Sequence Synch Fails - but was working fine 2 nights ago

[Macster18]

My system has been working well for months now then a few nights ago the imaging run ended in failures. Looking at the log Sequence was failing on Synch for every target which had all worked 2 nights previously.

DDM85, autoslew,sequence,maximDL.

The settings are all correct including image scale and plate solving catalogue paths. Nothing has changed yet the Synch fails.

I tried autoslewing to Deneb, pointing was bang on and did a synch in sequence but it also failed.

What should I try now? I have emailed ASA for assistance but of course it’s the weekend.

 

Mac

[MarkS]

I hesitate to ask the obvious question, but here goes anyway:

 

Was the the sky clear? Deneb is pretty bright, but if there is high cloud you may not get enough stars for synch.

What does the Sequence panel say about the Synch failure? How many stars were found and how many catalog stars were there?

 

Mark

[Macster18]

Yes the sky was clear. The image star numbers and plate stars were within normal bounds. I only used Deneb really to check the pointing accuracy though I knew it was fine.

I did get help from ASA on this but we couldn’t track down the fault. Everything we looked at seemed fine. If you loaded any image into sequence it would solve it. The target files were all previously successful. All sequence settings were unchanged and correct.

The weather in Spain has been pretty poor for a couple of weeks but it cleared enough for me to try this fix:

I reinstalled sequence (no real need to do so but I couldn’t think of anything else to try)

I used autoslew to image an area of sky around a 3.8 mag star

Then I loaded the resulting image and got sequence to solve it which it did

Then with the successful solve still registered on the sequence info line I pressed the synch button and it worked.

I have no idea why and neither does ASA. My theory was that if there was a successful solve in the memory it would be starting from a positive rather then a negative.

Anyway I’ve done a couple of short sessions since then and all seems to be well.

Go figure

Thanks for the assistance but it seems it was a glitch known only to sequence.

Mac