Plate solving with MamxiDL

[leinad (Dan)]

Can anyone provide some tips on plate solving in MaximDL using provided PinpointLE.

Ive set the correct image scales and tested by using Starry Nights EQMOD Simulator and placed the virtual scope near Canopus.

When I try to solve an image I'd taken a previous night it would find the co-ords' but this would be a few degrees actually away from Canopus.

I tried with another of the beehive cluster and it did the same thing, chose the position of the previous image a, a few deg from Canopus.

It's hard finding tutorials that show the process in action.

Thanks

[KenFoland (Ken)]

leinad,
Well... I'm still kinda' new to Pinpoint, but I'll help as I can. I haven't had the problem you are indicating. But, I use the planetarium in the Observatory section of MaxIM DL to get my co-ords. Then, after running a plate solve it automatically overlays my image onto the sky picture with all of the stars aligned nicely and at the correct scale. It is an absolutely astounding piece of computing wizardry.
Let me know if I can provide more information,
Ken Foland

[higginsdj]

It's difficult to predict why it is not working for you. Shape of the star, number of stars, quality of the image etc all come into the success or not of the plate solve. For reliability you need to have all your presets pretty close to the final platesolve values (but I use the full version of Pinpoint - evne through MaxIm rather than the LE version)

[Bassnut (Fred)]

A bit of a guess. Is your PC clock within a second or so of of the mount clock?, is OBS location in SN the same as the set mount location? (assuming this data is in the image file header).