Using Raspberyy Pi 3 without internet access to control whole set-up

[mbalkham]

Hi All,

Should start by saying I'm a complete raspberry pi noob so steep learning curve so far! Go easy with any technical replies!

Recently been playing with control of the rig using Raspberry Pi 3 essentially as a wireless USB hub (for the mount, autoguider, canon 6D control and PoleMaster), still doing the control with the Widows 10 Nextbook but now from inside the house (hopefully!). I have it all talking to one another whilst on my home wifi network and hope to test it outside when I get a clear sky. Pretty chuffed it seams to work given the trouble we all have with USB drivers and windows updates!

My question relates to what happens when I take it to a remote dark site without wifi! I read it might be possible to create a wifi direct link between Pi and Nextbook but it doesn't look straight forward. Else perhaps get a Ethernet-USB dongle for the Nextbook (no Ethernet port) and hard wire (since I don't need the nextbook too far from the scope while I'm elsewhere). Failing that I can unplug and go back to a USB hub but I want to tie wires out the way and fix the Pi on the mount somewhere in a waterproof enclosure and unwiring every time will be a pain.

Any tips/ideas welcome. Thanks in advance

Matt

 

 

[Demonperformer]

45 minutes ago, mbalkham said:

Any tips/ideas welcome.

The only tip I can offer is that @Gina has done a lot with the pi and may be a useful contact if you get no help elsewhere.

[alacant]

2 hours ago, mbalkham said:

remote dark site without wifi!

Hi

NP. It's easy to turn the rpi into a wifi standalone hotspot.

Or you may wish to consider running indi on the rpi to do all the hard work for you.

HTH

[LightBucket]

Yes, get Ekos, Kstars and INdI on the rpi3 and forget windows and all the Ascom stuff altogether, works a treat...also gets rid of all the USB issues to do with using long cables..

Or try the Stellarmate OS on the rpi3 then all the work in configuring is done for you, but it costs $49

https://www.stellarmate.com/

[Gina]

I use KStars/Ekos/INDI at home with an Access Point for WiFi.

[GuLinux]

Or you can give StarQuew a try: https://github.com/GuLinux/StarQuew  which also has a ready to go Rpi3 image

Right now it doesn't support autoguiding, but I should be able to work on it soon

[GuLinux]

To better expand my reply:

StarQuew Rasperry Pi image alredy provides an access point by default (and also allows you to configure wifi via the web UI).

If you want autoguiding, until it's natively supported, you can:

a) use KStars autoguiding, connecting to the remove INDI server that's launched by StarQuew,

or

b) Use remote desktop (vnc?) to control PHD2 or any other native guiding solution you currently use

You won't be able to dither, but depending on your workflow it might be acceptable anyway

[AstroCava]

I've this in my bookmarks for future project but without trying it yet:

https://github.com/rkaczorek/astroberry-server

Have fun!

[John78]

28 minutes ago, AstroCava said:

I've this in my bookmarks for future project but without trying it yet:

https://github.com/rkaczorek/astroberry-server

Have fun!

I've used astroberry, its just kstars/indi/ekos preloaded image with a vnc, hotspot etc... built in - its exactly what the OP is after.