All Sky Plate Solver

[chromusphil]

Hi Guylain,

Is there a chance you would consider integration with All Sky Plate Solver (ASPS) as a parallel option to Astrotortilla. 

AT hasn't seen an update since 2016 and since the latest Windows security updates it has become a liability rarely solving and often crashing 3 different machines running Win10 Pro 64Bit.

ASPS already has click solve n sync capabilities so with luck this shouldn't be a huge exercise. 

Phil. Prem Edition User.

[astroman133]

Phil,

BYE/BYN currently allows external apps to use its API to take pictures. You should contact whomever is supporting ASPS to see if they are willing to enhance their product to integrate with BYE/BYN. The API that Guylain has provided for external apps to interface with BYE is easy to use. The only issue is that ASPS needs to be able to solve JPG images. A document that describes the API and example code in C# are  downloadable from the OTelescope web site. There does not seem to be anything more for Guylain to do.

[s3igell]

There may not be anything which BYE/BYN "Needs to Do", but if Guylain were to work with the ASPS Devs, there are a couple of neat AP features which could be added to BYE/BYN:

1) Recording Astrometry data into the EXIF of Exposures taken by BYE/BYN

2) Automated determination of the "Target" component of Image Filenames

[astroman133]

I use image files that are requested by external applications as throwaway files, much like Frame & Focus Snap images. So adding additional  metadata into them or naming them with some particular convention is not useful. When I use AT, I keep the results of a plate solution as a bookmark, rather than save the solved image. That said, there may be other workflows where the data would be useful. Please explain.

For suggestion 1) what data do you have in mind? How would BYE/BYN get this data?

I am not sure about item 2). To me it makes sense for the plate solver (external app) to rename the file to suit its expected naming conventions. I believe that AT's behavior is to copy an image file before solving it and to delete the old files so they don't build up. Since the files have a short life, what is the benefit to having the target in the image file name?

[s3igell]

Rick, you're missing the intent of my suggestions, as I'm responding to the OPs suggestion that Guylain perform some coding such as to implement part or all of ASPS's COM Interface in order to gain access to the Astrometry Results of the Plate Solve (Astro Coordinates,  EPOCH, Image Scale and FOV, and Objects identified):

1) Recording Astrometry data into the EXIF of Exposures taken by BYE/BYN - this assumes the User has Plate Solved a "Quick Image"; then use the Astrometry Results as data for subsequent Exposures in the Imaging Plan - writing that data to various appropriate EXIF data fields (think of the FITS HEADER Data).

2) Similarly - use results of a Plate Solved "Quick Image" to supply the TARGET component for further Exposures captured during that Image Plan.

[admin]

8 minutes ago, s3igell said:

Rick, you're missing the intent of my suggestions, as I'm responding to the OPs suggestion that Guylain perform some coding such as to implement part or all of ASPS's COM Interface in order to gain access to the Astrometry Results of the Plate Solve (Astro Coordinates,  EPOCH, Image Scale and FOV, and Objects identified):

1) Recording Astrometry data into the EXIF of Exposures taken by BYE/BYN - this assumes the User has Plate Solved a "Quick Image"; then use the Astrometry Results as data for subsequent Exposures in the Imaging Plan - writing that data to various appropriate EXIF data fields (think of the FITS HEADER Data).

2) Similarly - use results of a Plate Solved "Quick Image" to supply the TARGET component for further Exposures captured during that Image Plan.

That would be easy.  Is there a link somewhere that provides a naming convention for the EXIF tags?

[astroman133]

s3igell,

I re-read the OP's initial post and he did not ask for anything but for BYE to be able to integrate with ASPS for plate solving, like it currently does with AstroTortilla. I assumed that he was not a coder and so did not know that no changes needed to be made to BYE to integrated with ASPS, as AT is. You were the first poster to ask about adding metadata to the images and putting a TARGET name into the file.

I agree that it would not be difficult to do, but would likely require BYE's external API to be enhanced to allow the external app to provide the additional metadata and target name to be used for renaming the image. That is,  if the external app is to provide the metadata and target. I still question the usefulness.

[s3igell]

1 hour ago, admin said:

That would be easy.  Is there a link somewhere that provides a naming convention for the EXIF tags?

A bit of Googling finds:

EXIF Tag List: https://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/tifftags/privateifd/exif.html

NASA FITS Keywords:  https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/fcg/standard_dict.html

FITS WCS Definition:  http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/wcstools/wcstools.wcs.html

In reality, there appears to be no standard for EXIF ASTROMETRY Tags - probably one of the reasons for FITS Format in the Amateur AP Imager realm else TIFF would have been ascendant by preponderance of toolsets.

[s3igell]

13 hours ago, astroman133 said:

I agree that it would not be difficult to do, but would likely require BYE's external API to be enhanced to allow the external app to provide the additional metadata and target name to be used for renaming the image. That is,  if the external app is to provide the metadata and target.

There would seem to be multiple approaches to this: 1) BYE's API could be augmented and then ASPS could be coded to interface;  2) BYE could be coded to read the WCS File or the WCS FITS Header produced by ASPS;  3) BYE could be coded to utilize ASPS existing COM Interface; 4) Guylain and IVO (Dev of APT) and Dr Stark (Dev of Nebulosity) could get together with Giovanni B (Dev of ASPS) and Antti K (Dev of AstroTortilla) and Andy G (Dev of ansvr - and PHD2) - these Devs could come up with a shared interface that expands to audience of Plate Solving to a larger number of DSLR AP Imagers as well as some Astrometric-related enhancements to the TIFF / EXIF format.

13 hours ago, astroman133 said:

I still question the usefulness.

Guylain has confirmed his intentions to position BYE/BYN as a Straightforward GUI and Targeted Feature Set.  Other AP Imaging Apps which feature DSLR support have grown to be extremely Feature-Rich.  BYE loses in many Heads-Up Comparisons posted in Forums that focus on the Feature Count rather than their Utility.  I happen to think that BYE should be open to "appropriate augmentations".  And I believe that this small segment of the AP Imaging "Industry" needs to continue to take on New Software Features - especially since unlike the CMOS/CCD AP Camera Manufacturers the DSLR side has no ability to push additional Hardware Features into the DSLRs.

[astroman133]

Thanks, your reasoning may help Guylain to prioritize the design and implementation of this enhancement.

In the mean time, the OP could contact the authors of ASPS about utilizing BYE's existing external API for providing images to be solved.

[s3igell]

1 hour ago, astroman133 said:

In the mean time, the OP could contact the authors of ASPS about utilizing BYE's existing external API for providing images to be solved.

Agreed.