TerryMcK 218 Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 (edited) For those of us not tied into Windows there are other applications that can be used to control your observatory and this thread is dedicated to EKOS which comes with KStars and is on many Linux platforms and Apple Mac. There is even a version for Windows which is also very good. These three software applications are all open source using the KDE platform and are regularly updated/features added/enhancements added/bugs squashed etc. Underpinning the application is the INDI Library an open source software system used to control astronomical equipment, similar in operation to ASCOM which of course is Windows only. ASCOM is still very good but if you fancy something different like using a Raspberry PI then INDI is the way to go. Astroberry is the flavour of Linux for the Raspberry PI and comes with many astronomy based tools. However if you have an old computer lying around then Debian, Red Hat Linux, OpenSUSE, Mandriva Linux to name but a few can be used. Of course it runs on Apple hardware too so your choices are large. I personally use the Raspberry PI4 to control my observatory equipment and have the sequencing/capture/control of the equipment done utilizing EKOS. The PI has a very small footprint, is light weight, has USB3 and USB2 connectors, uses very little power and houses a powerful quad processor inside. A lot of people use them mounted onto their telescopes as they are so lightweight. Astroberry can be used in headless mode meaning no monitor/keyboard/mouse is needed to control them. It is possible to control it with a tablet, web browser etc. as it can generate its own wifi network for use in the field - literally. Or simply plug it into an Ethernet connection at home and control it from in front of the fire. At the moment the latter is what I do. EKOS is described here but essentially is an observatory automation and control tool. I know that there are lot of members using this or Stellamate, Apple Macs, etc and thought this would be a good thread to share our experiences, tips and insights. Windows users of other automation applications please go easy on us ?. This is just an alternative way of capturing the images we all love and have no intention of persuading you otherwise. Edited February 15 by TerryMcK 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted October 15, 2020 Author Share Posted October 15, 2020 @astroolly Great to have an avid user of Stellamate too Stew :)Hopefully you will get even more members on the Facebook group. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkAR 110 Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Another user here, superb bit of software but occasionally get minor annoying gremlins that come and go sporadically.Now using a RPi4 as a server and linked via ethernet cable so I can sit in relative warmth. Download speeds for images over cable it stupid fast compared to wifi connection. My wifi is pants so went for hard wiring. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted October 16, 2020 Author Share Posted October 16, 2020 @MarkAR Absolutely Mark that is the way I go too. I have structured cabling everywhere at home and ran a couple of Ethernet sockets outside housed in a weatherproof box. Plug a drop cable into that, run it to the PI and get gigabit speeds. 40MB files from the cameras come down in the blink of an eye. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted October 16, 2020 Author Share Posted October 16, 2020 For people new to Astroberry you do not have to know anything at all about Linux so no new esoteric commands to remember. I’m sure that Stew can concur that Stellamate is similar too and is essy to use.Astroberry is a total operating system that can be loaded onto a microSD card using a Windows application called BalenaEtcher. After downloading the image and flashing it to the card you then put the card into the PI and boot up. Instructions on how to flash this are on the astroberry.io website.Following the initial setup instructions you will soon be able to remote into the operating system from a webbrowser like Chrome and you will then see a graphical interface similar to Windows with everything logically placed on screen and in menus. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkAR 110 Posted October 16, 2020 Share Posted October 16, 2020 @AstroOlly My problem is my garden is a bit iffy for wifi and I use Devolo power line adapters which can be really unreliable when you need them the most. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 Thought I'd say hi ... had to have a Linux dabble for work, so installed Zorin on my laptop ! So obviously I now have to try Ekos :-) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 ... Let the fun commence ? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 Are you guys using the polar align feature and are you using PHD2 or the inbuilt guiding ?Cheers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gina 128 Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 Another KStars/Ekos/INDI plus RPi user here. Been using it for a couple of years now and well pleased. I have also added my own remote focuser system based on the Astroberry Focuser. I also control other things such as dew heaters using the Astroberry Board INDI driver suitably modified. The whole setup is very easy to use and very reliable. I once used Windows and ASCOM - what a delightful breath of fresh air this system is! 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted November 11, 2020 Author Share Posted November 11, 2020 Posted by: @GazAstro Are you guys using the polar align feature and are you using PHD2 or the inbuilt guiding ?CheersNo I don’t use the polar align feature as I have a polemaster. It is possible to get it working on Linux but I actually use Windoze for Polemaster. It is simple and reliable and use an old laptop for that. Once aligned the Windoze PC is disconnected and plays no further part in the rest of the imaging session.I use PHD2 or EKOS in built guiding. I only recently tried the in built guiding as it now has simultaneous multistar guiding and is extremely good. PHD2 is brilliant but I think it has a worthy competitor with EKOS guiding. No doubt both will get even better so try both out yourself. I’m running EKOS on the Raspberry PI4 under Astroberry. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkAR 110 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 I use the Ekos PA routine, usually get less than 10 Arc seconds, best I've achieved is 1 arc second. Normally I run it twice. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Cheers all ?Just need a clear night now ! