Stuart1971

So can you explain to me a bit more about Ascom remote, or Alpaca, as I am a bit confused on what it actually does or is, am I correct in thinking that it can work like current INdI system where I could have a small low powered PC on the mount with Alpaca installed with drivers for my kit, and remote to that from a separate windows PC with, say NINA running on it and control my set up that way…? Or am I way off….

That all sounds just so complicated…. An RPI on the mount with INdI installed, Kstars / Ekos on the windows PC indoors, and a perfect wireless set up and full control of your kit…and any other windows software you need….👍🏼

Where did you purchase from, as i am keen on one of these cameras…?

I don’t think the camera itself is a gamble at all…just wish that we did not have to buy it direct from China, I have bought loads from Aliexpress, and never had an issue, but never spent more than about £60, to spend this much would concern me, more from a delivery and transit point of view, and in what condition it works turn up in, if at all…. If a U.K. supplier bought these in bulk, and sold them here, they would do very well indeed..and surprised it’s not been done, and I don’t mean like Altair have done by adding there own branding plus another £600 to the price, I mean selling for a fair profit and leaving the Risingcam name on them…

Risingcam / Touptek are one of the original manufactures of this camera, and Altair Astro and Omegon and other dealers use this camera with there own name on it, other than Touptek it’s only ASI and QHY that build there own cameras with this sensor…so don’t think you would go wrong with the risingcam version… I certainly would but it rather than the Altair version which is almost double the price for just having Altair Astro etched on the side….👍🏼

No, the flash procedure can only be done on windows XP or windows 7, It will NOT work on windows 10

No, I don’t think he is, but I spoke to him yesterday, and he said it was delayed due to supply issues….☹️

No not as yet, it’s been delayed due to supply issues apparently….☹️

Oh, and I also bought a new motherboard for my EQ8 mount as that was the only thing I had not changed, but still the same, so £150 wasted…..So absolutely everything has been changed and still the same issue on windows and RPI….☹️

I too hate all things windows, and have been using Stellarmate on the RPI for a few years, but as of late I too find it a nightmare to use and have had to give up and move back to NINA on windows, which just works flawlessly every time…. It started for me about four months ago when my EQ8 mount just stopped connection via EQMOD when it had always worked fine, and believe me I have tried everything to solve the issue, changed everything right down to swapping out the RPI for a mini PC with Ubuntu 20.04 and yet still it just would not connect, the author of Stellarmate Jasem, spent a good few hours over teamviewer on my system and too gave up with no solution…. what was and is really strange is that my mount would not connect at all with any of my 4 EQMOD cables on the RPI, neither would it connect on my MINI PC, with Ubuntu 20.04, but when I swapped to NINA, it still would not connect to that with any of the cables on the MINI PC, but worked fine with all four cables on my windows laptop…..🤔🤔🤔 so if anyone can shed some light…. I ended up having to use NINA on the mini PC with an EQMOD Bluetooth adapter (this would not work on RPI) as that’s the only way it would connect…so if that ever fails I am in a mess, so would really like to sort the issue, the fact that it’s the same on a windows PC as it was on the RPI is really odd…. It all just started to get very buggy, even the stable releases, I personally think there is too much emphasis on adding new features before the ones they have work properly and constantly, I told Jasem this, but fell on deaf ears…

I switched to affinity some time ago, as it’s an All in one package, as with the Astro Tools that the newer versions come with it will do everything from stacking and calibration to final tweaking, and the price is excellent too….👍🏼

Well actually, you are probably correct, sorry my mistake, now you pointed it out I agree with you….👍🏼

6 hours of 5 min subs, says in OP….👍🏼

Fantastic image…I assume that is with the ASI 2600…?

The downside of the ASIair is you are limited to ASI cameras only for guiding, so there is only a couple really to choose from….have you considered Astroberry or Stellarmate, these are very music the same as the ASIair, SM also has an app to use on a tablet, but does cost about $49 for the OS and then another £80 for the raspberry PI, and case…but Astroberry is free, but with no app…so with that just the RPI to purchase….👍🏼

Flat frames are a snapshot of the imaging train to show all the imperfections, like dust and any vignetting, so as long as nothing has moved from one session to another, so it’s all in the exact position it was when the flat frames were taken, then yes, but if anything has moved, even the focus then no…👍🏼

You don’t need to use Facebook to use the messenger app….👍🏼

They are not good at all, at answering emails or the phone, …and I mean “not good”….😉 Try Facebook messenger, that seems to work….

Yes, two of each…👍🏼 the mini PC only has USB 3 🤔

Well, it’s not just Linux, as they don’t work on my mini PC with windows 10 either, only on the laptop with windows 10… also it’s widely known that a powered USB hub is needed with RPI’s as the USB power is not great, hence why I tried with and without one, but same results… I can assure you it’s not a Cable, Mount, INDI, EQMOD, windows, or Linux issue, this I can be sure now….it must be USB issue on both the RPI’s and the Mini PC…🤔🤔

Just to expand a bit more, on windows and in INdI, the cables are recognised and COM ports are created and assigned at system level, it’s the communication that’s lacking….I use a serial port test software on both and there is no response from the created serial COM ports if I input :e1 into the tester it should send back the mount firmware code, but I get nothing…this is s sure sign that the issue is with either the cables or USB of some sort, BUT as I said before all 4 cables work on my windows 10 laptop which has just 1 USB 3 port….

I think after finding out now that they work on my laptop with windows and NINA, but not on any RPI’s or mu Intel NUC, it must be a USB issue…..?? The EQMOD cables I have are a Lynx one from FLO, a cheap FTDI one from China and a home made one with FTDI chipset and a bought one with prolific chipset, so a range of different ones

Oh yes forgot to mention I have the Pegasus UPB V2 and tried all cables in that as that’s how it used to work, and still the same….to be honest I plug everything into that and not direct to the PI’s for power reasons….but it made no difference either way…

Yes I tried this PC direct mode on my windows PC, as I wanted to update the firmware on the board, and that worked fine, but still made no difference, but it would not work on INdI with the Synscan driver, so I conclude from that it’s not EQMOD issue but more like a USB one, oh and yes, after you said, I tried, and to make things even more complicated, all 4 EQMOD cables work on my windows Linx tablet / laptop, with NINA…but not on mini PC or nay RPI’s…. so what does that tell us….? Its a USB issue..?? 🤔🤔🤔

I have, see the post I just posted….tried 4 different RPI’s and a mini PC with Ubuntu…