Raspberry Pi and Astronomy

[wimvb]

The indi server and hardware drivers are mostly ok, I think. The ASI driver is probably under development. For my setup, it is probably the client that isn't ready yet. I haven't tried Ekos yet, may install that on my (Win 7) laptop in a virtualbox. ATM it's raining again and the mount is in my shed, so no testing for the next couple of days/nights.

[JamesF]

ZWO have had drivers for the ARM processors for quite some time, so I wouldn't have expected problems with the ASI cameras there.

James

[psamathe]

I fing the Indi Web Manager http://indilib.org/support/tutorials/162-indi-web-manager.html very useful when running the RPi headless - far far easier than using SSH and the command line to start the Indi Server.  Plus it in effect lists the drivers available on the RPi.

Very easy and straightforward to install and load (remember to do the bit in the explanation to change config files to auto-start it).

Ian

[psamathe]

3 hours ago, Gina said:

That was rather a long post for a summary!  So far it looks like :-

1. RPi 3 connected to mount with HitecAstro USB-to-serial adapter plugged into USB port on RPi 3
2. Indi server on RPi 3 - can use either Ubuntu MATE or Raspbian
3. Ekos on Linux Mint (or other Linux distro) on laptop or desktop.
4. I want to control the RPi 3 over WiFi as a headless system

I wonder if someone could give me a simple explanation of how to proceed, please.  I'm quite happy to copy and paste command lines.

Re: 2 I stuck with Raspbian as that is what I started with.  Considered switching to Ubuntu Mate then wondered why when Raspbian seems to work and I'm really only interested in the Indi Server, not what it is running on (i.e. as it was working fine on Raspbian, if it aint broke don't fix it).

Unsure if I've got the question on what you are after but:

Setup RPi and connect to WiFi/network (can be done from Raspbian GUI)
Follow the Indi instructions on installing Indi server on RPi.
I strongly recommend the Indi Web Manager (see my post above)
Install Kstars/Ekos on the client
Start the Indi Server (using Indi Web Manager which specifies which drivers you want)
Start Kstars/Ekos and connect to Indi Server on RPi
Your running! (and problems then there is a lot of info from the Ekos logging/debug options from the Indi Control Panel)

Then use and decide where you want to go with regard to other clients, hardware, etc. (that is the nice thing about IndiServer/Kstars/Ekos being free)

Note that there are simulator drivers for most things which means your Indi Server does not even need to be connected to real hardware for you to play/test.  simulators are pretty good.  Depending on how far you take playing with the similators you might want to download the Guide starts catalogues to get a better simulation

sudo apt-get install gsc

Really a matter of having a play.

If you want to start plate solving, and you want to use local solving you will need some massive downloads (given your slow internet connection - probably many nights) http://indilib.org/about/ekos/alignment-module.html (but you either do the downloads using a slow internet connection of you use it online and have a slow plate solving as you have a slow upload of your images to be "solved".

You may come across a few hiccups but rather than try and foresee those hiccups and answer all potential problems, maybe have a play and ask when you get stuck.

again, the simulators are excellent as they allow you to eliminate a load of potential problems and get things working incrementally (i.e. if it works with the simulators and not with your mount/camera/etc. then you have already narrowed down the problem a lot.

Do ask (others here probably know far more than me as I'm a novice) but also there are lots of answers on the Indi site and in their forum - worth a good search.  I did on one occasion ask a question on their forum and they were very very helpful and responsive (as I was facing a big problem - which turned out to be a real weirdo the developers were not aware of).

Ian

[Gina]

Thanks very much Ian - that looks very helpful   I'll go through it tomorrow - doubt I could get my head round it tonight

[Gina]

Thanks Wim and James for your replies

[Gina]

We will be getting ultrafast broadband in this area later (maybe around Christmas time) with fibre cable right into the home and a speed of up to 1000Mbps both up and down.  Now that is super FAST!!   Trouble is I want it NOW not in several months time but at least it's coming   Best I've done recently is 2.4Mbps.  A GB file takes an hour to download at that speed.

[JamesF]

I dream of 2.4Mb/s.  Right now I'm not even managing 2Mb/s

I leave large downloads to run overnight .  OSX updates often run to several gigabytes...

James

[psamathe]

7 minutes ago, Gina said:

We will be getting ultrafast broadband in this area later (maybe around Christmas time) with fibre cable right into the home and a speed of up to 1000Mbps both up and down.  Now that is super FAST!!   Trouble is I want it NOW not in several months time but at least it's coming   Best I've done recently is 2.4Mbps.  A GB file takes an hour to download at that speed.

Does your local library have superfast broadband.  If they do, and if you want to download the plate solving files for local plate solving, maybe some time spent in the local library (my own local library allows you to use theirWiFi & internet free (provided you are registered as a library user)).

Ian

[Gina]

James, I've only been getting 2.4Mbps recently and not all the time.

Ian, no the library in the nearest town does not have any sort of fast broadband.  The Blackdown Hills has been chosen by a company that concentrates on rural ultrafast broadband using underground fibre cable direct to the home/premises, unlike BT who have fibre to cabinet and then copper wires mainly on poles to the home/premises.  Currently we have copper wires all the way from the local exchange.

