Gina

Weather still windy, cloudy and cold

I had that trouble but have now cured it. I used THIS TOOL from FLO to tighten the front of the camera. I too had the camera front unscrew like you and screwed it back on but I didn't get it screwed right down - caught one of the desiccant tablets and the chamber wasn't air tight so I got frost after a while. Opened it up again, found a tablet had a bit broken off and dust in the chamber. So I gave it a good blowing out with my rocket blower and replaced the tablets with the replacement ones, carefully attaching the little rubber discs. Then carefully reattached the cover and tightened it up using the holes in the face and the Baader tool. It's now good and tight and hasn't come undone again.

Yesterday the forecast for tonight looked dire, now it's looking good both on BBC and Clear Outside - amazing!!! Will that stand or will it flip back to 100% cloud though, I wonder Anyway, depending on what the weather does a bit later I might take imaging rig and laptop out to the observatory and set it all up. Very unlikely to have the rotation rig ready by tonight but I'm expecting to do some work on it today.

Thanks Ken The RPi software I though I'd messed up is still quite adequate for my daytime colour ASC - I only need the camera driver and that's fine. I'll just use the other RPi for my main imaging rig.

Had a think and decided I'm not up to sorting out RPi software tonight - maybe I'll feel better tomorrow. I think all I'll do tonight is plan further work on the project and consolidate my ideas. I think I'll go straight for putting the RPi on the rotation rig and leave the current imaging rig basically untouched so that I can just put it back on the mount and use the laptop if it looks like a possible clear night. That doesn't mean tonight as it's cloudy and there's rain forecast and I'm not going outdoors tonight anyway - need to look after my health.

Maybe I should wipe this micro SD card and start afresh. I seem to have well and truly messed it up Go back to the other RPi perhaps and try to add the extra drivers. May be a better idea to do something else entirely...

Mount control connects and so does the camera but the EFW though shown won't connect and the Astroberry focuser and board are not shown in Ekos

Tried re-installing libindi but have a problem. Seemed to unpack and set up everything except indi-gphoto which I'm not using. Running the indiserver command came up with errors. pi@raspberrypi:~/libindi_1.3.1_rpi $ ls atikccd-1.12-armhf.deb indi-dsi_0.1_armhf.deb indi-fli-dbg_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb indi-sbig-dbg_1.7_armhf.deb libindi-data_1.3.1_all.deb fliusb-dkms_1.3_armhf.deb indi-dsi-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb indi-gphoto_1.4_armhf.deb indi-sx_1.4_armhf.deb libindi-dev_1.3.1_armhf.deb fliusb-source_1.3_armhf.deb indi-duino_0.2_armhf.deb indi-gphoto-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb indi-sx-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb libqhy_0.1.8_armhf.deb indi-aagcloudwatcher_1.3_armhf.deb indi-duino-dbg_0.2_armhf.deb indi-gpsd_0.3_armhf.deb libapogee3_3.0.3234_armhf.deb libqsi7_7.2.0_armhf.deb indi-aagcloudwatcher-dbg_1.3_armhf.deb indi-eqmod_0.3_armhf.deb indi-maxdomeii_1.1_armhf.deb libapogee3-dev_3.0.3234_armhf.deb libqsi-dbg_7.2.0_armhf.deb indi-apogee_1.5_armhf.deb indi-eqmod-dbg_0.3_armhf.deb indi-maxdomeii-dbg_1.1_armhf.deb libapogee-dbg_3.0.3234_armhf.deb libqsi-dev_7.2.0_armhf.deb indi-apogee-dbg_1.5_armhf.deb indi-ffmv_0.1_armhf.deb indi-qhy_1.6_armhf.deb libfishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb libsbigudrv2_2.1.1_armhf.deb indi-asi_0.5_armhf.deb indi-ffmv-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb indi-qhy-dbg_1.6_armhf.deb libfishcamp-dev_1.0_armhf.deb shoestring-1.3-armhf.deb indi-asi-dbg_0.5_armhf.deb indi-fishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb indi-qsi_0.5.0_armhf.deb libfli1_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb usbfocus-0.9-armhf.deb indi-bin_1.3.1_armhf.deb indi-fishcamp-dbg_1.0_armhf.deb indi-qsi-dbg_0.5.0_armhf.deb libfli-dev_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb indi-dbg_1.3.1_armhf.deb indi-fli_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb indi-sbig_1.7_armhf.deb libindi1_1.3.1_armhf.deb pi@raspberrypi:~/libindi_1.3.1_rpi $ indiserver -m 100 -vv indi_rpifocus indi_rpibrd indi_asi_ccd indi_asi_wheel indi_eqmod_telescope

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ping www.google.co.uk ping: unknown host www.google.co.uk pi@raspberrypi:~ $

Thanks Marci

Without the repository updates the upgrade did nothing so it looks like its back to the RPi I've been setting up for imaging. And now I think I'll crawl back into my shell...

