AstroTortilla Plate solving in the Office?

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Hmmmm
Don't know. I've never see the ASCOM drivers for the Lodestar.....need to check.

[pluto (Hugh)]

I always just save the image out of CCDSoft and use the "file dialog" option (or whatever it is) in AT.
Surely that will work for you if you can save your image out of AstroArt.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

That would be an alternative....
I was hoping to be able to do the plate solving "on the fly" as we look for the "correct" target star in the guider FOV.
Working with small guider FOV and looking for obscure stars (Be/ WR etc) then "nudging" the target onto the slit gap is what's it all about.
I think this would be a necessary step to achieve if we want to consider automated/ semi-automated remote spectroscopy.

ps Managed to find the ASCOM drivers for the Lodestar....

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Just an update.
The use of the reflective slit guider image for plate solving doesn't appear to be the solution. The secondary images from the plate screw up the plate solving...
I've just changed over my electronic finder to a 200mm f4 Zuiko lens and the ATiK16ic, this gives a FOV just over one degree and star images down to >11 mag with 1sec exposures...
AT did the first solve in 46 sec. Subsequent solves were around 16 sec.
I need to get more practise with it, but it certainly appears feasible to use AT to confirm the target star and use AA5 to nudge it onto the slit gap.
Onwards and Upwards.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

It's sometimes amazing what you find....
I've been using AstroArt for the last seven years or so and I'd never used the built-in "Astrometry" function. This is similar to the plate solving, but maps the whole image into RA and Dec. Pretty neat, you can mouse over the image and see the coordinates for each and any object......
BUT based on the Manual, you need to define four reference stars and work with the built-in Star Atlas to identify them etc. A bit of a PITA.

However, there appears to be a "hidden" function! You define your image size and rough central coordinates, Select the "find coordinates" tab and just hit the "find" button.
In less than 2sec it gives the plate solve etc. Majic!!!!
Much faster than AT and the mouse over coordinates is very helpful.
Another brownie point for AstroArt.

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

Will have to look into it Ken - does it do acquisition too?

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Barry,
AstroArt gives complete control of all cameras (darks/flats/ sequences etc etc), can control the telescope/ mount for Goto and target acquisition as well as guiding, re-centring, plate solving etc. (It doesn't in spite of being Italian, make good coffee ;-) )
John has developed his ObsMgr scripting program to work with AA5 and allow automatic batch target acquisition - works very well.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...tions/messages

Definitely worth checking out.

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Oh, and you can load your choice of stellar database into the Sky Map function.
Tycho, UCAC4 etc. and this can be "linked" to your plate solved images.

[Amaranthus (Barry)]

Thanks Ken. I'll definitely have a play around with the demo and see whether it suits me. Sounds like a great package, and not too $$.

[algwat (Alan)]

Gidday All,
i have been playing with AT on images from my dmk51 26mm lens, a 15x10 degrees FOV. It has solved the images ok. I set the config to save the solvin process if into a windows directrory and can see the solve .wsc file that can be used for fits images.

My question is that AT says it can save as a fits image the solved frame?
I can not make this work from a jpg image.

Also, can AT be lauched with a comand line , like, astrotortilla.exe image.jpg , if the config is customised...


I am trying to tie Canon EOS utility together, with a processing.org interface and ImageJ processing and Astrotorllia solving. I need the fits wcs to show coordinates at cursor position. Will share the code later when it works.

kind regards, Alan

[algwat (Alan)]

ok, I re-read the docs, so can see the fits file with solved data in the keywords. regards, Alan