Table of Contents
Astrometry.net
Astrometry.net can be used to solve the image you just take with your camera. Astrometric solving will give the exact astronomical position of the image center, its orientation and size.
CCDciel requires a local copy of the Astrometry.net software including the indexes on your computer. It can also run Astrometry.net on a remote host using the provided script.
At page http://astrometry.net/use.html you can find detailed instructions how to install the software and indexes.
Linux
On Linux astrometry.net is probably packaged by your distribution. This is the easiest and preferred way to install the software.
For example on Debian or Ubuntu just do:
sudo apt-get install astrometry.net
Then to install some indexes:
sudo apt-get install astrometry-data-2mass-08-19 astrometry-data-2mass-07
macOS
For macOS a good solution is to install astrometry.net using Homebrew.
Follow the instructions to install Homebrew itself.
Then to install astrometry.net type the following in a terminal:
brew install astrometry-net
To install the indexes you need in a directory in your Documents folder run in a terminal:
mkdir Documents/astrometry cd Documents/astrometry curl -O http://broiler.astrometry.net/~dstn/4200/index-42[08-19].fits
Repeat with “index-4207-[00-11].fits” if you need more indexes.
Next edit the file /usr/local/etc/astrometry.cfg, search a line that begin with “add_path” and replace the path by “/Users/[your user name]/Documents/astrometry”.
In the CCDciel Preferences at the astrometry tab, enter /usr/local/bin in the field “command path”.
Another option if you already have astrometry.net packaged with another application is to use the custom script option.
In the CCDciel Preferences at the astrometry tab:
- Check Use custom script
- Enter the script name: /Applications/CCDciel/scripts/astrometry-macos.sh
- You can modify the script to set the application path, by default it is /Applications/Astrometry.app
Windows
A number of Windows package include a fully automated install of Cygwin and astrometry.net and it is best to get one of them. CCDciel do not use this applications but the astrometry.net they install. Cygwin is a tool required to run a compiled version of Astrometry.net under Windows.
The following list indicate tested application and give the Cygwin path you must configure in the astrometry preferences.
At the time of writing all these application use the same 2010 version 0.38 of Astrometry.net.
- ANSVR, set Cygwin path to C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\cygwin_ansvr
Install up to step 10 as indicated in the web based instruction. - Astrotortilla, set Cygwin path to C:\cygwin
- All sky plate solver, set Cygwin path to C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Astrometry
- Windows subsystem for Linux, let you use a more recent version of astrometry.net but it require you install the 64 bits version of CCdciel.