upahill

Last bit of Starlink perhaps -

Definately going to get in the way for astrophotography, not that it will in anyway deter any of us I suspect. Just annoy us. It was nice to not be the only one in the garden saying "Wow" for a change though, something to get people looking up 🧐, 12000 of them could be a different story though. I noticed the last few have already climbed enough to not be that visible at all, and trailing quite far behind.

Just watched the chain go past again, as impressed as the first time - and so was the rest of the family who made the effort to come out and see it 😀

Enjoyed watching these earlier, will stay up til 2.30 to try and catch another glimpse I think. No idea what the long term ramifications will be if any but an impressive project and sight either way.

I for one would be very interested in hearing more about capture/processing, and the radio astronomy would be interesting I agree.

Well tonight was one of those "Right its all going on eBay" nights.... I managed to eventually setup a VM on my server running Ubuntu and after a lot of tweaking got the Astrometry-api-lite setup installed giving me a fully working astrometry clone on the network. Setup the gear, tinkered to get the solving working for quite some time but it did work, so Pi running INDI, Server VM running astrometry and my Windows machine running Kstars/EKOS... Guiding was better tonight, didn't need to bin either which was weird and good. Got focuser to operate, still need to get to grips with the autofocus system (I think this is more a problem with backlash on my setup) - got the mount aligned after a few attempts and a few hard resets. Went for an imaging run as a test, and after the first sub came in Kstars/EKOS just dissapeared. 🤬 It's done this before, but always waits until everything is working as it should. So since its 1am and the clouds have rolled in I decided packing up was the best thing to do until I cool down a little.

On a similar thread I had thought about changing the camera format to JPEG instead of Native (CR2) or FITS, which does speed up download time from camera, but I can only do that in the backend - and it applies to all settings, so my main subs then become JPEG Im pretty sure its passing a downsampling command through to its built in Astrometry but will need to confirm.

It wont let me bin the main camera. Only the guide camera, and only when guiding. In fact anything other than 4x4 on the guide camera and I get no picture at all.

The exact phrasing of the question has been asked before. On here and googles Think its part of an online astronomy course?

I looked at the Rock64 and the USB3 is an attractive feature. My other consideration was getting the Pi 3B+ which has a slightly faster CPU - and then using something like this hub hat to give me a powered USB hub with 9 extra ports Now if that hat was USB 3 and could go on the Rock64 it would be a winner! Its taking about 15 seconds to transfer a captured sub over the network to the client machine (thats from the moment it finishes on screen to appearing in the folder, so assume that includes download from camera time too) I dont mind that, but it does slow down focusing and guiding. The best solution is just going to be a beefier mini PC, more ram, USB3 all round and then have just the USB3 hub strapped to the scope with one lead down to the PC I think. Il give the onboard plate solving another go. I will need to redownload the indexes I think as I cleared some of them last night to test and then gave up and went to bed 🤣 Connecting remotely to INDI probably removes the need to have a full blown astroberry install on the Pi and I could go for a slicker headless install.

Had another go last night, this time using Kstars/EKOS on my indoors PC, connected to the Pi on the scope over ethernet. Worked fine once I got everything setup. I did have Kstars crash on the windows machine once and not sure what caused that but I got to the end of an imaging run whilst guiding without issue after that. Platesolving online still only worked intermittently, fits header appears to be ok, im considering adding a mirror of astrometry.net to my home server and using that instead - its got more grunt than then Pi and uploading to it will be faster. I got astrometry.net installed on a Virtual Machine, but not the API/website side of things yet. Guiding worked but still having to bin 4x4 to get anything out of the camera which is weird. Until plate solving is figured out I cant really build an alignment model for the mount, so havent bothered trying to sort out parking properly etc. If its clear this evening I might have another go.

Thanks for this, for testing im going to keep astroberry running on the pi so im guessing I can install this alongside The aim was for something small like the Pi, I had a laptop before but really wanted everything mounted semi-permanent to the OTA. If the Pi can't handle it then I might need to look at a mini-pc or beefier SBC. If im restricted to using a full pc then I may as well stick with what I know Thanks for the tip on setting up Park position, and the FITS header info - neither of which I have configured so could well be part of the problem.

