13:46 06:13:46 Xsize: 4096
06:13:47 06:13:46 Ysize: 4096
06:13:47 06:13:47 NumX: 1024
06:13:47 06:13:47 NumY: 1024
06:13:48 06:13:47 Plate solve error!
06:13:48 06:13:48 ** Taking pointing exposure **
06:13:48 06:13:48 Binning: 4
06:13:48 06:13:48 Exposure: 6 sec
06:13:48 06:13:48 FileDelete Error -2147215504: Permission denied. File not deleted
06:13:49 06:13:48 Module modCameraImage function TakeImage
06:13:49 06:13:49 =======================
06:13:49 06:13:49 Imaging SW: MaxIm
06:13:49 06:13:49 Camera: FLI
06:13:50 06:13:50 BinX: 4
06:13:50 06:13:50 BinY: 4
06:13:51 06:13:50 StartX: 0
06:13:51 06:13:51 StartY: 0
06:13:51 06:13:51 Xsize: 4096
06:13:51 06:13:51 Ysize: 4096
06:13:51 06:13:51 NumX: 1024
06:13:52 06:13:51 NumY: 1024
06:13:52 06:13:52 Plate solve error!
06:13:52 06:13:52 Could not center target star!!
06:13:53 06:13:53 Trying auto-center star method
06:13:53 06:13:53

[Steve Brady]

Hi Howard--
I am not seeing the permission error on an any of test OS systems, the image pImage.fts default location is c:\users\XXX\Documents\FocusMax V4\Images
Is this folder write protected or does the user not have permission for this folder location?
You can verify the path to images in Preferences/General

Steve Brady