PlateSolve3 is a proprietary plate-solving application developed by PlaneWave Instruments, with Dave Rowe as its author. It is provided free of charge as a courtesy by PlaneWave Instruments. The solver is distributed as a standalone executable, operating independently of other software packages.


PlateSolve3 is a very robust solver that excels at solving images from telescopes with long focal lengths and limited star fields, effective even when only a handful of stars are visible. It solves both “near solves” (when approximate coordinates of the image center are known) and blind solves (no prior coordinates) extremely quickly.