Some proper cloud coming in now from the SSW.

Exposure 0.1s - camera temperature 2°C.

Exposure 1s.

Exposure 10s.  Camera temperature 2.5°C.

With a nearly full moon and no astronomical dark I don't think it's worth bothering to do an imaging run overnight.

Apart from WiFi (and maybe tidy up the code) this project is done.  I have started a new micro SD card with Ubuntu MATE for a brand new system.  Have WiFi working but having a problem installing the astro stuff - going to start afresh and try again.  When I have that sorted out I can write the new blog.  Actually, I could start the blog before the software.  I'll think about it - my brain is overhaeting in ths wether.

Started a new installation, set up WiFi, restarted from cold and then added the INDI drivers and other astro apps and enabled SSH using the AstroPi3 script.  Once I've edited and installed the Astroberry driver code and got it all working, I can produce a new micro SD card for the ASC with the controls labelled correctly and using WiFi.

I have added the instructions to my tutorial blog - Setting up a Raspberry Pi for Astro Imaging and Control - Ubuntu Mate

Here are a couple of photos showing the finished mounting on the roll-off-roof of my observatory.

Exposure 1ms.  Camera temperature 1.6°C.

60s exposure.

Changing the GPIO control line from GPIO12 to GPIO6 was a good move as GPIO6 has a pull-up resistor in the RPi and the logic 1 state turns off the high level cooling leaving just the low level cooling.  GPIO12 and GPIO13 both have pull-down resistors so sit at logic 0 when not controlled.  This is fine for the dew heater control as that is OFF with logic 0.  Camera cooling control used to be the same but now the logic is inverted.

Still working on a new micro SD installation on another RPi.  This was going well but now I can't connect via SSH over WiFi.  SSH is working with cable so it's WiFi that's failed.

Compiling has failed now even with the original files so I'm leaving it.  Probably get back to it later...  Anyway, the ASC is working even if not exactly as I want.

Started from square one again with Ubuntu MATE and AstroPi script to install loads of astro stuff.  Called it asc2 this time with the idea of producing a replacement card for the ASC (if it all works).

Clouds have arrived.

30s exposure with gain at 96.

With cooling on LOW the camera temperature is hovering around 5°C but with cooling on HIGH it's going down to -10°C at the start of exposure and to -8°C at the end.  This is with 30s exposure and 30s delay and a mild night though with some breeze to cool the fins.  When there's no moon and the sky is really dark I can use continuous 60s exposures with a couple of seconds download time between.   That will be the test.

Just checking...

For reference, the shutdown preferred command is

sudo shutdown -h -P now

This completely shuts down the RPi but doesn't turn the power off.  When shut down the RPi cannot accept SSH as it isn't working and needs powering off and on again to restart.

I'm backing up the card before seeing if I can get WiFi working using an LCD display, keyboard and trackball.  I reckon it should be possible to use the GUI to edit the WiFi settings.  Also I might see if I can find out why the re-compiling of the source code isn't working.

My testing of setting up the system from square one by wiping a card and installing Ubuntu MATE and all the astro stuff from scratch has encountered problems that I haven't been able to solve, so looking at this system, which is working might give some clues.

Now writing the data to a new 16GB micro SD card which I shall use for testing rather than the original which I shall keep, so that I have a guaranteed working system albeit less than perfect.

Been trying to edit the network connections without much success.  I can delete items such as unused WiFi sources but can't add a new item or edit an existing one.  The editor is there but nothing gets saved - there doesn't seem to be a save option, just Close.

With more experimenting I found that clicking on the WiFi icon at the top of the screen I could select the AP.  It then asked for authorisation and connected.  A few seconds later it asked for authorisation again...  and again... and again... Hopeless!!

That should have worked IMO.  Setting up WiFi after installing Ubuntu MATE and before the astro stuff worked.  Unfortunately, installing some of the astro didn't and yet it was the same as the ASC.  Seems these single board computers are just as much black magic as the full size beasties!!  Maybe I can get my brain round this when it's cooler.  I should be able to debug the code.  Computers are alright for doing standard things - it's when you try to get clever that the trouble comes!