remote telescope connection,what do you use?

[noah4x4]

I initially had an Intel NUC at the scope wirelessly controlled by a basic laptop in my warm mission control (converted garage) using TeamViewer. Worked fine until I upgraded my camera to a 16 megapixel large sensor high resolution Atik Horizon which prefers USB3. Its higher data demands were just too great. As the current free version of TeamViewer demands that data to be sent over the comparitively slow Internet I then upgraded to Windows 10 Pro and Remote Desktop to try 'peer to peer'. Yet still suffered from lag and poor performance. My conclusion is wireless control is fine for perhaps 1k 'HD' CCD cameras but once in the realm of 4k 'UHD' and above which is now possible with less expensive CMOS cameras then wireless technology, even with a modern 802.11ac network tends to choke.

Category 6 cable potentially offers a solution up to 100M. But in my case as distance wasn't too demanding I have adopted a 10m 'active' USB3 cable from camera to Intel NUC now located inside Mission Control. That outputs over super fast Thunderbolt display port to a 4K UHD monitor. The result on screen is just awesome and problems with lag and stutter have been eliminated. I then use Celestron WiFi to control my scope and a wireless MKIT20-WL focuser. 

In summary, nothing beats cable (of some type) and now the 4k UHD experience is becoming cheaper we need to be more concious of data transfer, computing, battery power and display demands.  I also found that USB3 doesn't like to play nicely with USB2 especially 'serial to USB2' devices (like Celestron Nexremote). Cheap Compute Sticks are OK within limits whilst Raspberry Pi won't adequately support more recent cameras. It is vital you plan your upgrade path.

One final thought which only became apparent with hindsight. What is the point of having a super dooper high resolution camera + powerful micro computer (Intel NUC with Iris Plus 640 Graphics)  at the scope then wirelessly watch the output on a crummy slow 1080p laptop?  But that is how many of us tend to initially set up our wireless environment. I am also convinced that TeamViewer and RDP compresses image files before transmission. My 'end to end' 4k UHD camera to display experience is vastly superior, but I reckon only deliverable using 'cable'.

 

 

[scitmon]

I'm confused, why does the bandwidth of the remote desktop connection need to handle 4k?  Are you not storing the subs on the Intel NUC?  An average 16 megapixel RAW image is 50mb?  You can transfer that over a wifi network no problem.

 

 

[brrttpaul]

used to have team viewer but switched to the google one, never any issues with it  in fact find it much better than teamviewer

[wimvb]

6 hours ago, cjdawson said:

The answer to that is that have I have a Raspberry Pi 3

That's a move in the right direction. 

I have 2 RPi clones (Rock64 with usb3) connected to my camera and mount. One controls the mount (including guiding), the other the imaging camera. Image files are stored locally, and ftp'd to my win8 laptop after each session. Phd guiding runs locally on one Rock. This minimizes network traffic, for which I have a separate router (no i-net). The Rocks are cable connected to the router, while my laptop is connected through wifi. I run the control program (Ekos/Kstars) on my windows machine, but plan to move that onto one of the Rocks, so any network problems won't affect an imaging session. The long term goal is to go completely robotic.

[noah4x4]

8 hours ago, scitmon said:

I'm confused, why does the bandwidth of the remote desktop connection need to handle 4k?  Are you not storing the subs on the Intel NUC?  An average 16 megapixel RAW image is 50mb?  You can transfer that over a wifi network no problem.

 

 

That is fair enough if pursuing ONLY strict Astrophotography where you might process the captured images later. There you might use the second laptop as no more than a means of control.

However, my additional focus is 'instant' Electronically Assisted Astronomy  and hence 'near live' viewing. There you want the highest quality immediate image transfer from camera to display device.  Looking at such images on a 1080p HD display over TeamViewer after its data compression inevitably isn't as good as the direct to 4k UHD monitor experience. 

[Merlin66]

Probably over the top to answer the original OP ........

 

[martin_h]

I use a Win 7 computer in the obs and remote to the house using windows remote desktop over a lan connection(when the rats aren't chewing the cable!)

[RayD]

On 23/10/2018 at 14:10, iwols said:

Um anyone tried these thanks

 

 

Yes I used to use the Devolo 1200 ones before I set everything up permanently and they worked pretty well.