I have a problem - the libindi installed is an old one and doesn't have the indi_asi_wheel driver. Tried sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && reboot but the update didn't work so tried just sudo apt-get update and got :- pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get update Err http://archive.raspberrypi.org jessie InRelease Err http://archive.raspberrypi.org jessie Release.gpg Could not resolve 'archive.raspberrypi.org' Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org jessie InRelease Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org jessie Release.gpg Could not resolve 'mirrordirector.raspbian.org' Reading package lists... Done W: Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/dists/jessie/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/jessie/InRelease W: Failed to fetch http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/jessie/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'archive.raspberrypi.org' W: Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/dists/jessie/Release.gpg Could not resolve 'mirrordirector.raspbian.org' W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. pi@raspberrypi:~ $

I'll now plug in the ASI1600MM-C with EFW mini attached and the NEQ6 mount from the other RPi board. Then connect 12v to the HAT and check the focus motor works.

Powered up the RPi above and it worked, connected to the ASI185MC and fisheye lens. And as it already has the BCM chip and Astroberry drivers installed, I could use it as is for the main imaging rig. The daytime colour ASC I'm planning doesn't need the Astroberry stuff so could use the RPi I've just set up for imaging instead. Swapping them over as it were This is the ASC image - just on the table near the window and only roughly focused as a quick test.

Look what I've found RPi that I had for an earlier ASC, with HAT, Pololu stepper driver and buck converter I can put the HAT with all the bits onto the imaging rig RPi

Astroberry PiFace is an upgrade to the Astroberry board and focuser (I think) and could be another possibility.

Stopped the download from the web page and clicked on "Direct link" giving this :- So maybe wget https://netix.dl.sourceforgenet/indi-astroberry_1.0.4-1_armhf.deb

Looking now at Astroberry drivers... https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/files/Astroberry/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/files/latest/download?source=files Still don't think I've got the actual file download URL to use with wget.

Googling has produced the following code for installing the BCM2835 driver. wget http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz; tar xvfz bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz; cd bcm2835-1.50; ./configure; make; sudo make install

Found the modified little stepper motor. Will need to add a buck converter to convert my 13.8v observatory power supply to 5.1v for the RPi before it's ready for deployment - plus fuses etc. In software I need to install the BCM chip driver to use the GPIO followed by the Astroberry INDI drivers. Progress today is likely to be slow as I'm still suffering badly from this dreaded cold

Yes - though they only apply to the rotation rig and zoom lenses respectively both of which are future versions. Currently I set the camera rotation manually by loosening the mount clamp before the imaging session and that's it for the night. The focussing is currently handled by an Arduino Nano connected to a Windows PC and controlled by an MS Visual Basic GUI on the Windows machine which in turn is accessed with TeamViewer.. I just have to find the little stepper motor I modified and equipped with a connector that fits the connector on the RPi HAT. Then it's just a matter of plugging the HAT onto the RPi. Software-wise I still need to install the Astroberry INDI driver as it isn't included in the libindi distribution. I could use a "bodge" for the rotator using an Arduino Nano to handle the rotation stepper motor. On the INDI/RPi side I could use the Astroberry Board driver which controls 4 GPIO pins and sets each one on or off. Using binary code that would give up to 16 positions for the rotator. But the whole thing could be handled in the RPi just using Dir and Step lines to the Pololu stepper driver. The GUI part of the driver would provide the appropriate number of radio buttons or maybe the angle in degrees. The same system as in the paragraph above could also apply to the zoom control though the GUI could be altered to suit the particular zoom lens used. I've done this sort of GUI design in the past using programming languages such as VB, Pascal, Python etc. both using a visual design system and direct coding. The INDI drivers would need the latter I would think and I shall be looking into the language involved in due course. It doesn't look like anything I have used in the past but I expect I can learn

Sorted out so far :- Image capture camera cooling filter wheel mount connection Still to do :- See how KStars works with star chart etc. Focussing system Rotation system Maybe zoom lens I already have the "bones" of the focussing system. Bipolar converted 28BYJ-48 stepper motor, RPi HAT with stepper driver, Astroberry Focuser driver for INDI. This was tested on an earlier all sky camera but found unsuitable for that application. Sections 3. and 4. will need INDI drivers either adapted form other drivers or newly written.

Just had a look outside and the sky's clear - oh well - the imaging rig can't be in two places at once and I'm working on it

I like this system Set the temperature and it cools the camera to the set temperature before starting the image capture. Also, it makes a directory for each filter to put the image files in - better than just putting the info in the filename. OTOH it doesn't save the temperature in the filename like the Windows stuff does - I might have missed something though. Lots to learn about KStars/Ekos/INDI

Filters labelled with what they are