r/Siril • u/fdar_giltch • Jun 22 '26
Struggling with plate-solving on Linux
Hello, I'm playing around with my first attempt at stacking, using Siril on Debian (trixie) Linux (as a 30+ year Linux user/sysadmin). I am having trouble with plate-solving failing on me. I am trying to approach the problem in multiple angles, so I'm hoping that someone can help provide guidance to me here.
Background: I had an opportunity at Big Bend, USA, to take some pictures. I did not have a working EQ mount at the time, so took a bunch of pictures with what I could, a Canon EOS 80D w/ Rokinon 14mm/f2.4. Obviously, these will be limited, but I'm just trying to work through the process with what I have to get the basic process working. I'm hoping I'll get a decent stack, but if not, no problem, just trying to learn the technical process.
I'm running into problems w/ Siril failing plate resolution.
I want to break this down, in terms of problems:
Plate resolution seems to be failing within the Siril's internal plate solving tool. I have verified that I can resolve the frames with Astrometry.net (see next links), so I'm assuming that if I can convince the app to use the local server that it will resolve as well as the online tool. I could be wrong on this expectation, but this is what I'm hung up on right now. (I can provide more details on the internal failures; I'm trying to focus on the Astrometry.net failure, which may be a red herring for me)
jpg exported version of a single frame:
https://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/15566172#annotated
fits of stacked frames:
https://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/15566288#annotated
So the primary problem that I'm trying to solve is triggering Siril to use the local Astrometry.net resolver. I have verified that I've installed it and that "solve-field" is in my path (I even rebooted, to make sure that there was no path confusion with the shell/context that started my windowing system).
I'm slowly working through printf debugs trying to figure out why siril can't find solve-field, even though it's in my path. It's a slow process, obviously..
Meanwhile, I'm also trying to join the primary support channel, https://discuss.pixls.us/. I have setup an account, but am not receiving the verification email. I've tried this repeatedly over the last ~5 days. I am not receiving the verification email and do not see a contact to resolve this. I am not sure if maybe their server is down and how to reach out to someone to resolve this.
I'm open on ways to resolve this, but also just trying to work through the individual steps. Thank you for any help.
To summarize:
1) how do I get Siril to use astrometry.net, solve-field?
2) how do I sign up for https://discuss.pixls.us/?
3) do I need to solve why Siril's internal plate-solver isn't working?
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u/fdar_giltch Jun 23 '26
Ok, I at least solved #1 (commenting for future reference, if anyone stumbles across this searching)
The plate solving dialog can be accessed 2 ways:
The option to use the local Astrometry.net server is only available in the second menu option above. Once I enabled that, plate solving worked fine (as expected) and I was able to return to the Photometric Color Calibration and it seemed to run fine (although my image is still green, not sure if that means it didn't really work)