Some Qs on Stellarmate

[vineyard]

Hello,

After really being impressed by EKOS on my laptop, I tried my luck with an Astroberry loaded on to a RPi3 that a fellow SGLer no longer needed.  Tbh I struggled with getting a stable route in to the Astroberry (I think its browser certificates related) and also found the Ubuntu installation difficult to navigate (IT is not my strong point).  So I decided to buy the Stellarmate OS licence and flash that (esp as I like EKOS so much, it also felt fair to pay something for it).  And so far, fingers crossed, its working a treat - easy to set up hotspot, and I can work from my laptop inside while it does its magic outside.

An initial batch of Qs has popped into my head that I'm hoping someone may be able to shed light on pls?

Q1.  I download images on my laptop but I've notice download speeds start to take longer as the night goes on.  So instead I now download on to the remote RPi3 itself for accessing later.  Although that's slightly a faff as I have to plug the Pi in w keyboard, monitor etc to transfer to my laptop.  I know I can also plug a USB drive into the Stellarmate and download on to that directly - but, then is it ok at the end of the night to just unplug the USB drive after the Pi is powered down (without it being "dismounted" by clicking on an eject button while the Pi is still on, or could the USB be corrupted)?  

Q2.  Can one laptop & EKOS run multiple separate Stellarmates simultaneously?  That is, if I were to have two rigs set up (one for imaging and the other for go-to based visual - hence at least two different mounts to be controlled, and two different cameras to be accessed (possible 3 if guiding for imaging)), could all that be run from one laptop at the same time?

Q3.  I've taken the plunge on an HEQ5 Pro from another fellow SGLer but am going to run it with EKOS instead of using the handset.  Can a normal USB to RJ45 cable be used to connect the mount to a laptop or a Stellarmate?  I've seen the Lynx Astro EQDIR cable (Ikarus also do one, and I think Shoestring Astronomy also make one in the US), but I'm wondering what the difference is, and whether a normal cable would also do the job?

Will stop there - thank you if any one can shed light on these!

Vin

 

[david_taurus83]

Hi Vin. I used Stellarmate for a while and quite enjoyed it. Miss it tbh! Using a Windows mini PC now with NINA or APT. I never used my Stellarmate with the server/client approach with a PC and the RPi. I let the RPi run everything independently and monitored/controlled via VNC over the wifi connection. You can do this with any device that can connect to its wifi signal. Mostly used my phone but you can of course use a laptop. I found it much more stable this way and the RPi downloaded images much quicker and also platesolved quicker. Only used it for DSO so if your trying EEVA then it may be a bit different. I found a 32gb Sandisk micro SD card sufficient for storing a few nights worth of images. Using the VNC approach again, just stick a USB stick in to transfer your images, no need for a separate keyboard, monitor etc. Cant answer question 2 but if I was to go about it with VNC viewer, both RPi's would have separate VNC ID's so you could click between them or have your laptop monitor one and a tablet/smartphone monitor the other? Pretty sure you need the Lynx Astro cable. Might run into some serial port connection issues depending on what other hardware your running but theres a few ways to work around it.

[stash_old]

5 hours ago, vineyard said:

Q2.  Can one laptop & EKOS run multiple separate Stellarmates simultaneously?  That is, if I were to have two rigs set up (one for imaging and the other for go-to based visual - hence at least two different mounts to be controlled, and two different cameras to be accessed (possible 3 if guiding for imaging)), could all that be run from one laptop at the same time?

Indi by design can be set up as Client and server and you can talk to a number of Indiservers at the same time  - so for example 1 RPI can be physically connected to a focuser / mount and another RPI connected to a camera. Indi calls this "chaining" and EKOS just needs to be pointed to the IP address (or host name) that runs the Indiserver/driver . Maybe a quick read of this and the following pages may help https://www.indilib.org/about/features.html 

However if you are looking to run multiple "MAIN" camera's (excluding main and guide)  connected to one KSTARS/EKOS instance then the answer is NO (at the moment)

5 hours ago, vineyard said:

Q3.  I've taken the plunge on an HEQ5 Pro from another fellow SGLer but am going to run it with EKOS instead of using the handset.  Can a normal USB to RJ45 cable be used to connect the mount to a laptop or a Stellarmate?  I've seen the Lynx Astro EQDIR cable (Ikarus also do one, and I think Shoestring Astronomy also make one in the US), but I'm wondering what the difference is, and whether a normal cable would also do the job?

