EAA on an iOS Platform - Is this a future Possibility?

[DeepSkyMan]

Guys

I am considering moving into EAA, and the SX UltraStar C looks very appealling in combination with Paul's Starlight Live software, however ideally I want to keep hardware other than 'of an optical nature' down to a minimum.  My scope is controlled entirely from my iPad or iPhone and ideally I would like to control all other elements of an observing session from a single device including image acquisition, was curious as to whether any thought had been put towards connecting iOS devices to imaging hardware.   The most obvious initial hurdle that I can see is the lack of USB connectivity, perhaps Wifi miight be a possibility?  Of course camera manufacturers would have to build in the necessary Wifi interface (if they have not already done so).  I apologise in  advance if what I am suggesting is totally impractical, or naive, I am viewing this from a pure layman's perspective.

I suppose this whole topic should ideally be targeted at Apple, however I was curious to see what people think about the concept in general, and how this might be achieved.  I suspect as well that apple would come back with a rather flat NO on the grounds that there would be insufficient profit in the concept for them  :-)

 

Kind Regards

Paul J.

[shirva]

Wireless video has been about a while for analogue cameras,, adapted from car reversing camera kits,, o have tried it but it was a hit and miss affair,, quality was not as good as cabled camera,, 

Like most it's one of the last bits of kit that isn't wireless,,  canon DSLR can be fitted with a wireless card that will download images ,but camera control on wifi I believe can be done but was expensive if I remember correctly

[ecuador]

Having some experience in iOS development, I can tell you that Apple traditionally goes out its way to make everything hard other than the limited functionality that they want to expose. It is a shame, because iOS is a bsd-derived Unix OS running native apps, so it would actually be able to handle "heavier" tasks much better than Android. But no, they will not allow you things like USB (unless they thought of a way that would make much money for them), and anything that would work with e.g. wifi would not be a real solution to replace a pc... At least they have opened up a bit since the release of the first iPhone, which, as the not too young might remember, did NOT allow any 3rd party apps upon release

PS To clarify what I mean by "wifi would not be a real solution", I mean apart from limitations of wifi solutions, it means you have to buy specialized hardware in order to connect it to your iphone, so any device that does not require you to buy special hardware (windows tablet perhaps? I use one for planetary imaging with a DSLR), will be by definition a better solution.

[London_David]

It may not be what your looking for but my EEA setup is entirely wirelessly operated through my iPad: I use iOS Sky Safari 5 for goto control and an ZWO ASI 290 camera into SharpCap for EEA acquisition. I have a wireless game pad for manual mount control. 

However -- and this is where it may not suit you -- for me to be able to run everything through my iPad, I use a tiny compute stick attatched to the mount that I Remote Desktop over wifi ito. I have a few wires around the mount but everything is easy to keep neat .

SS5 is native on iOS is fantastic for goto control. Windows 10 is designed to work with touch and the SharpCap controls for the most part are fine with touch too (best with an Apple Pencil if you have one). SharpCap 3.0 is just out and is really good. 

I got the idea from AstroJedi on CloudyNights and robrj here. AstroJedi started a long thread on cloudy nights about this kind of set up called "I think Im in EEA Heaven." I am basically doing what he's doing. Worth checking out the threads for inspiration.

 

[DeepSkyMan]

Thanks guys for your feedback, all 'grist for the mill' as they say.

David, I have looked at a compute stick solution much along the same lines as yourself, and this may eventually be the path I take unless a complete iOS package comes to fruition.  I too use SS5 to control my mount (Vixen Sphinx), very slick in the iOS environment be it on the iPad or iPhone.  So frustrating that Apple still insist on putting up barriers to innovation based on their hardware platforms, especially as Ecuador says, the OS being a UNIX derivative,  undoubtedly has the software hookups and 'horsepower' to drive this sort of innovation :-(  Can you provide pics of your setup and the make of compute stick you are using along with any configuration information you think would be of note, I would be most grateful.

 

Kind Regards

Paul J.

[London_David]

Paul -- full details on my setup here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/287811-equipment-suggestions-for-live-viewing/?do=findComment&comment=3207127

No pictures I'm afraid, I've meant to post some but haven't got round to it, since I've not had many good nights for it. The stick has been fiddly to get running, mainly because I couldn't get a game pad that worked reliably. I'm now using the official Microsoft One controller with the dongle, which gives the thing very good range. If your Windows literate it should be a problem to set up, just a bit of trial and error for your exact setup.

With Apple, I don't think it's any artificial barriers to be honest. Apple does that in some cases and it is annoying, but in this case I think it's more likely to be a simple lack of demand. We have quite specific niche demands, iOS devices are also designed to fit a specific design aim of being wireless and portable. Cameras and mount control mainly need wires. That's makes the issue Apple then and more Celestron, ZWO, QHC or Starlight Xpress. They would need to build wifi connectivity in. Celestron has built the Evolution with wifi so you can run it from your phone or iPad native though SS5. Or the Sony Alpha cameras can send a live view to their iOS app.

Actually, I've just thought, you could set up an A7s with a Celestron Evo Mount and do EEA using live view on the A7s streamed to the iOS Sony app and control the mount using SS5 and the Evo.  That could be a pretty cool setup! No live stacking, but simple and fully iOS...

[stash_old]

Ecuador's statement "Having some experience in iOS development, I can tell you that Apple traditionally goes out its way to make everything hard other than the limited functionality that they want to expose" - as a fellow IT developer this is 100% true unless you want to pay Apple "serious money" for the access privilege - Apple's commercial business plan. Like it or not it works for them as a business. 

So unless ALL your Astro hardware supplier(s) produce an Apple interface you are stuck(unless someone knows different) using (Wireless) Remote Desktop access to either Windows or  Linux Indy - the latter being in a similar boat to Apple but at least they (linux Indy Astro group) are working on changes.

But who knows what the future holds !