Plate solving (or Astrometric calibration) is a method used to determine exactly where the telescope is pointing in the 

sky by comparing the star field in an image to a database of star positions. Upon matching the image's stars, the plate solving application returns the right ascension (R.A.) and declination (DEC) of the center of the image.

The returned RA and DEC values can be used by appropriate SW-applications to automatically correct the pointing of the telescope (like the ASIAIR-PRO automatic Plate Solving after a GoTo command).

Many plate solver also returns the camera orientation. 

Example of plate solvers:

a) Stand-Alone Plate Solver

• PlateSolve2 (stand alone plate solver by PlaneWave Instruments)
• ASTAP
• All Sky Plate Solver (stand alone plate solver by Giovanni Benintende)
• ansvr - local Astrometry.net plate solver for Windows

b) Integrated Plate Solver

• ASIAIR Plate Solve
  use of the ASIAIR plate solve function during the night time exposure / collimation session:
  
• SGPro (Sequence Generator Pro)
• PixInsight Plate Solver
• PixInsight ViewExplorer

c) Internet Plate Solver

An online plate solver for JPEG, GIF, PNG or FITS images is available on: Astrometry.net, this is a typical result:

Result:

A good description can be found here.

Plate solver SW

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