AstroPhil

Well I just pulled the trigger on an Atik 460EX mono.... and am looking foward to getting into Narrowband in due course!

My first Frac was a ZS71 and I still use it a lot (my dedicated imaging rig with the reducer/flattener). Never used the Evostar but they get good reviews as well. Tough choice!

Hello Wim,

Thanks for the quick and super helpful reply - this sounds great. I agree that the indiduino setup looked rather tricky, I spent a while reading up on it and got nowhere so I'll try the Weather Watcher. The station I came up with uses the Arduino MKR1010 and a Ethernet shield and already posts the data to a simple webserver, so it sounds like it should be easy to port to the INDI. Thanks alot!

P.S. The ESP32 looks interesting... I actually just ordered on to play with as well.

On 01/08/2019 at 10:04, wimvb said:

Hooking up to INDI was easy. First I looked at several protocols from commercial weather stations, but none seemed to fit. Fortunately, there is already the Arduino Meteostation (indiduino). I just had to replace a few header files (the original meteostation uses Adafruit components, I use SparkFun), and I also simplified some of the code (sky temperature correction, dew point calculation). Uploaded the firmware and connected the Arduino to my Rock64 sbc. Then started up INDI with the Arduino Meteostation driver and telescope/ccd simulators. That's it. Here's the first result.

Now I just need to reexamine the firmware code to see if I missed anything, but so far, so good.

Hi @wimvb

I've been following this, and the thread of @Gina, with huge interest, so much so that I was even inspired (lockdown project anyone!!) so make a similar weather station. In my case I don't have an observatory so it's not used for automation. At the moment the Arduino is plugged into a Pi housed on my flat roof (with an all-sky cam running over stellarmate and a wired network).

I'd be keen to hear more about exactly how you integrated the Arduino into INDI? Is it as simple as just plugging it in via USB? In which case I could just plug it directly into my imaging rig (which has another Pi/Stellarmate) but I wonder if there's any way to connect the imaging rig profile to the weatherstation over a network connection? (save me moving it!). Spent hours last night googling for ideas but without much sucess.

Any thoughts/ideas?

Cheers!

Finally aquired a hard case for the new 'portable' setup...

3.5mm TV Nagler... I bought it for the Mars approach last year and use it mostly for Lunar now, perhaps Venus occasionally...

Sucess here as well - using my Opticron 8x32's just a few moments ago. Fair bit of light pollution, but despite that, diffuse tail and a compact core both very obvious. Super nice!

Bit more pricey, but the WO equivalent is an option I have my eye on myself:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/william-optics/william-optics-zenithstar-126-apo-telescope.html

How did I miss this news (well, house move I guess ;-) partly to blame!). This is epic, brilliant. Received my Tak from Ian and lots of advice. This'll be a great team I just know it.....

On 22/04/2020 at 09:14, AngryDonkey said:

Hi Phil,

I just released an update to AllSkEye which supports Indigo server. The idea is to use a Raspberry Pi at the camera end running an Indigo server (there is a ready made indigo sky image which you can install) taking the pictures. Using the indigo camera option in AllskEye you can now connect to the indigo server and control the camera. You still need a Windows pc to run AllSkEye but it can be located anywhere as long as it's connected to the same network.

There is more info here: http://www.indigo-astronomy.org

Kind regards,

Mike

 

Hi Mike, sounds great - I have the new RPi4 on order anyway (just for trying out in my locked-down state!) so I'll gve this a go for sure, Cheers!

Great idea... I'll give that a go (I already have a stellarmate so am familiar with KStars/Ekos... can't think why that option didn't occur to me haha!!).

Hi all,

Hopefully this is the right area for this question if not, my apologies!

After our move to London I've re-set up an all sky camera on the roof. Despite the light pollution it's actually surprisingly good! The only easy way I found to avoid USB issues (as well as allow dew heater control and other things) was to mount one of these "mini PC's" in an IP67/68 box out there as well, and use that to control the camera PC via temviewer (I've managed to run an ethernet cable via an old satellite TV trunking so connectivity is good). However, the PC is incredibly slow (an atom powered 'monster' no less). I was thinking of an R Pi 4 based updgrade - but I cannot find much in the way of software to control a camera (SX Superstar based). Does anyone have an recomendations for Linux (Umbuntu Mate, say?) based capture software (such as Sharpcap /  Firecap) that might suit? 

Thanks!

I use one of these: Netgear range extender

A cable will always trump wireless, especially with regards to latency and interference, but one of these can either bridge the wifi from the BT-supplied (or the ISP of your choice) hub to a point close to your end point (window facing the garden/Obsy?) Or plug it into a port via a cat5 cable and likewise place it as close as you can to the observatory. I use it in bridge mode and it is fine. You can also select either the 5GHz or 2GHz bands (or both). The 5GHz band is newer, has a higher theoretical bandwidth, and is a less congested band for interference. But it's easier to block (smaller wavelength)... 

I'm thinking about a CMOS as well - partly as I cannot justify the expense of the large format CCD equivalents, but would like a larger image. Currently trying to weigh up the Atik horizon vs. the ASI 1600 (mono in both cases)... I never heard about microlensing before. Fascinating stuff.

Here's my mongrel of a Newt - an OLD orion optics (UK) 8" - modded with a BC&F mirror cell and upgraded focuser (don't remember where from!). Orion finder, Vixen SP mount, and Berlebach tripod...