Hello. I like Kstars and EKOS very much and would like to make use of it for my imaging but so far I have been almost completely unable to get Plate solving to work. I did a fresh install after purging all previous data and when selecting Capture and Slew, there was one successful plate solution but after the mount slewed and attempted the 2nd iteration to center the selected object, there were no further solutions. I tried using the simulator which made no difference. I experimented with various changes to the Options settings and still no joy. I'm attaching where I ended up with the options tabs and also the log that included both align and focus info. My equipment is a Losmandy G11 mount, a 10" f3.9 Newtonian, a Canon DSLR as my imaging camera, and a ZWOasi174 and an OAG for my guiding set up. When using NINA on a Windows 10 pc, Plate solving works well. But I prefer to use my ubuntu system and INDI and am hoping there is something obvious to someone that I could do to get Plate solving to work. Thank you to whoever takes the time to consider my situation here.
Charles Martindell

Charles, in your screenshot, you show that you have 378 x 567 arcminute field of view. I’ll bet that’s very wrong. Probably the best thing would be to uncheck use position and use scale until the positions and scales are right. Hopefully plate solving will work after you make that change.

Hy

Thank you for the idea. I will give that a try and report back. Thanks again.
Charles

Charles,

It would be great to understand how you wound up with the wrong field-of-view, so we could improve the user interface to avoid this issue with future users. Was it perhaps because you tried to debug with the simulator which somehow set and kept the setting? Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas about what to improve.

Hy

I think the way the FOV became what showed up in my options images is due to me entering the specs of the dslr I use in the Simulator CCD settings. I also entered the specs of my telescope. I assumed that was how the FOV was set automatically. Is that the case? I unchecked the options you suggested and the attached image shows the results.

OK. Now your screenshot says "no stars detected". I can't tell if the image is good with in-focus stars, etc. assuming it looks ok to you, can you please upload the image file somewhere and post a link to it?

You can make sure the system saves alignment images in the main kstars menu, see developer options which is the bottom tab on the left, and check and accept the appropriate box.

Hy

Hello again. Well I purged all the data and did a remove and auto-remove of kstars and INDI. I then reinstalled and in the Simulator everything worked perfectly at least once. I'll try it a few times and see if it continues to work. If I do not have any additional difficulties, I'm going to assume that some of my attempts at changing settings was the source of my difficulties. Either that or the INDI-FULL gsc install was corrupted. That might explain not detecting any stars. I'll confirm either way after continuing my trials. Thanks for your help up to now.
Charles

Hello again Hy. I've been getting more familiar with using EKOS by way of the simulators and so far all is going well. It looks like I might get some clear skies in a week and I'll be trying things with my DSLR and scope. Wondering if you could answer a question I've been wondering about. If I did not enter the pixel dimensions of my camera (5184x3456 mm) and either entered or did not enter the aperature and focal length of my imaging scope, but I left the auto update position and auto update imaging options in the alignment Scale & Position options checked, would EKOS enter the correct image info and FOV after doing a plate solve? My reason for asking is that I'm not sure if the trouble I was having was due to a corrupt INDI-FULL gsc file or something strange that happened when entering my camera specs. I guess what I'm asking is if there might be a way to have EKOS set the correct FOV specs based on what happens when trying to Plate Solve. Thanks for any ideas.
Charles

As I recall, it fills in the scale field if you've checked the "automatic update" box next to the field, on a successful plate solve. As we've seen, checking "use scale" with an incorrect scale can prevent a successful plate solve. I'm not sure werther other parts of ekos that need the pixel scale, eg the guider, would work well if you didn't set up the focal length properly.

Hey just wanted to report back that so far so good on plate solving. All I did was to completely uninstall all INDI and data files and then download and reinstall. Not sure how that might help someone else running into difficulties.
I am running into a problem with my Field of View and the settings that are auto entered for my Canon DSLR 600D. The size of the sensor seems to be incorrect. Do you know if there is a config file in which I might manually enter the camera specs for EKOS to use? I am having some difficulty when it comes to trying to do a Mosaic since the reported Field of View seems to be too large. Thanks for any suggestions.

I'd guess it was in the INDI control panel, on one of the tabs for your camera. Don't forget to save.
Hy

I deleted the camera settings and entered the correct specs. My mistake and now the FOV is as it should be. Hope it still plate solves with the correct settings. Thanks for all you help.
Charles