Feature Request: Plate Solving smaller than 0.4° FoV

mankind

Hello,

I tried to shoot a target with a FoV of 0.49° x 0.28° but plate solving failed due to the smallest FoV supported by the ASIAIR being 0.4°. Therefore, the 0.28° portion of my frame was smaller than that and plate solving kept failing, even if I entered 0 as the focal length of the scope.

My only workaround was to select my larger FoV guidescope/camera as the main camera, plate solve the target through that and then switch back to the main camera/scope and manually correct the offset of the target with the directional pad and crosshairs. I was lucky that the offset between the imaging FoV and the guiding FoV was small enough for the target to be visible at the edge of the corner, allowing me to see it and centre it. However, If the target was outside of the FoV, I would have probably spent all night looking for it!

This workaround worked ok, even though it was much more effort than a straightforward plate solve and I still managed to get a result:

https://www.astrobin.com/404973/

I kindly ask if it's possile for you to push an update to support these indexes so that we can plate solve a smaller than 0.4° FoV. I understand that this FoV is not very common, but it would greatly benefit the user experience of the ASIAIR for those of us with such equipment.

Many thanks for your consideration.

Minos

PMTeam@ZWO

mAnKiNd wrote:

Hello,

I tried to shoot a target with a FoV of 0.49° x 0.28° but plate solving failed due to the smallest FoV supported by the ASIAIR being 0.4°. Therefore, the 0.28° portion of my frame was smaller than that and plate solving kept failing, even if I entered 0 as the focal length of the scope.

My only workaround was to select my larger FoV guidescope/camera as the main camera, plate solve the target through that and then switch back to the main camera/scope and manually correct the offset of the target with the directional pad and crosshairs. I was lucky that the offset between the imaging FoV and the guiding FoV was small enough for the target to be visible at the edge of the corner, allowing me to see it and centre it. However, If the target was outside of the FoV, I would have probably spent all night looking for it!

This workaround worked ok, even though it was much more effort than a straightforward plate solve and I still managed to get a result:

https://www.astrobin.com/404973/

I kindly ask if it's possile for you to push an update to support these indexes so that we can plate solve a smaller than 0.4° FoV. I understand that this FoV is not very common, but it would greatly benefit the user experience of the ASIAIR for those of us with such equipment.

Many thanks for your consideration.

Minos

Hi Minos,

Yes, in the future we will extends the FOV range. But need more time to test, we do not wanna make the plate solve time longer than now.

Have a nice day, my friend.

mankind

Thanks Ji,

I greatly look forward to seeing this update, as currently it is cumbersome to apply the workaround I outlined above with this particular equipment combination and FoV.

I appreciate the concern for slowdowns, but can't the plate solving process be selective for only the appropriate indexes of the calculated FoV? This would avoid slowdowns searching through inappropriate indexes. Going through the whole index library should only happen when setting the focal length at 0, correct?

Many thanks,

Minos