403 and 429 Errors When Plate Solving

[RCat]

While using AIJ in an astronomy class, a few of us have run into a problem: If "skip images with WCS" is turned on while plate solving a batch of images, after several in a row AIJ will return the error "IO Exception during astrometry.net login: Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: https://nova.astrometry.net/api/login". After this, every plate solve will fail with the same error whether it has WCS or not as AIJ continues to run through the images.

I asked the astrometry.net devs what might cause this, and they replied that this is actually the incorrect error code: it should be 429 Too Many Requests. It looks like AIJ is sending requests too fast and the site is temporarily blocking that IP address, leading to the string of failed plate solving.

This also occurs sometimes even with batches that don't have WCS - although in this case, AIJ does return the correct 429 error. Possibly this is related to the user's internet speed, where AIJ solves faster and thus sends requests more quickly.

I wanted to alert y'all to the error issue and ask if there is any setting somewhere that can limit the request rate in order to avoid this.

Thanks!

[chrismlt]

Hello Rcat,

I sometimes had this issue.
Instead of using astrometry.net, I installed locally ASTAP, and I use this software to do the plate solving. It is by far more rapid. Each image is solved in about 0.1 sec, and there is no longer any message error.

Cheers

[karenacollins]

Hi Rcat,

As hopefully you have seen on GitHub, I responded to Dustin and described our protocol timing, which has been the same for many years. I haven't heard back yet, but maybe just being the weekend. If you didn't get notified of my post, maybe Dustin also didn't get notified because the issue is closed (I can't reopen). If you didn't get a response, could you reopen the issue on github? Otherwise, let's give it a couple more days for a response from Dustin.

Karen

[RCat]

Hi Karen,

It looks like since Dustin closed the issue this time I'm not able to reopen it. I haven't received another response, so if we don't hear back you could try editing your post with an @ mention and see if that alerts him to it?

[karenacollins]

We have now reduced the default polling rate to 2 seconds, and also added a capability to change the polling rate in the Astrometry Setup panel. The fix is in 6.0.2.00.

There is not currently an upgrade path from AIJ 5.x.x to 6.0.2.00, but you can download and install a new installation package from here: https://astroimagej.com/#download.

We expect to offer an upgrade path from AIJ 5.x next week if you prefer to wait.

Note, if you install a version 6 new installation package in place of version 5, you will need to reconfigure your max memory setting at AIJ Toolbar > Edit > Options > Memory and Threads, if you want to allocate more than a maximum of 75% of your physical system memory to be used by AIJ.

Karen