Thoughts on which imaging rigs to concentrate on

[Gina]

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 016: ID 03c3:1f01  
Bus 001 Device 015: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB-Serial adapter
Bus 001 Device 014: ID 03c3:1603  
Bus 001 Device 013: ID 04b4:6572 Cypress Semiconductor Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 011: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 

 

[Gina]

Another image.  Screenshot from KStars FITS Viewer.  10s gain 300.  I estimate download time as 4s so that's reasonable.

[Gina]

Fixed the EFW mini driver problem   Googled and found indi_asi_wheel added that to the indiserver command and it's now there in KStars

[Gina]

Filters labelled with what they are

[Gina]

I like this system   Set the temperature and it cools the camera to the set temperature before starting the image capture.  Also, it makes a directory for each filter to put the image files in - better than just putting the info in the filename.  OTOH it doesn't save the temperature in the filename like the Windows stuff does - I might have missed something though.  Lots to learn about KStars/Ekos/INDI

[Gina]

Just had a look outside and the sky's clear - oh well - the imaging rig can't be in two places at once and I'm working on it

[Gina]

Sorted out so far :-

1. Image capture
2. camera cooling
3. filter wheel
4. mount connection

Still to do :-

1. See how KStars works with star chart etc.
2. Focussing system
3. Rotation system
4. Maybe zoom lens

I already have the "bones" of the focussing system.  Bipolar converted 28BYJ-48 stepper motor, RPi HAT with stepper driver, Astroberry Focuser driver for INDI.  This was tested on an earlier all sky camera but found unsuitable for that application.

Sections 3. and 4. will need INDI drivers either adapted form other drivers or newly written.

[Filroden]

16 minutes ago, Gina said:

Sections 3. and 4. will need INDI drivers either adapted form other drivers or newly written.

Though presumably you could set these manually in the meantime so you don't lose any clear nights?

[Gina]

Yes - though they only apply to the rotation rig and zoom lenses respectively both of which are future versions.  Currently I set the camera rotation manually by loosening the mount clamp before the imaging session and that's it for the night.  The focussing is currently handled by an Arduino Nano connected to a Windows PC and controlled by an MS Visual Basic GUI on the Windows machine which in turn is accessed with TeamViewer..

I just have to find the little stepper motor I modified and equipped with a connector that fits the connector on the RPi HAT.  Then it's just a matter of plugging the HAT onto the RPi.  Software-wise I still need to install the Astroberry INDI driver as it isn't included in the libindi distribution.

I could use a "bodge" for the rotator using an Arduino Nano to handle the rotation stepper motor.  On the INDI/RPi side I could use the Astroberry Board driver which controls 4 GPIO pins and sets each one on or off.  Using binary code that would give up to 16 positions for the rotator.  But the whole thing could be handled in the RPi just using Dir and Step lines to the Pololu stepper driver.  The GUI part of the driver would provide the appropriate number of radio buttons or maybe the angle in degrees.

The same system as in the paragraph above could also apply to the zoom control though the GUI could be altered to suit the particular zoom lens used.  I've done this sort of GUI design in the past using programming languages such as VB, Pascal, Python etc. both using a visual design system and direct coding.  The INDI drivers would need the latter I would think and I shall be looking into the language involved in due course.  It doesn't look like anything I have used in the past but I expect I can learn

[Gina]

Found the modified little stepper motor.  Will need to add a buck converter to convert my 13.8v observatory power supply to 5.1v for the RPi before it's ready for deployment - plus fuses etc.  In software I need to install the BCM chip driver to use the GPIO followed by the Astroberry INDI drivers.  Progress today is likely to be slow as I'm still suffering badly from this dreaded cold

[Gina]

Googling has produced the following code for installing the BCM2835 driver.

wget http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz;
tar xvfz bcm2835-1.50.tar.gz;
cd bcm2835-1.50;
./configure;
make;
sudo make install

 

[Gina]

Looking now at Astroberry drivers...

https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/files/Astroberry/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/files/latest/download?source=files

Still don't think I've got the actual file download URL to use with wget.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Stopped the download from the web page and clicked on "Direct link" giving this :-

So maybe wget https://netix.dl.sourceforgenet/indi-astroberry_1.0.4-1_armhf.deb

[Gina]

Astroberry PiFace is an upgrade to the Astroberry board and focuser (I think) and could be another possibility.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Look what I've found   RPi that I had for an earlier ASC, with HAT, Pololu stepper driver and buck converter   I can put the HAT with all the bits onto the imaging rig RPi

[Gina]

Powered up the RPi above and it worked, connected to the ASI185MC and fisheye lens. And as it already has the BCM chip and Astroberry drivers installed, I could use it as is for the main imaging rig.  The daytime colour ASC I'm planning doesn't need the Astroberry stuff so could use the RPi I've just set up for imaging instead.  Swapping them over as it were

This is the ASC image - just on the table near the window and only roughly focused as a quick test.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

I'll now plug in the ASI1600MM-C with EFW mini attached and the NEQ6 mount from the other RPi board.  Then connect 12v to the HAT and check the focus motor works.

