I am still to fully consume the information but it looks like a great new development - thanks!

I can't wait to try this! I have requested what you described as a correction triangle before. It should make polar alignment even more painless.
Thank you!

Great work again Hy!
I like that the PAA is being improved.

A suggestion, would it be possible to auto-select a star and live report the distances between the center and the yellow and green lines?

In that case it's less depending on what the user sees, visually but it's simply calculated (and hopefully more consistent?)

and a suggestion for an option:
on 'the way back' slewing, calculate the polar alignment again, as a verification, in stead of going to go 'forward' through the PA routine again.
Could be a button 'done & check' next to 'done & park'.

I would like to (help) develop this, but would need help understanding the current code structure.

This looks great Hy. My dark sky location has a good view of the pole, but when I image at home I've got trees in the way, so this will be really nice. I won't need to use the legacy polar alignment anymore.

Thanks!

The color triangle showing how much to move each knob is going to be a BIG time savings. Thanks for doing this!

Jim

Hello Hy.This looks like a terrific further piece of work! I look forward to using it when it arrives in the Astroberry Server distribution, I’m afraid I’m not software literate enough to be able to be one of your testers. However, if I recall correctly, I mentioned some time ago in the ‘wish list’ that I wondered whether the PA routine could make the 60° rotation before capturing the first image, rather than after the adjustments are terminated? This would mean that the telescope would be back in ‘home’ position at the end of the routine when the diagnosis screen is displayed so that the Az and Alt motions would be shown as horizontal and vertical movements on the display. Just a cheeky request!

Thank you Hy,

currently I can only test the ui in the simulator.

There is a discrepancy between your explanation and the information label.

Heiko (@cerro torre): Good catch. That line in the running system should say "moving along green line".
I'll send in an MR.

BTW, I'm impressed you got it working with the simulator. It took me quite a while to figure out how to do that.
Here is what I wound up doing:

• Start Ekos, connect to Indi
• In the Indi Control Panel, Telescope Simulator Tab, Simulation sub-tab, set Pole Azm to some error (e.g. 0.3 degrees) and Pole elev to some error (e.g. 0.5). Those numbers are in degrees, and I'm not sure what the MA and ME stand for. Hit set. Save configuration in the options sub tab.
• In the Ekos window, unpark your mount if it is parked.
• In the KStars Skymap, Move the telescope's position away from the pole. Even if you want to simulate PAA near the pole, move it 1-degree away at least. The simulator seems to have an issue when it is very close to the pole.
• Back in the Ekos window, Align tab, you can now start polar alignment.

Bart,

Your suggestion of auto-calculating the distance and reporting it is something Jasem and I have discussed and hope to implement. It wasn't part of the initial release of this, as it adds complication. In one sense it really is not too complex, but it might require StellarSolver to run again and often, e.g. every second to know where the stars have moved (I would rather not re-introduce some cheap star detection). I think it is possible to solve very very quickly if we strongly constrain StellarSolver, e.g. the solution must be < 1-degree from the previous solution, and the scale should be almost identical to the last scale. Not sure if it would require a StellarSolver change. Getting "quick nearby solving" is the trick to getting that to work. Anyway, after getting feedback and fixing issues on the current basic implementation, I plan to add that.

On your second suggestion, I'm not 100% sure I understand. When the alignment was done, If you switched the direction (e.g. if you were slewing East, change to West) and hit 'Start', would that do what you wanted? I suppose there could be a shortcut for that, but checking that that is what you mean.

Hy

Ed (@Avocette), If you initially slewed 60°, e.g. using the software mount control, and then polar-aligned back, would that do what you want?

Argg, I knew it: gremlins at the tripod!!


This was the missing part: how to misalign a "perfectly aligned" system

What is the purpose of the Flip Vector check mark?
Setting the mark puts the crosshair on the star that should be moved and at the end of the yellow line there is no purple line.

Heiko (@Cerro Torre): I honestly don't know what the purpose of the "flip vector" is. It's on my list to ask Jasem.

Re: "how to misalign...": Did something go wrong? Please explain further.