Ekos VM 1.0 Beta Released!

[knro]

I'm glad to announce the first release of Ekos VM 1.0 Beta. Ekos VM is a virtual machine based upon Kubuntu 13.10. It Includes KStars, Ekos, and INDI Library including all 3rd party drivers. The VM includes the latest bleeding edge releases of Ekos & INDI, and can easily be updated whenever new builds of the software are available. This virtual machine is intended for new INDI users who want take a look to this software without the work of installing it in his own system or for users of other operating systems not supported by INDI. The virtual machine was created with VirtualBox but it is stored in the Open Virtualitzation Alliance (OVA) format so it can be used with different virtualization software.

Ekos is a tool that aims to provide amateur astronomers using Linux with a single, consistent, and extensible framework to perform astrophotography tasks. This includes highly accurate GOTOs using astrometry solver, ability to measure and correct polar alignment errors , auto-focus & auto-guide capabilities, field framing, and advanced acquisition of of images with filter wheel support. Ekos is shipped with KStars. The latest Ekos release is in KDE 4.12.

Features:

• Extremely accurate GOTOs.
• Measure & Correct Polar Alignment errors using astromety.net solver.
• Auto and manual focus modes using Half-Flux-Radius (HFR) method.
• Auto guiding.
• Batch capture of images with optional prefixes, timestamps, and filter wheel selection.
• Integrate with all INDI native devices (Most popular Telescopes, CCDs, Filter wheels, and focusers are well supported).

Any feedback on Ekos VM 1.0 Beta is appreciated! :-)

[rkc]

I've been trying the Ekos VM, with mixed results.

Generally it's been convenient and easy to use. However, I'm getting interference on the images captured using the sx_ccd driver that I DON'T get when capturing by other methods - I suspect there are some timing issues caused by fact that the USP traffic has to go through the host operating system on the way. I may still use the Ekos VM, but use a remote indi server (on Raspberry Pi) which seems to avoid the problem. Unfortunately the delays involved in transferring images from Pi over network make it a little tricky for focussing.

I've also been unable to get any astrometry to work - it just crashes as soon as I try. Perhaps because I hadn't connected a scope so it had no idea of the approx coordinates to start from?

[Gonzo]

Just downloaded and updated the VM, so far so good. Almost as fast as running it on my Debian laptop, running the VM on my mac mini under VirtualBox.

[Gasman]

I`m getting along nicely with Ekos now I know what I`m doing with it. Using ST4 connection my Lodestar seems to guide much better than It ever did with Maxim, maybe I should have used the ST4 connections in Maxim instead of eqmod??. Just a query though - I`m running Ekos on an old desktop in my obs which has a serial port, would I be better using this a direct serial to serial lead from my EQ6 to the pc instead of the eqmod serial/usb lead?

Steve

[calli]

I just tried EKOS/INDI first in a virtual machine. Had some crashes of the gphoto driver which I used for my Nikon D5100. Ok, could have been because of the virtual USB Port pass though thingy ;-)

Then I put a Kubuntu on a USB3 stick and bootet this. Played with the simulators (Telescope, CCD, Focusser) and got a idea how powerfull EKOS is. Also got Astrometry.net solver working locally.

Then I tried the real hardware. However I gave up quite soon, the gphoto crashes where as frequent as in the VM. At least I could try more because I don't had to boot every time that crash occours. Also the live preview is just a joke compared with digiCamControl or even DSLRDashboard on Android. Quite useless (You can Stop it and save an image THATS IT) and badly integrated. And causes crashes itself.

What finally made me give up is that I was not able to capture and solve a single image in Astrometry.net even when the normal capture worked before multiple times this function crashes the gphoto driver.

So for me and my hardware not usable. Will also cost too much time to report bugs (sorry, I use and support OS software much in other fields).

I also wonder if it would work with my NexStarSLT because I am not sure it has a sync command.

Carsten