Moving to Linux - What works and alternatives

[Dazzyt66]

4 minutes ago, discardedastro said:

Yep - I normally just have KStars sat on the graph view so I can keep an eye on things. Once I've finished writing this Rust INDI lib I'm hacking away at (or give up and fix some of the pure-Python ones) I do want to hook up a watchdog program that can alert me if imaging or the mount stops - I've had one too many kstars crashes on overnight imaging sessions!

Sounds good! I'm just looking into Python myself in case I decide to do some stuff of my own. Next on my agenda is to build my own auto focuser using the RPI stepper HAT (which means I wont need to go outside at all) - it seems pretty straightforward apart from the fact I want to use it on my MAK 150 - which may take a bit of thinking about from a purely engineering perspective! 🤔

[Dazzyt66]

24 minutes ago, Dazzyt66 said:

Sounds good! I'm just looking into Python myself in case I decide to do some stuff of my own. Next on my agenda is to build my own auto focuser using the RPI stepper HAT (which means I wont need to go outside at all) - it seems pretty straightforward apart from the fact I want to use it on my MAK 150 - which may take a bit of thinking about from a purely engineering perspective! 🤔

To get back to the original purpose of this thread, my move to Linux Ubuntu has been pretty painless. Works fine with my RPI Astroberry setup which I had working on my Mac previously. For processing I have Siril and Gimp. Planetarium is Kstars (as I only use it for navigation) with Stellarium also running if I want to do more. I also use SkySafari running with Indi/Kstars if I want. I haven’t gone down the route of expensive processing package purchases because, quite honestly, I do the imaging for fun rather than trying to create a masterpiece 😊. Hope this helps any newbies looking to do same and bringing the thread up to date 😊

So, the total cost for this solution is minimal (in Astro terms) even with the hardware and the eqmod cable - and now I’m comfortably using Astroberry I’ll be making a contribution to that too 😊

Edited April 11, 2021 by Dazzyt66