Hi All
I am a nebie having just started to use VShot.
I have been able to upload images with the Wizard and Quick load but cannot get the images to plate solve.
I took some images of R Car , and I am certian it is sitting directly in the middle of the field. I had to enter the RA/DEC fiquers manually into the Fits header as Image plus doesn't enter then automatically from Stellarium. I entereed the RA/DEC J2000 numbers as below at the time the shot was taken. I also chnged the time to UTC as it had entered local time.
I know there will be issues with the QHY10 colour camera and have uploaded a grey and green only file.
Fits header below
Any suggestions were I'm going wrong? Thankyou
Don Radford obs ID RDJA
AAVSO | Images | Upload | Analysis Log | Admin | Support
FITS Header of Image 634994826059683750.fts
Key
Value
Comment
SIMPLE
T
file does conform to FITS standard
BITPIX
16
number of bits per data pixel
NAXIS
2
number of data axes
NAXIS1
2610
length of data axis 1
NAXIS2
3894
length of data axis 2
EXTEND
T
FITS dataset may contain extensions
COMMENT
FITS (Flexible Image Transport System) format is defined in 'Astronomy
COMMENT
and Astrophysics', volume 376, page 359; bibcode: 2001A&A...376..359H
BZERO
32768
offset data range to that of unsigned short
BSCALE
1
default scaling factor
COMMENT
and Astrophysics', volume 376, page 359; bibcode: 2001A&A...376..359H
COMMENT
and Astrophysics', volume 376, page 359; bibcode: 2001A&A...376..359H
CREATOR
ImagesPlus Camera Control
Software created file
DATE-OBS
2013-03-21T09:53:36
[ISO 8601] UTC date/time of exposure start
DATE
21
03/13' / [old format] UTC date of exposure start
INSTRUME
QHYCCD QHY10 S
N' / Detector instrument name
OBJECT
R Car
Target object name
IMAGETYP
Light
Image Type
FILTER
V
Filter name
EXPOSURE
5.00000000000E+000
[sec] Duration of exposure
SET-TEMP
-20.
CCD target temperature in C
CCD-TEMP
-20.457
CCD temperature in C
OFFSET
0
Camera Offset
XBIN
1
X Bin Mode
YBIN
1
Y Bin Mode
XPIXSIZE
6.05
X Pixel Size
YPIXSIZE
6.05
Y Pixel Size
APERTURE
0.
Telescope aperture in mm
FOCALEN
0.
Focal length in mm
OBJCTRA
16 44 42.60
[hms J2000] Target right ascension
OBJCTDEC
-40 50 23.1
[dms +N J2000] Target declination
AIRMASS
1.34779496267E+000
EPOCH
2000
TELESCOP
Meade
Imageplus' / Telescope name
USERNAME
RDJA
EGAIN
0.450
LMAXADU
50000.000
ALT-OBS
4.00000000000E+001
[metres] Altitude above mean sea level
LONG-OBS
1.52896000000E+002
[deg +E WGS84] Geodetic longitude
HISTORY
File was processed by PinPoint 5.1.8 at 2013-03-22T00:10:05
EXPTIME
5.00000000000E+000
[sec] Duration of exposure
TIME-OBS
09:53:36
[old format] UTC time of exposure start
UT
09:53:36
[old format] UTC time of exposure start
TIMESYS
UTC
Default time system
RADECSYS
FK5
Equatorial coordinate system
RA
16 44 42.60
[hms J2000] Target right ascension
DEC
-40 50 23.1
[dms +N J2000] Target declination
CLRBAND
R
[J-C std] Std. color band of image or C=Color
HISTORY
File was processed by PinPoint 5.1.8 at 2013-03-22T00:17:52
FWHM
9.50134776980E+000
[pixels] Mean Full-Width-Half-Max of image star
Version 3.1 Copyright © 2008 - BMO Software. All rights reserved
I'll admit that I never correctly deciphered what VPHOT needs to do a good plate solution for my telescope so I have beenn running all my images through astronometry.net before uploading them. I'd also like to see some more detailed technical help posted about this.
I use Pinpoint with Maxim and it requires Pixel scale so it needs your focal length of the telescope along with pixel size. I notice that focal length is not given in your fits file.
Barbara (HBB)
You dont have to have the scope details in the fits header but you do need the RA and Dec.
You first have to work out the plate scale for your images. You can do this by uploading an image to http://nova.astrometry.net/ and let it plate solve an image. It will then give you a plate scale. My current setup gives 1.56arcsec/pixel. Yours will be different but should be a number between about 0.5 and 5.
You then have to create your telescope in VPhot. Go to the 'admin' tab and click on "telescope setup".
From there you select "create new teslescope setup"
Enter a name and fill in the boxes. Once you have done this you can upload an image using your telescope setup and it should plate solve.
Good luck
Terry
I think I know what might really be wrong with this header because it was missing from my FITS headers also. And when I added it in: problem fixed.
This was the web page that helped me figure it out:
http://www.cyanogen.com/help/maximdl/PinPoint_Astrometry.htm
It turns out that Pinpoint needs the FITS header keywords CDELT1 and CDELT2 to contain the size of the CCD pixels (in arcseconds!) on the X (cdelt1) and Y (cdelt2) axes of the CCD. Once I added those to my headers, Pinpoint in VPHOT was all green lights for me.