Figure captions are down here! The frame border between this frame and the frame above can be moved. Click and drag on  the frame border to move it. Some figures have been removed because they are duplicates or were not necessary to tell the story.

Figure 1:  The opening screen. Important elements are:

• Select Input File button - Click to choose the input file with map points.
• Max Retries - The maximum number of times to try to map a given location.
• Maximum errors to tolerate - When this number of errors occurs, the next error will cause the mapping run to abort. If you want the mapping run to continue no matter how many errors occur, enter a zero here (that's the default).
• Exposure - The exposure time for each map exposure.
• Bin mode - The bin mode for each map exposure. For large chips like the KAF-160x, a bin mode of 2x2 is better than 1x1.
• Scale - You must specify your correct image scale here. Before the first automap is done, the Automap program does an image link in TheSky. This sets the image scale for all subsequent automapping! If the image scale is not correct, all automaps will fail. If the first image isn't good, Automap will try with the next image until it gets a good link.
  If you prefer to manually set the image scale in TheSky (Tools | Image Link | Setup : Known Scale), make sure you set the Scale to zero in the Automap program. That tells the program that image link has been set manually in TheSky.
• Video mode - Not yet implemented.
• Show errors - When checked, detailed error information appears for any errors that occur.
• GO button - Click to start a mapping run. Not active until you have selected the input file.
• Stop button - Click to abort a mapping run. Not active until you start a mapping run. Note: if TheSky is slewing or CCDSoft is taking an image, it can be very difficult to stop the mapping run. Clicking when neither of these activities is going on gives you the best chance to stop the run.
• Copy button - After a mapping run, click to copy the mapping results to the clipboard. You can paste the results into Notepad and save them to a file.
• Exit button - Ends the program.
• Status - As each step is completed, you'll see information about it here.
• Errors - If there are errors, you will see information here. If there are no errors, you won't see anything here.

Figure 2: Click the Data | Export menu item in TheSky to begin creating a map file.

Figure 3: This is the Export dialog. CLick the Mapping tab.

Figure 4: Use the controls to select the area of the sky to include in the mapping run.

Figure 5: You can sort any way you like on the Sort tab. I usually choose "Not sorted." I also like to set the Path to "Minimal telescope motion."

Figure 6:  Click on the Source/Dest. tab. Set the source as "Virtual Sky." Set the Destination as "Text file," and then click the Browse button to select the name and location for the output file. By default, the Automap program will look for the output file in this folder:

     C:\Program Files\Software Bisque\TheSky\User\Exported Data\

Figure 7: Click on the General tab, and make sure that the List Format is set to "Simple list;" the Coord. format is set to "Decimal," and the Object Type is set to "Map points." Click the "Create List" button. This will display the map points, and write them to the file you specified.

Figure 8: This is how things will look after you create the list of map points. Click OK to close the Export dialog.

Figure 9: This shows the output file I created. You can use any name you like for the file, but you will make your process simpler if you use the output folder shown here.

Figure 10: This is what the output file looks like in Notepad.

TIP: Before you leave TheSky, use the Telescope | Setup menu to make sure that "Confirm Mapping" is NOT checked. Otherwise, you will need to click a confirmation dialog for every single map point!

NOTE! You must insert a TPoint object into TheSky before you can run Automap! To add the TPoint object, use the Edit | Insert New Object menu item.

Figure 11: You are now ready to start working in the Automap program. Click the Select Input File button.

Figure 12: Navigate to the file you saved, highlight it, and click the Open button.

Figure 13: Now is the time to make changes to the various entries in the Automap program. See figure 1 for an explanation of each of the entries.

Figure 14: Click the GO button to start the mapping run. The start time is shown in the Status window. The first pass through the map points is called Pass #1. If the Max Retries entry is set to a number greater than one, any map points that are not successfully mapped on the first pass will be attempted again on subsequent passes. Map points that are successful are not retried. The number of passes will be equal to the number in the Max retries entry. If the maximum number of errors is exceeded, the mapping run will stop.

Figure 15: As each step completes, you'll see information about it in the Status area.

Figure 16: If a map point failes, you'll see an "X" to the right of the status line for that point. Point #1 has failed here. If "Show Errors" is checked, you'll see detailed error information in the Errors area, as shown here. This can help you determine why an error is happening.

Figure 17: As the mapping run continues, each point is processed. Information about each point appears in the status window so you can track progress. For now, after about a dozen points the data is scrolled and not easily readable. This will be fixed in a future version. At the conclusion of the run, the end time is added to the Status area. To retain the information about the mapping run, click the Copy button to copy the text from the status and error areas to the clipboard. You can then paste this into Notepad and save it for future reference if you like.

NOTE! If you click the Stop button, a warning will show up at the bottom of the window as shown in figure 17. This is just letting you know that it may take a while for the Automap program to stop, especially if TheSky or CCDSoft are busy with some task. The button will not be clickable while TheSky or CCDSoft have control; the best strategy around this is to click the button repeatedly until it "takes."

Figure 18: Use the Camera | Server Settings menu item in CCDSoft to get to this dialog. Duplicate the settings you see here to allow remote operation of the camera object in CCDSoft by Automap.

Figure 19: Use the Telescope | Server Settings menu item in TheSky to get to this dialog. Duplicate the settings you see here to allow remote operation of the telescope object in TheSky by Automap.