[Gina]

I have a problem - the libindi installed is an old one and doesn't have the indi_asi_wheel driver.  Tried sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && reboot but the update didn't work so tried just sudo apt-get update and got :-

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get update
Err http://archive.raspberrypi.org jessie InRelease
  
Err http://archive.raspberrypi.org jessie Release.gpg
  Could not resolve 'archive.raspberrypi.org'
Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org jessie InRelease
  
Err http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org jessie Release.gpg
  Could not resolve 'mirrordirector.raspbian.org'
Reading package lists... Done
W: Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/dists/jessie/InRelease  

W: Failed to fetch http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/jessie/InRelease  

W: Failed to fetch http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/jessie/Release.gpg  Could not resolve 'archive.raspberrypi.org'

W: Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/dists/jessie/Release.gpg  Could not resolve 'mirrordirector.raspbian.org'

W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 

 

[Gina]

Without the repository updates the upgrade did nothing so it looks like its back to the RPi I've been setting up for imaging.  And now I think I'll crawl back into my shell...

[Marci]

wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/astroberry/files/Astroberry/Astroberry 1.0.4/indi-astroberry_1.0.4-1_armhf.deb/download?use_mirror=heanet

and then, because I suspect it will store the file as 'download?use_mirror=heanet', you'll need to move it to the correct name...

mv ~/download?use_mirror=heanet ~/indi-astroberry_1.0.4-1_armhf.deb && sudo dpkg -i ~/indi-astroberry_1.0.4-1_armhf.deb

 

Your update not working looks to be because that Pi cannot access the internet... what happens when you attempt to ping www.google.co.uk or ping www.bbc.co.uk ?

http://archive.raspberrypi.org is working fine for me, so I'd say it's an issue local to that particular Pi and it's network settings.

Re: Libindi needing upgrading on it... just download the latest libindi by hand and reinstall by hand as you did the other day. I don't think apt-get would actually pick it up to update it as it wasn't installed with apt-get to begin with.

 

Astroberry PiFace is an updated Astroberry release specifically for the PiFace HAT (altho if memory serves, the docs don't say which specific PiFace HAT, and it'll only work with the right one). If you don't have this, I'm not sure it would work anyways. Better to stick to the original Astroberry release.

Edited January 25, 2017 by Marci

[Gina]

Thanks Marci

[Gina]

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ping www.google.co.uk
ping: unknown host www.google.co.uk
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 

 

[Gina]

Tried re-installing libindi but have a problem.  Seemed to unpack and set up everything except indi-gphoto which I'm not using.  Running the indiserver command came up with errors.

pi@raspberrypi:~/libindi_1.3.1_rpi $ ls
atikccd-1.12-armhf.deb                  indi-dsi_0.1_armhf.deb           indi-fli-dbg_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb  indi-sbig-dbg_1.7_armhf.deb        libindi-data_1.3.1_all.deb
fliusb-dkms_1.3_armhf.deb               indi-dsi-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb       indi-gphoto_1.4_armhf.deb            indi-sx_1.4_armhf.deb              libindi-dev_1.3.1_armhf.deb
fliusb-source_1.3_armhf.deb             indi-duino_0.2_armhf.deb         indi-gphoto-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb        indi-sx-dbg_1.4_armhf.deb          libqhy_0.1.8_armhf.deb
indi-aagcloudwatcher_1.3_armhf.deb      indi-duino-dbg_0.2_armhf.deb     indi-gpsd_0.3_armhf.deb              libapogee3_3.0.3234_armhf.deb      libqsi7_7.2.0_armhf.deb
indi-aagcloudwatcher-dbg_1.3_armhf.deb  indi-eqmod_0.3_armhf.deb         indi-maxdomeii_1.1_armhf.deb         libapogee3-dev_3.0.3234_armhf.deb  libqsi-dbg_7.2.0_armhf.deb
indi-apogee_1.5_armhf.deb               indi-eqmod-dbg_0.3_armhf.deb     indi-maxdomeii-dbg_1.1_armhf.deb     libapogee-dbg_3.0.3234_armhf.deb   libqsi-dev_7.2.0_armhf.deb
indi-apogee-dbg_1.5_armhf.deb           indi-ffmv_0.1_armhf.deb          indi-qhy_1.6_armhf.deb               libfishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb          libsbigudrv2_2.1.1_armhf.deb
indi-asi_0.5_armhf.deb                  indi-ffmv-dbg_0.1_armhf.deb      indi-qhy-dbg_1.6_armhf.deb           libfishcamp-dev_1.0_armhf.deb      shoestring-1.3-armhf.deb
indi-asi-dbg_0.5_armhf.deb              indi-fishcamp_1.0_armhf.deb      indi-qsi_0.5.0_armhf.deb             libfli1_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb      usbfocus-0.9-armhf.deb
indi-bin_1.3.1_armhf.deb                indi-fishcamp-dbg_1.0_armhf.deb  indi-qsi-dbg_0.5.0_armhf.deb         libfli-dev_1.8.ubuntu5_armhf.deb
indi-dbg_1.3.1_armhf.deb                indi-fli_1.0.0ubuntu3_armhf.deb  indi-sbig_1.7_armhf.deb              libindi1_1.3.1_armhf.deb
pi@raspberrypi:~/libindi_1.3.1_rpi $ indiserver -m 100 -vv indi_rpifocus indi_rpibrd indi_asi_ccd indi_asi_wheel indi_eqmod_telescope

 

[Gina]

Mount control connects and so does the camera but the EFW though shown won't connect and the Astroberry focuser and board are not shown in Ekos 

[Gina]

Maybe I should wipe this micro SD card and start afresh.  I seem to have well and truly messed it up

Go back to the other RPi perhaps and try to add the extra drivers.

May be a better idea to do something else entirely...

Edited January 25, 2017 by Gina