This might be the way to go. As you said I didn't think the power draw on the board was that bad, might try and find a better power block for the Rpi though just in case. Network speed isn't an issue as I have cat6 running out to the pier. I have been launching INDI/Ekos using Kstars and assume that it will now work the other way, eg I find some way to start INDI on its own, and then Run EKOS/Kstars on my indoors machine setting the connection to remote. Downloading from Camera to Pi has been a big bottleneck, especially if set to raw. If I lower it to jpeg to speed up focusing then I lose the option to shoot raw for the routines. Lots more tweaking I think but at least the forecast is clear for tonight again. Thanks.

Another night of testing and I think im getting used to it a bit more, it is struggling to run with limited RAM though, issues converting CR2 I think for processing. The main issue is still Ekos crashing when it loses connection to the INDI server - I guess this is likely due to lack of resources too. Might have to wait till I have a more powerful test system than a raspberry pi.

Managed to find a Raspberry Pi 3 v1.2 at a carboot for £3 and suprisingly it worked so figured it was about time I gave Indi/Kstars/Ekos a go. The aim is to have the majority of stuff mounted on the scope as whilst my previous setup works having multiple leads trailing to a laptop is a pain. So far I managed to: get the Autofocuser i built (myfocuserpro) sort of working through Indi - there is a lot of backlash but thats more a mechanical issue that software. the canon 1200 is recognised and takes shots (although the driver is randomly crashing requiring a reboot to fix) plate solving works about 2/10 times with remote option, and never with local. My problems / questions are: The Altair GPCAM im using for guiding is recognised, but will only show an image if binned 4x4, this is leaving me with very pixelated shots where noise and stars are almost indecernible. I was using the EKOS guiding module, did try PHD but didnt get anything from the camera at all. Does anyone else use the GPCAM on INDI? The canon, gpcam, eq6 and focuser (arduino) are all connected to the Rasbpi directly. Im concerned there isn't enough power in those ports to handle everything (although its only really the gpcam that is 'powered' by it) Could this be causing the lack of 1x1 images from the guidecam? I have downloaded the indexes for Astrometrey that it said I needed, through the dialog - but still getting errors with platesolving saying that they are missing, anyone else ever had to fix this? Last night I struggled getting platesolving/alignment working, but when I had the first point done I would slew to a target and try and solve/sync that. First time I tried it was the first time I crashed the mount - it seems there are not limits like EQMod had, do they get up seperately? Any help, tips, advice, gotchas greatly appreciated. The raspberry is a little underpowered I fear but if this turns out to be a workable solution for me I can consider getting a better machine to strap to the scope. T.I.A

I was going to volunteer my height but still need to buy an awning as I tore the last one at last years SP so probably not the best qualified to help 🤣 (In my defence the awning was older than me, and damp!)

I didn't count properly, but there are around 2000 emoticons. At between 0.5-1kb each - so if they are all loading on selecting that dropdown thats between 1mb-2mb to download. They are all being resized too which slows down the loading a bit. Maybe there is a way to find out which emoticons have been used the most and restrict it to those? Then again I dont really mind waiting a few seconds each time I click it 🤣

Just caught up with your build last night and it is very inspirational, looking forward to getting the chance to do something similar myself so the wealth of information that yourself and others put here is invaluable. Thank you for documenting it

Seems like the move went well. Congrats, site working great for me.

Good luck May the power of root be with you!

As John78 said the AstroEQ would be a perfect fit for a next step. Goto, autoguider, ascom support etc. The motor mouting you have done is a really neat solution. When I tried it I went with a larger pulley ratio and it really threw off the ability to tuck it all away neatly. Also have this mount in black, was billed as Skywatcher too but unbranded - identical in everyway though. Possibly an older version or one they sold for OEM rebranding?

I thought it was a character LCD at first, but actually I think its a graphic lcd panel, which would explain the extra pins. I have had some success in the past asking manufacturers to help identify components. I would start by seeing if something like this matches the physical dimensions of the LCD you have. Then get in touch with that supplier and see if they can identify compatibility / alternative options from your pics. I imagine that the pinouts are going to be the same across similar screens, and believe there is no embedded controller on these so may be worth a punt for a few $?

It looks like a basic 2 line LCD module, but the 30 pin connector is confusing me a little. Visually very similar to ones like https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1602-16-Characters-2-Line-LCD_60758385192.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normalList.78.bd9048604VZ0Uu but unless some of those pins are shared I can't imagine what the difference is?? All the ones im finding are 15 pin

Great project! That looks like a nice solid way of doing it. Do you have a pier adapter ready to go on? Interested in which type you go for as mine should probably be replaced soon. If you have any concrete left a few inches of "mower border" might help out in the long run

Just booked Thurs-Monday, excited already. Glad to hear the marquee will be there again too.