I suspect this is either the

1) image dimensions in pixels
or
2) image height in degrees (focal ratio & sensor size)

for 1) The image height in pixels provided to ASTAP should be at least 1000 pixels. Can you check that?
for 2) What re the image dimension in degrees of an unsolved image indicated in the status bar of the ASTAP viewer? Do they change a lot after the image is solved? If so, the initial EKOS settings focal ratio and sensor size are not accurate.

If this doesn't help, could you provide an image for testing?

Han



Small change after solving

Thanks for the reply..
But you show the settings in the ASTAP software which I don’t have or use, I am using just Kstars / Ekos to platesolve, using the ASTAP solver, ...so have you got guides for that...the best way to test was to use the simulators as all info is prefilled and correct, but still no joy..

What I found running ASTAP, in a simulated environment (pointing to Alnitak), is that it would not solve with an exposure of 8 seconds with the default number of stars used for solution but did solve with an exposure of 1~2 seconds; and wickedly fast (1 second).

I have not done thorough tests but it would seem that the number of stars used to solve and the exposure used may be factors to be tuned together. I did do another simulated test with less/more stars being used when using shorter/longer exposures and there seems to be a relation. So, if ASTAP doesn't solve you may try to reduce the exposure in astrometry or, if using longer exposures, use more stars to solve.

As far as real life solving, the current weather tells me that I will have to wait .

I do not understand the reply here -if you are using ASTAP from Ekos you have ASTAP installed and are just using ASTAP in command line mode!

Han can correct me if I am wrong but all settings will still be saved as per stand alone ASTAP??? - but it maybe that some need exposing to EKOS to allow users to change WITHOUT loading ASTAP. But this is a EKOS/ASTAP integration problem not an ASTAP. problem which will come from more testing.
As for "Blind" solving" that would depend on whether the "Ignore Dec/RA in FITS header" is ticked else ASTAP will use those to start searching. For those of us who use DSLR (Canon) there are no stored Dec/RA co-ords as only Fits,as far as I know, stores solved Dec/RA co-ordinates. So if you Fits image has already been solved and the above "ignore" is not checked then ASTAP will just say its solved.

So as Han says set up a link to a full blown image and your settings and lets see if there is a problem or not - there could be or perhaps just us users getting used to something that's new - we all suffer from that

As a point of interest using ASTAP directly without 3rd party software (Ekos,CCDciel) I am solving (non blind) Fits images in under 1 sec consistently - fastest 0.5 sec's being my record - not on a RPI I find that unbelievable if you consider the maths and file lookup involved.

Hopefully your problems will be found and corrected

Not forgetting the other option now available of "live stacking" - though admittedly not usable IMHO on PI's of any description - great if you do EAA!

Bright or very bright stars are normally not a problem. It will work with 2, 5 or 300 seconds exposure. Default there is a star limit of 500 stara. If it sees more stars (typical much more) it will take only the 500 brightest stars (default). Try it live if the weather allow but check prior the conditions above. Especially image height should be at least 1000 pixels (check binning) at focal ratio & sensor size should be set reasonable correct in Ekos . If the search spiral is beyond 2 degrees it will show this popup notififier:


- The first line indicates the search spiral distance (8º) from the start position and the maximum search radius (90º)
- The image height in degrees (1.32º).
- Downsample setting and the input dimensions of the image to solve. (0 is auto)
- The α and δ of the start position.
- Speed normal (▶▶) or small steps (▶)[/li]

Hopefully the weather clears up soon for you.

Han

The command line parameters will have preference. So they will overwrite the setting set in the GUI.

Easiest way to test the solver is to load a FITS image in the viewer. The important data will be extracted from the header like mount position and focal ratio and so on. The Solver specific settings can be set in tab alignment of the stack menu. Loading and solving RAW files like CR2 file is also possible but DCRAW should be installed and you have to set the initial RA, DEC position in the viewer and image height in tab alignment. So for RAW you better test with EKOS.

Settings will be save automatically so if you change some important parameters, reset them later to default from the viewer, File, SETTING, RETURN TO DEFAULT SETTINGS AND EXIT.

Han

Thanks for your reply Han. You can disregard my recent 'edit'.

What is great with ASTAP as an astrometry solver is that not only it is very fast, its catalog, compared with the astrometry.net catalog, is manageable sizewise for systems that do not have much storage capacity (RPI, ODroid,...) and do not have access to the Internet for online solving. (y)

I do not have ASTAP installed, I only have whatever comes with Kstars, I have NO stand alone ASTAP programme Installled, the only thing installed from the ASTAP website is the G17 catologue

If you are able to click on the Kstars Astrometry option and tick ASTAP you will see where ASTAP is to be found as used by KSTARS. This can be manually loaded from a std terminal windows by type the full pathname. This will loaded the GUI version of ASTAP and you can try and solve an image by loading a FITS image AND by double clicking on the RA or DEC box's (top left) it will ask you for the target cordinates - so for example enter M13 and the Ra/Dec will be shown in the same 2 box's described above. You can then click on the STACK tab and another Window will be shown where you can click on the ALIGNMENT tab. Make sure that the "Star Alignment" box is choosen (this is he ASTAP internal solver). You can then set various options such as Downsample ,Max number of stars. Then just click "Solve Current Image" and watch the bottom status area which will show you what is happening.

For HELP click "HELP" and choose "online help and web page" but a lot of hints appear when you roll your cursor over various options.

See attachments for example using M81 using Kstars and ASTAP command line.

So whenever I want to use the ASTAP solver, I have to have all those windows open to use it, I was just using the same way as Astrometry.net in ekos....slew to target take image and solve, and move if needed....but guess I was wrong...

Don't think it's compulosory to use it.

ASTAP can be used as command line solver only. But for the other functions and analysing you can just start the GUI from menu topic Education. ASTAP is not only a solver but also a fits viewer, stack program, CCD inspector, deep sky annotation program and photometry program.

Two examples:

Hyperleda annotation near M5:


Photometry, automatic measured star magnitudes near M31 in comparison with AASVO chart: