jusas / watneyastrometry Goto Github PK

Hi There, I am Rob Lancaster and I have been involved with KStars and INDI since about 2016. For years, we used astrometry.net with KStars and added ASTAP support, but we always ran into issues as you found. We always had huge issues with configuration files, users having multiple python versions, misconfigurations etc. And of course astrometry.net doesn't natively run on windows and needs a compatibility layer So in 2020, around the time of the start of the pandemic, I developed StellarSolver, a cross platform Library that a cross platform Qt program can use to plate solve in a variety of ways. As a part of StellarSolver, I did dive into the astrometry.net code and made it work on Windows natively along with making it work as an internal library needing no external configuration files. So it does have a built-in stripped down version of astrometry.net in there. But in addition to this internal solver, it can also use ASTAP, local astrometry.net, Windows ANSVR, Windows Cygwin, and online astrometry.net. Its real strength however is in how it can use most of these solving methods in a parallelized manner and can thus blind solve many jpegs with them in less than 10 seconds ( or less than 1 second on my 16 core I9 processor). The whole project with all solving methods works equally well on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I also have had many conversations with Han who created ASTAP.

Your solver sounds very interesting and I would be interested in supporting that one as well if you think it is ready and able to work on all platforms. I will download it and give it a shot.

Following on from the indilib forum msgs I’ve finally managed to get an image.
It solves using the inbuilt, local astrometry.net and astap on the Pi and also the online astrometry.net and online Watney solvers. However the local Watney just says failed. I have the watneyqd-08-09-20 and 00-07-20 quad dbs installed.

Attached are the fits file and a screenshot of the Pi

Would it be possible to have a function that returns the x,y position of each star in a quad that can be then used to produce an image like the one below shown on the ASTAP page:

Hi Jusas,

long time no see. I integrated your solver in MW4. Pretty nice work. Actually I found an issue in the resulting WCS file with solve solutions. If you get results with long numbers (strings) they don't fit to the FITS header:

Example:

CD2_2   = 3.4703595730434245E- / cd matrix 

where the entry in the json file says:

  "fits_cd2_2": 3.4703595730434245E-07,
``

best regards,
Michel

Noticed by a user:

API configuration defaults to value 0 for limitThreads if it is not specified at all in the configuration file. This can happen when the user upgrades to the latest version while still using the old config file that does not contain the new parameter.
This causes an exception down the line when the value is about to be used, as 0 threads is just wrong.

Mitigation:

Add line

limitThreads: -1

(or any other valid number > 0) to config.yml to make things work.