Vox45

This is what happens when passion, knowledge and opensource come together.... Magic !

After years of lurking, I just ordered a Raspberry PI 3 My endgame is to install Kstars on Linux Mint (once the ubuntu-16.04 version of Mint is release in july/august) and install the INDI part on a raspberry PI. This way I can have the "control" part at the telescope and use the interface at my desk over WIFI or an ethernet cable, I'll be free from my 5m USB cable at last Problem is that I've just completed my PowerPanel V2.0 and I am already thinking of buidling a new one for my RP. That would be "PowerPanel V3.0 embedded Raspberry PI edition" The combination of my PowerPanel+RP at the mount would mean that there would be only 1 cable hanging from the mount, the power cable to the battery. Hopefully, in the near futur, I will be able to add an eCat to the PowerPanel (v4.0 ?) and get rid of this last cable

I modified the post. You are right the package is called Kstars-Bleeding On ubuntu : sudo apt-get install kstars-bleeding

For those who are following the progress of my journey down the Linux eldorado road (wink) Here are a couple of videos that gives a nice overview of the Ekos interface (guiding and Astrophotography) Astrophotography Tutorial in Ekos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt4Gb3Yfh9g Autoguiding in KStars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tpuOJ28200 As a reminder: Kstars is the planetarium software and from there you can start Ekos. So basically, under linux you just need to install the INDI drivers and platform, install Kstars-Bleeding and that's it. Ekos is part of Kstars. Using Ekos you get "advanced Astrophotography tool for Linux. This includes highly accurate GOTOs using astrometry solver, ability to measure and correct polar alignment errors , auto-focus & auto-guide capabilities, and capture of single or stack of images with filter wheel support." So to simplify and give a general idea, just remember that: INDI = ASCOM Kstars = Carte Du Ciel Ekos = EQMOD/AstroTortilla/PHD and much more

This goes to show how powerful open source is Thank you ajk for your work and time on this, let me know so I can be one of the beta tester if needed

OpenSuSE.... it's german for « Software und System-Entwicklung » (Software and Systems Development)

Still digging and I just realized that the 'admin' on the forum who told me this is actually the Lead Developer & Maintainer Jasem Mutlaq .... which also explain the cryptic command ppa:mutlaqja/ppa

As you may have read earlier, Mint was my prefered choice but I could not add the repository to get Kstars installed as version ubuntu 14.4 is not 'supported' even though it says otherwise on INDI website Now there is good news as there has been an annoucement that Linux Mint 18 "Sarah," will be based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), so there is hope as it is expected to be released later this year. " Mint 18 "Sarah," which will be available in a Beta form in early June for early adopters and public beta testers. The final release of Linux Mint 18 will ship in the coming months, most probably in July or early August, but there's no exact date set yet." I'll try the Beta version to make sure I can install Kstars and Ekos properly. If I can, then Mint will be the prefered platform for me Another thing to consider is that Kstars/Ekos works only on KDE

And there is one major thing that I always forget to mention when talking about Linux in general is that when you update your system, you update EVERYTHING on it. No more visiting a bunch of website and keeping tabs on which version you have and which is current. In my case I just need to run this: sudo apt-get update that's it! Eveything is updated at once to the latest version availlable... less time spend managing your system, more time spent imaging

Short report: WOW ! Long report: I've downloaded and compared a bunch of Ubuntu flavors. Not that I am advocating for a particular one but I had to start somewhere OS installation I finally settled on Lubuntu which is a lightweight variant of Ubuntu. It is popular with PC and laptop users running on low-spec hardware. the interface is minimal but still nice (Win95 look) (1) install is next-next-next type. Took 10 minutes, no brainer. Total disk space used for OS+Kstars (which includes Ekos)+Catalogs+Drivers .... 7GB (2) once installed I just ran 2 simple commands to add a repository (an online location where you obtain patches and software from) and 1 command to install the drivers + kstars.... realllllly simple stuff What do I get for my troubles ? * Kstars (a kind of Carte Du Ciel/Stellarium) I could still install Carte Du Ciel and/or Stellarium if I wish to do so * I was looking for Ekos and learned that I had to actually go open Kstars > tools > and launch Ekos from there Q: if Kstars is Carte Du Ciel, what is Ekos ? A: it is the graphical client used to control the devices exposed by INDI Q: ok, so what can I do with this graphical interface ? A: Control your telescope, CCD (& DSLRs), filter wheel, focuser, guider, adaptive optics unit, and any INDI-compatible auxiliary device from Ekos. - Built-in native Auto Guiding with support for automatic dithering between exposures and support for Adaptive Optics devices in addition to traditional guiders. Save time by using existing dark frames in the dark files library. - Extremely accurate GOTOs using astrometry.net solver (both Online and Offline solvers supported). - Load & Slew: Load a FITS image, slew to solved coordinates, and center the mount on the exact image coordinates in order to get the same desired frame. - Measure & Correct Polar Alignment errors using astromety.net solver. - Completely automated scheduler to control all your observatory equipment, select the best targets for imaging given current conditions and constraints, monitor weather conditions, and capture your data while you are away! - Auto and manual focus modes using Half-Flux-Radius (HFR) method. - Automated unattended meridian flip. Ekos performs post meridian flip alignment, calibration, and guiding to resume the capture session. - Automatic focus between exposures when a user-configurable HFR limit is exceeded. - Powerful sequence queue for batch capture of images with optional prefixes, timestamps, filter wheel selection, and much more! - Automatic flat field capture, just set the desired ADU and let Ekos does the rest! - Automatic abort and resumption of exposure tasks if guiding errors exceed a user-configurable value. - Support for dome slaving. - Complete integration with KStars Observation Planner and SkyMap In other words, using this slick interface I can slew, PA, guide, platesolve, sequence, focus, control filter wheel, dither, dome control. All this can be done remotely from another OSX/Windows or Linux machine. Next step is to install Pixinsight and openPHD (this is not required as you can choose to either use the guiding in Ekos or an external guiding software like PHD) and test the whole system in a live environment. I am not saying that all is perfect but so far, the ease of use and ease of installation plus what I get in return (a tightly integrated open source system) is worth my trouble... Now, let me be clear, a lot of commercial software out there can do this, maybe even be better at it, so I am not trying to say that this is the be-all and end-all of astronomy software and I may be overenthusiastic ...let see what happens from here

Houuuu ! please let us know of the progress in this thread or pm me so I can update this. I see that there are a lot of focuser already supported (shoestring, robofocus, JMI, etc) so it would be a shame if HitecAstro was not in the near future.