The cable from the mount to a "PC" is the same for all OS - the mount end has to be correctly wired AND the correct TTL voltage (5v or 3.3v ) depending on your mount.  Its not difficult to create your own BUT if you dont feel confident buy the correct USB/Mount adapter from somewhere like FLOW and steer clear of Prolific Chipped USB/TTL Adapters and use FTDI chipped Adapters as OS can see each cable as each FDTI has a unique serial number -  PLUS wiring incorrectly or using the wrong voltage can blow your mounts board. 🙂

[vineyard]

Thank you both!  V helpful.  I just ordered the Lynx Astro FTDI cable from FLO  

David, yes I keep seeing references to VNC viewers but have not been able to make it work.  I've downloaded VNC Viewer on my laptop (and an old Android tablet).  I guess I need to upload similar software on to the Stellarmate (the old Astroberry configuration had something called X11VNC on it but I couldn't figure out how to see it)?

If I were running two Stellarmates on VNC via hotspots, they'd each be on their own wifi networks right?  So I'd either have to continually flip between those or somehow get them on to the same network.  I tried getting my Stellarmate onto my home guest network using their suggested address, but the browser just stays suspended (so I'm guessing it may still be security certificates problems?).  I think if I can get VNC to work on the tablet with a hotspot, that may be the way for my visual go-to.

Did you find the RPi on its own could plate solve sufficiently (or did you have to upload more astrometry files)?  Since I'd probably just keep it as a hotspot, it wouldn't be able to use the internet solver.

Stash, thanks re the chaining - I will read that with interest.  Maybe running multiple main cameras is in the upgrade list for Jasem and team 🤞🏽

Cheers

[fozzybear]

11 hours ago, vineyard said:

Thank you both!  V helpful.  I just ordered the Lynx Astro FTDI cable from FLO  

David, yes I keep seeing references to VNC viewers but have not been able to make it work.  I've downloaded VNC Viewer on my laptop (and an old Android tablet).  I guess I need to upload similar software on to the Stellarmate (the old Astroberry configuration had something called X11VNC on it but I couldn't figure out how to see it)?

If I were running two Stellarmates on VNC via hotspots, they'd each be on their own wifi networks right?  So I'd either have to continually flip between those or somehow get them on to the same network.  I tried getting my Stellarmate onto my home guest network using their suggested address, but the browser just stays suspended (so I'm guessing it may still be security certificates problems?).  I think if I can get VNC to work on the tablet with a hotspot, that may be the way for my visual go-to.

Did you find the RPi on its own could plate solve sufficiently (or did you have to upload more astrometry files)?  Since I'd probably just keep it as a hotspot, it wouldn't be able to use the internet solver.

Stash, thanks re the chaining - I will read that with interest.  Maybe running multiple main cameras is in the upgrade list for Jasem and team 🤞🏽

Cheers

Vin,

Did you get VNC working? As out of the box on stellarmate mine works ok what version are you using? and I am using VNC viewer on my pc from

https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/download/viewer/

As per astroberry you have to enable it from cmd window and type sudo raspi-config then enable it or from the menu in interfaces from memory or you can find it from the menus

Andy

Edited March 6, 2020 by fozzybear

[stash_old]

On 06/03/2020 at 09:06, vineyard said:

Maybe running multiple main cameras is in the upgrade list for Jasem and team 

I wouldn't hold your breathe thats a major change and a lot of people want Ekos separating from Kstars first - so watch the space.

 

On 06/03/2020 at 09:06, vineyard said:

Did you find the RPi on its own could plate solve sufficiently (or did you have to upload more astrometry files)?

No that depends on your FOV - I would suggest download the lot onto a laptop and then copy what you want now and keep the rest as you may change FOV and some of the Index's are very big.

Note The latest Astroberry (yours sound like the old one)  uses NOVNC and therefore does not need any VNC software on the client - just a Browser 🙂 and the Mods ,via raspi-config), as suggested by Andy (Fozzybear). I dont know if latest Stellarmate uses NOVNC as well as it now uses std Buster OS not Ubuntu Mate - unless its changed back again 🙂 

[vineyard]

Thanks both.  The sudo raspi-config via the interfaces came back with an error Andy, but once I go in through the Stellarmate app on my iPhone, it does work (and its via novnc as you say stash_old).  Frustratingly the app doesn't seem to work on my old android tablet (Samsung Galaxy), but at least its progress on the iPhone side!  And agreed re the astrometry stash, that's what I've done (downloaded the lot on my laptop).  Cheers both, Vin