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Astrometry.net slow to start processing

Acquisition Plate Solving Deep Sky
8 replies•230 views
James Palmer avatar
James Palmer avatar
I've not taken astro photos for good many months and had another go last night. And one thing I've noticed is that Astrometry.net is so much slower to start processing than it used to be. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it just a blip, or has it got a lot slower? I tend to frame up my shot and take a test which I upload for plate solving to check I'm in the right part of the sky before getting on with the actual capture and that's not so much of an option anymore. 
My auto-platesolve of my most recent submission has been waiting for over 40 minutes today. 
It's not a problem, more deciding if I need to find a different method for this.
Well Written Engaging
D. Jung avatar
D. Jung avatar
Took quite long for me yesterday as well, but not sure if it's something permanent or not. 
Why not use astap?

https://www.hnsky.org/astap.htm
Salvatore Iovene avatar
Salvatore Iovene avatar
Dustin changed the scheduling algorithm and this is affecting AstroBin too. I believe this was a fix to prevent a single account dumping a log of jobs and gaining a monopoly on the queue, and this might be a side effect.

Theres some info on the Astrometry.net Google Group.
Oskari Nikkinen avatar
Oskari Nikkinen avatar
Astap works offline with a downloadable star database, and will succesfully platesolve just about anything in a few seconds. Switching to that as an on the fly platesolver would be my suggestion.
Helpful Concise
James Palmer avatar
James Palmer avatar
Thanks. I'll look at Astap but I don't tend to have a laptop with me when in the field so I might have to get creative with serving it up for myself somehow.
Well Written
D. Jung avatar
D. Jung avatar
James Palmer:
Thanks. I'll look at Astap but I don't tend to have a laptop with me when in the field so I might have to get creative with serving it up for myself somehow.

Just out of curiosity, how do you upload it to astrometry without a laptop in the field?
Well Written Engaging
James Palmer avatar
James Palmer avatar
I take a picture of the back of the camera on my phone and upload it. It's usually good enough.
Salvatore Iovene avatar
Salvatore Iovene avatar
James Palmer:
I take a picture of the back of the camera on my phone and upload it. It's usually good enough.

Tell me you have an IQ of 3000 without telling me you have an IQ of 3000.
D. Jung avatar
D. Jung avatar
There seems to be an Android App that includes astap 

https://github.com/artyom-beilis/OpenLiveStacker

Doesn't work stable on my phone, but at least in theory you should be able to snap a pic and have it plate solved on the phone.