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Downloaded and at up ASTAP in my lunch break ?? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkAR 110 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 ASTAP is extremely fast for plate solving. So much so that I've set Ekos alignment accuracy to 10 and it still does it in 11 or less attempts. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AstronomyUkraine 207 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Posted by: @MarkAR ASTAP is extremely fast for plate solving.I agree. It's far better than Platesolve 2. I think mine is set for 20, and 5 attempts at centering, but it never takes more than two attempts. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gina 128 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 I use the Ekos guiding tool - works well. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 Cheers Gina, it looks fairly automated ... Hope to give it a try soon. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 14, 2020 Share Posted November 14, 2020 Just one more question ? the camera gain seems to be set in the Indi panel, but there is also gain and offset on the capture plan ... Am I correct in thinking that if I leave blank on the planner it will use the setting in the Indi panel ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted November 15, 2020 Author Share Posted November 15, 2020 I set gain and offset in the capture plan. That way I can be assured that I get what I expected. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GazAstro 28 Posted November 15, 2020 Share Posted November 15, 2020 Managed a quick 40 mins between clouds ! Yaaay, it all works, polar aligned in 5 mins ??plate solved near the pole but failed in the East, probably just tweaks ? Guiding worked but very rough - suspect the thin clouds (and the mediocre performance of my Az-Gti. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted February 14 Author Share Posted February 14 (edited) I was out imaging the other night with my Astroberry equipped Raspberry Pi 4 which is excellent. I have been controlling it with a Windows PC, actually a Windows 10 PC virtual machine running under VMWare VSphere. This up to now has been a great way of running KStars/EKos and communicating with INDI server onboard the PI. It has worked flawlessly. However the operating system Microsoft Windows 10 barfed the other night and decided to reboot itself in the middle of a capture run. I examined eventviewer application log and found that I had two errors which had caused the reboot EventID 13 Volume Shadow Copy Service information: The COM Server with CLSID {4e14fba2-2e22-11d1-9964-00c04fbbb345} and name CEventSystem cannot be started. [0x8007045b, A system shutdown is in progress. And EventID 8193 These are occasional bugs that have been around since Windows 10 was released maybe even longer. I was running 1903 version of Windows 10 at that point. I have since upgraded this PC image to Windows 10 Version 20H2 and hope that the bug has been squashed but who knows. In the meantime I thought I may as well just use a Linux virtual machine to control INDI on the PI. So I downloaded a version of Linux called Ubuntu Mate Desktop. I have just installed and configured it. This distribution of Ubuntu is similar to the one that is used on the Astroberry image. That version is version 16 whereas the one I downloaded is the latest version 20.04.2.0 (Download it for free from here) I installed Kstars and xrdp onto the Ubuntu Mate Desktop. I also download ASTAP and its associated V17 star database so I can use the Ubuntu system to do the platesolving. Download that from here For reference the Ubuntu virtual machine is configured to use 4 CPUs and 8GB RAM from my VSphere system which is a 12CPU Xeon Processor with 64GB RAM so is ultra fast. The VM will be very quick at plate solving with this hardware indeed the Windows PC image uses similar virtual hardware. I have a gigabit ethernet running to the Raspberry Pi and image transfer back to the virtual machine is brisk to say the least. I am now able to RDP into the Linux Virtual machine (see here on how to do that - no need for VNC) and then fire up Kstars/EKOS and control the PI. No more reliance upon Windoze 10 which is still buggy and can fall over at the drop of a hat. In the UK we have a minimum amount of time to image due to perennial clouds and the last thing you want is a faulty operating system to hinder progress. Here is a picture of the Ubuntu Mate Desktop whilst running KStars/EKOS in simulation mode. I'm going to run this as the sequencing computer next time out. When that is only time will tell. Edited February 15 by TerryMcK Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AstronomyUkraine 207 Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 26 minutes ago, TerryMcK said: I have since upgraded this PC image to Windows 10 Version 20H2 and hope that the bug has been squashed but who knows. I have had 20H2 installed on my machine since September last year. According to the event viewer, the logs report no problems with VSS at all. Let's hope it has been fixed, the problem has been around at least 4 years. Brian 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AstronomyUkraine 207 Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 (edited) I am tempted to try out the Stellarmate, or the RPi route for my imaging. I don't have a laptop with Linux on it, so is it possible to run either of these through Ekos on a windows PC? Edited February 15 by AstronomyUkraine Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TerryMcK 218 Posted February 16 Author Share Posted February 16 You don’t actually need a computer at all if you get a Raspberry PI and load Astroberry onto it. I only use an external remote computer for convenience and to have captured images indoors on another computer as well as on the PI the instant they are shot. The Astroberry system can be accessed externally by anything that has a web browser such as a PC, tablet, mobile phone etc. The web browser interface negates the requirement to have a screen, mouse and keyboard attached to the PI although you can do that if you wish. Stellarmate is similarly accessed, being based upon a PI, and both systems use EKOS as the observatory control. Everything you need is on Astroberry including plate solving, PHD2 guiding, Firecapture when you want to capture planets or the sun, many different planetarium programs and much more. I bought a backup PI4 last week with a Flirc case for £56 + £19. I already had a 128GB memory card and a PI power supply but these are also reasonably cheap. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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