[Marci]

Contact your nearest secondary school or college - ask for their head of Physics or Computer Science, explain what you're doing, then see if they can download for you. Most edu establishments have a 10mb-100mb/s synchronous link to JANET via GfL & local council, and will be able to download it in minutes n' chuck on a USB stick.

[Gina]

16 hours ago, JamesF said:

I dream of 2.4Mb/s.  Right now I'm not even managing 2Mb/s

I leave large downloads to run overnight .  OSX updates often run to several gigabytes...

James

You too may be able to get ultrafast broadband within a year, James, as the Gigaclear ultrafast broadband roll-out includes Wiveliscombe.  More information see :- Blackdown Hills Ultrafast Broadband and B4RDS (fast Broadband for Rural Devon and it's starting here Upottery.  If you scroll down you should see some of my offerings

Here is a map of the areas they are covering.

[Gina]

Looks like I have the capture software sorted out.  oacapture is working on my RPi 3 running Raspbian with both the ASI178MM and the ASI1600MM-Cool.

[wimvb]

When will this rat race ever end? More powerfull computers leads to an increase in software size, which necessitates faster internet connections, which (when not fast enough) leads to longer waiting times ...

Remember the "good old days" when Lotus 123 was programmed in machine code, and the not so "good old days" when AutoDesks autocad came on 23 floppy disks. (still "only" about 50 MB!)

[wimvb]

6 minutes ago, Gina said:

Looks like I have the capture software sorted out.  oacapture is working on my RPi 3 running Raspbian with both the ASI178MM and the ASI1600MM-Cool.

No conflict on the client side? I vaguely remember someone complaining about this on the zwo user forum a few months ago.

[Gina]

What amazes me is that the RPi 3 runs faster than my main desktop   Maybe due to the OS used.

[Gina]

I haven't yet set up remote control.

[Marci]

Gina - have you spotted astroberry? Full IndiLib for Raspberry Pi GPIO - running steppers direct from GPIO pins mapped as focuser etc - https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry

Info / support looks to be via it's forum thread at http://indilib.org/forum/general/699-astroberry-initial-release.html (altho Astroberry has been replaced by a PiFace module based setup now - see https://github.com/rkaczorek/astroberry-piface) 

[Gina]

Thank you for that Marci - looks very useful - I'll check it out

[D4N]

I found I had difficulty with timeouts when I tried this with my RPi2, admittedly that was with a DSLR though so the files were massive but it made it unworkable.  The RPi has no problem capturing images locally, it was just when it was trying to send them over wifi to an indi client that it would time out.

The guiding really should be local as well, the danger is the guiding getting interrupted due to network traffic or high load on the RPi, I think the RPi only has one USB bus so it is easy to overload.

I think for me the ideal situation would be one RPi running Linguider and another one doing the image capture / mount control / focusing.

 

I make my RPi's headless as the first thing I do with them as I like to control them from my iPad.  VNC works pretty well but I have found that  nomachine works better.

 

If you are using Ubuntu mate be aware that there is no swap file setup by default, it is easy to run out of memory when you only have 1gb.

 

I'm nearly finished with my super portable wide field setup now, just need to get the RPi to create its own wifi network so that I can control it away from home.

[Crose01]

I'm eating for these new LattePanda Windows10  devices come onto the scene. That way I can use the ASCOM and INDI together.

[ringz]

the Lattepanda boards do look interesting but the higher spec devices don't come with windows 10 as standard. the 4Gb memory breaks Microsofts' rules about anything more than 2Gb and you aren't allowed to use the free version of windows. It's adds a lot to the cost if you include windows for the 4Gb model.

[wimvb]

I agree that guiding is best done on a dedicated RPi.

If you get a SD card with enough space, you can also store images locally and transfer them later. The only time you'd want/need to download images is during set up, focusing, etc.

RPis are cheap, so having dedicated RPis is probably safest. If one would fail, you'd still have most processes unaffected.

[psamathe]

23 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I agree that guiding is best done on a dedicated RPi.

If you get a SD card with enough space, you can also store images locally and transfer them later. The only time you'd want/need to download images is during set up, focusing, etc.

RPis are cheap, so having dedicated RPis is probably safest. If one would fail, you'd still have most processes unaffected.

I have read something about "Rapid Guide" in Indi - where the Indi drivers do the processing to select/read the position of the guide star and only pass back the position to the client (rather than the guide camera entire images).  This would help where Wi-fi/network bandwidth is an issue but not if USB bandwidth is a problem.

But like you say, RPis are cheap so if USB bandwidth is a problem a 2nd RPi is easy - given the architecture of the Indi server allowing drivers to be distributed/daisy chained.  I am impressed with the architecture Indi had adopted in this regard.

Ian

[Gina]

Yes, I'm quite prepared to use two RPis or more and to capture and store on micro SD for transfer later.  You can get quite a lot of 32MB image files on a 64GB micro SD, in addition to OS and software.   I now have 3 RPi 3s and one RPi 2.  I'm starting a collection