Posting here in case other noobs like me have the same problem I did...

I couldn't get plate solving to work for the life of me. Tried every combination of solvers, online and offline, ultimately uninstalled everything (including the copies of python 3.9, astrometry, etc. that I had installed myself), reinstalled Kstars and tried again in the simulator with no luck... UNTIL I pointed the sim at a spot with a ton of stars. In that case the internal solver was blazingly fast, just incredible. But then I slewed the sim to a less star rich region and again, consistent failure.

Then I noticed you can *change the gain of the simulated camera in the solver window.* Once I increased the gain to 60, my captures yielded more and brighter stars, and the solver did its thing brilliantly.

So, to nobody in particular: be sure your gain is turned up enough to give the solver data to work with!

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