Telescope UI Clipped and Telescope Settings Question

[Bill Richards]

I’m still tinkering around with NINA and trying to become familiar with its use and operation. Last night I encountered two issues that I cannot sort out after reviewing the on-line documentation.

1. The Telescope UI is clipped (see attachment) and there doesn’t seem to be a way to scroll down to the fields that fall below the “Manual Coordinates”/”Manual Control” divider line. Is there some UI setting that can fix this?
2. When I did a plate-solve last night, I got an error stating, “ASTAP - Warning scale was inaccurate! Set FOV=2.39d, scale=2.1”, FL=569mm”. But I cannot find anywhere in the UI to set those parameters. I’m using a DSLR with a 150-600 mm lens which was set to 600 mm (so I don’t know why NINA thought it should be 569 mm) mounted on a CEM40. Where do I enter those settings?

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[Stefan B]

Hi,

the telescope ui seems to be clipped for lower resolution. Needs to be fixed on our side.

The astap scale depends on your Focal Length and Camera Pixel Size. These have to be entered correctly. Especially the focal length must be set to the effective focal length with the consideration of reducers etc.

[Bill Richards]

I think I just found the answer to my 2nd question - those settings are under Options/Equipment/Telescope, right? Just a thought - it would seem more intuitive to have those in the Equipment/Telescope section.

[Dale Ghent]

To be honest, the Equipment/Telescope section should really be Equipment/Mount, since that’s what it really pertains to. The “Telescope” label for mounts comes from ASCOM’s own terminology for things, which in turn stems from ASCOM’s original design decisions and taxonomy that was derived in the late 90s. Bob Denny, one of the ASCOM founders, has expressed some misgivings in hindsight about calling a mount a telescope.

But aside from that, the Equipment/Telescope screen pertains to the driver and controlling the mount itself. The Options/Equipment/Telescope part is pretty much for defining the optics which ride on the mount. There are a lot of settings in the app which could be in one place or the other, but generally the delineation between what ends up under the Equipment screens and what ends up under Options come down to whether it’s a static configuration item is general in nature and pretty much never changes once set, versus runtime settings that are often changed and pertain specifically to a device. In this case, an optic/telescope’s focal length is not specific to a mount, and that optic/telescope could end up being fitted to any number of mounts if the user has more than one - it’s not specific to a mount. Therefore the setting lands under Options rather than Equipment.

[Bill Richards]

OK, thanks for the background on this. I’m sure part of this is just getting more familiar with NINA.

Is there anything I can do about the UI issue or is this just a bug that has to be fixed?

[Stefan B]

The ui issue is just a bug that needs to be fixed.

[Dale Ghent]

Regarding images taken with a DSLR with an actual lens (rather than a telescope) attached, I am working on a proof of concept that could address this without bulldozing too much of how things are done in the app. This system can potentially (note the emphasis there ) address other EXIF-sourced metadata issues as well - but there seems to be another layer of issues that complicate that. I’ll post up the PoC in a bit for Stefan to consider.

[Dale Ghent]

Also need to open a bug report on my repeated mishandling of Stefan’s name.

[Bill Richards]

Isn’t that a fireable offense?

[Bill Richards]

Getting back to this issue in the original post:

When I did a plate-solve last night, I got an error stating, “ASTAP - Warning scale was inaccurate! Set FOV=2.39d, scale=2.1”, FL=569mm”. But I cannot find anywhere in the UI to set those parameters. I’m using a DSLR with a 150-600 mm lens which was set to 600 mm (so I don’t know why NINA thought it should be 569 mm)

I ran more tests last night and kept getting this warning even though I had entered all the parameters correctly. My Sigma lens was set to a 600mm focal length and the camera was reporting that value, so why does NINA keep complaining that the focal length should be 569mm?

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[Stefan B]

The warning is coming from ASTAP itself not from NINA. ASTAP seems to determine that your real focal length is 569 and not 600.

[Stefan B]

Telescope view clipping is fixed in nightly 16. Backport to 1.10 HF2 might follow.

[Bill Richards]

Thank you! Please let me know when it is released.

[Stefan B]

fixed in nightlies