I agree. Unfortunatly when following the procedure to add the packages, it fails and this was the explanation provided by the admin (Mint is too old) which is a shame ... I've downloaded 3 versions of ubuntu ( MATE / Lubuntu / Kubuntu, I may even try Fedora) as I have a lot of time on my hands In any case, the more I dig into this, the more I am hopeful that I can make a smooth transition. I see so many doors opening with Raspberry PI, web interface/server control, Android/IOS ... Good times !

From uname -a and documentation, Linux Mint 17.3 is based on Ubuntu 14.04 (kernel v3.13). The current release is 16.04 (kernel v4.4) 14.04 Trusty Tahr 3.13 14.10 Utopic Unicorn 3.16 15.04 Vivid Vervet 3.19 15.10 Wily Werewolf 4.2 16.04 Xenial Xerus 4.4 I pointed out to the admin that the installation page does say : "INDI Library is available for Ubuntu 14.04 and higher." which is misleading to say the least ... I was so happy to see that Mint was supported... it is not.

I've downloaded both and will try which one looks best That is such a shame as Mint Linux was quite nice, best interface (for my taste) I've come across so far.

ho the humanity ! INDI Forum Admin : "I think I would have to add a warning NOT to use Mint since it's pretty old compared to Ubuntu. It's recommended to download Kubuntu/Ubuntu 16.04 and then you won't have problems with the PPA"

I did attend a 3 day training for Pixinsight as the learning curve can be a bit steep. I was fortunate enough of being completely new to image processing so I did not have to get rid of photoshop mindsets There are a lot of tutorial for PI and once you understand the philosophy of it, it is a joy to work with. Very powerful.

I am taking the plunge ! I got a spare laptop with Win7 on it, I'll install Linux Mint (interface closer to Windows... baby steps) and see if I can install the INDI stuff. Since Ubuntu is supported, I would guess that Mint would also work even thought it is not explicitely listed in the list of platform. ... I'll report on this.

I don't do mosaics, but maybe you could try this out and let us know http://indilib.org/support/tutorials/155-create-super-mosaics-with-ekos.html

I agree that it can be a bit scary. It does take a new mindset and it can be frustrating at times. It's like throwing out old slippers and putting on new ones... it hurts for a while

I feel a bit foolish now ! While researching all this and following links posted by members above, I see that there is already something out there that solves all my needs. Just take a look at http://indilib.org/ Runs on: Preconfigured Virtual machine (Kubuntu) Ubuntu Fedora Geentoo Android Raspberry PI Supports lots of devices (Filter Wheels, CCDs, Domes, Focuser, etc) Guiding with PHD, plate solving with astrometry.net Using Ekos solves the APT/BYEOS need and AstroTortilla. http://indilib.org/about/ekos.html My only remaining issue is the HitecDCfocus ...

Ok I did not know this. I was under the impression that EQMOD would only work with ASCOM ! That is good news for me as I really like EQMOD and have an EQDIRECT cable Regarding post processing software running on Linux (FreeBSD and Linux), Pixinsight is my prefered choice. The fact that they want to enter the hardware control game using INDI could help some of us transition to Linux easily PI Official statement: "We are excited to announce the release of a new PixInsight module: INDIClient, an open-source, multiplatform INDI client available on FreeBSD, Linux, OS X, and Windows. The new module is now being distributed as an official update for the latest PixInsight 1.8.4 versions. " To summarize, I could be moving to Linux and keep using natively (no WINE): EQMOD (Mount control) Pixinsight (Image Processing) oaCapture (Planetary imaging) PHD (Guiding) Carte Du Ciel / Stellarium / Virtual Moon Atlas Still no replacement for: HitecDCfocus (there is a list of INDI drivers here, but nothing on HitecAstro) AstroTortilla (plate solving) BYEOS (APT) style DSLR control Remember that the goal is to make a smooth transition away from Windows. I did "the old switcheroo" on my wife a couple of years ago, I got her to use Firefox and LibreOffice ... once she got used to it, I told her that I was going to upgrade the OS without telling her anything more. I installed OpenSuSE and never got any negative comments since then. If the tools are the same, most people won't care about the underlying OS.

And I know that 2 of those alternative also have their dev active on this forum (oaCapture and Siril)

I'll keep that in mind. Note that I was talking about Linux being 'astro ready' for Windows user who want to make the switch in the most transparent way possible. Just the fact that ASCOM and EQMOD are not cross-platform can be quite a turn off for some.

Yes, this thread is in no way distro specific, I am not pushing for 'Astro Distro'. On the contrary, let's list what is working on Linux in general and what can we use as replacement (there may not be any for some) and see where this leads us. The conclusion of this thread could very well be... Linux is not ready yet.

Here is what I got so far: Stellarium Cartes du Ciel Iris PixInsight Virtual Moon Atlas You can build PHD2 for Linux. (I admit I would rather have it run natively) Regarding hardware: here is a list of supported hardware from "Distro Astro"