Stellar solver is fast. Really fast! I'm thinking it should be possible to live plate solve the refreshing images during the final step on the polar align assistant. The goal being once the relative mount axis error is determined relative to the star field, it should be possible to follow the stars to a corrected position.
This is essentially what is taking place within the ASI Air with live feedback.
I think a PAA-live-solver should be optimized for the task by reusing the same index that initially solved the field to avoid searching the database more than necessary.
One major benefit would be correcting large errors in fewer steps when the correction vector can not fit in the field of view.
As a matter of fact, once the star pattern in the FOV has been established it is not necessary to do a plate solve on each image at all. Only when the star pattern changes too much which in general would not be the case if the fine adjustment knobs of the mount are used. Still, this would be a GREAT addition to the already very good polar alignment routine.
That's a good point. But If the polar alignment error is large, then it may be necessary to plate solve a new star field, which shouldn't be much of an issue.
Some thought will have to be put into how live feedback is displayed. I would like the see the Altitude and Azimuth error figures displayed individually with some form visual feedback that illustrates the remaining error clearly.
Maybe a color code such as this.
Stellarsolver is an incredible accomplishment! I finally got to take it for a spin this weekend and it was solving images from my DSLR in under 3 seconds even without the option of loading indexes into memory. Simply amazing. Thank you!