Astroberry / KStars on Rpi - advice needed

[alacant]

6 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Or can I dual OS somehow ?

Hi

Yes, of course. Details here.

If you're not used to  impenetrable Linux jargon, easier if you get your local Linux expert to do it for you. It'll cost a cool beer or two, but you'll be up and running with the minimum of fuss. If you learn enough vocabulary, you may even become brave enough to post on the indi/kstars forum

To give yourself a chance, use as powerful a machine as possible. You need to be able to take the hardware for granted. Once you've mastered that, you'll be in a much better place to tweak an on-the-limit-of-what-it-can-do rpi.

As an alternative and If you don't mind paying for it, you can buy an astro ready to go rpi.

Cheers

Edited June 1, 2020 by alacant

[teoria_del_big_bang]

 

20 minutes ago, alacant said:

As an alternative and If you don't mind paying for it, you can buy an astro ready to go rpi.

I did look at Stellarmate but looking at it thought it was just a re-packaged Rpi, and maybe not even a Rpi 4,  which is why I did not go that route. Am I wrong ?

I am sure it make things easier and the software more robust though. But then why make things simple in this game, whats the fun in that 🙂 

Steve

[alacant]

36 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Am I wrong ?

Hi

No. The Stellarmate is a rpi. It's still a slow 32 bit single board computer, but with professional support.

38 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

why make things simple in this game, whats the fun in that

Exactly. But hey, when you have mastered the os, you have a bulletproof system which just works. You are in control rather than the computer.

Cheers

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

2 hours ago, alacant said:

3 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Or can I dual OS somehow ?

Hi

Yes, of course. Details here.

Well that was the easy bit, now running Ubutnu on what I think is a reasonable spec PC with I7 CPU, 8Gb ram. Just running from a 16Gb SD card for now until I get the dual boot bit done. Now to get the Astro stuff on there.

First impressions are I like it, very slick and no nonsense stuff in there which is great as all it has to do is run my astro gear.

Steve

 

[alacant]

1 hour ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

very slick

Well done.

On an i7 with SSD -or even an old spinning disk-  it'll be instantaneous. Blink and you'll miss it;)

Edited June 1, 2020 by alacant

[RadekK]

BTW. You can use SkySafari to control telescope from your iPad. Just add SkySafari driver to your profile

 

[stash_old]

7 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Or can I dual OS somehow ?

Grub/Ubuntu will automatically create a dual O/S if there is enough disc room (or just install a new bigger SSD and keep the Windows SSD for selling) - this will leave Windows and create an Ubuntu O/S which when you boot up will give the option of which o/s/ to boot into. After that its just normal Kstars/Ekos install - you cannot use Astroberry thats for RPI only 🙂

[endless-sky]

On 29/05/2020 at 17:34, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I do have a question about KStars and framing DSOs. Is there some option for it that I have not downloaded because I seem to get very little information about DSOs on the screen compared to Stellarium.  There just seems to be the odd triangle, square  shape here and there no actual images of the DSOs which is quite difficult to use and get the framing correct.

Hi Steve,

for some reason, I didn't get notified of replies on this thread, so I didn't respond sooner. I am glad that you are getting your guiding with the 224MC working, as I think that would be my camera of choice when I will purchase my guiding setup. I know you probably figured it out already, but what I do to see images overlaid on the KStars planetarium is this: I click on View, HiPS All Sky Overlay and I check DSS colored (see attachment). You may have to download extra data for it to work/appear (see other attachment). I found that using this and plate solving (which displays on the planetarium the exact framing coming from the camera plate solved image, including angular orientation of the camera) I can nail the exact framing I want for each subject. Plate solving really is an awesome feature!

Cartes du Ciel is included in the Astroberry package ("Start" menu, Education, Skychart), but I find it somewhat slower to pan and move around on the planetarium. KStars has some nice features (they should be on by default) where it turns of most of the stuff (stars over a certain magniture, DSS overlay) while you move around with the mouse, so each movement on the planetarium responds much quicker, as it doesn't have to redraw everything as you pan. I haven't seen the same feature on Skychart - I don't even know if it has it - so I use KStars.

Anyway, if you still using the Pi 3 and plan on buying the 4, just wanted to give you a heads-up: they just released the 8 GB version and it shouldn't cost much more than the 4 GB. I have the 4 GB, as I bought it 2-3 months ago, and I haven't had any problem with RAM yet - only if I try to zoom in too much in the FITS Viewer, things get a little slow and RAM usage grows up to 50-60%, but it goes back to 20-25% as soon as I zoom out to more reasonable levels. But if you plan on making the investment, it might be worth it to buy the higher end version, just to be future proof!

Clear skies,

Matteo

[Stuart1971]

On 01/06/2020 at 15:13, alacant said:

Hi

No. The Stellarmate is a rpi. It's still a slow 32 bit single board computer, but with professional support.

Exactly. But hey, when you have mastered the os, you have a bulletproof system which just works. You are in control rather than the computer.

Cheers

 

Actually the rpi will run 64 bit OS now the beta one is out....it’s not limited to 32 bit....and is not “slow” as you say... at all... 👍😀

[endless-sky]

On 01/06/2020 at 13:13, teoria_del_big_bang said:

On a plus point I absolutely love the fact I can choose a sub from a previous session and put that in the correct box of another nights session then the scope slews there and plate-solves to get bang on same position. This really simplifies things and I guess is a God send if I ever get round to doing mosaics. This is really a reason why I must persevere with it. I cannot loose this tool 🙂 

Steve

I have to agree 100% on this statement. The Load and Solve option is really awesome, it can make imaging the same target on multiple nights (something I had to do recently, due to "nights" only lasting 2-3 hours in this season) a breeze - provided you do not change the orientation of the camera from one session to the other. I will definitely try doing mosaics using this feature, when I get my new refractor!

[teoria_del_big_bang]

10 hours ago, endlessky said:

I have to agree 100% on this statement. The Load and Solve option is really awesome, it can make imaging the same target on multiple nights (something I had to do recently, due to "nights" only lasting 2-3 hours in this season) a breeze - provided you do not change the orientation of the camera from one session to the other. I will definitely try doing mosaics using this feature, when I get my new refractor!

And it is so accurate (depending on what you set the limits to) but really is spot on night agter night. I just think it's great. Thanks for the previous ti as well I actually had worked that out at some point and now perfectly happy with it. I still think the KStars planetarium is very clunky compared to Stellarium but to be honest with this feature of being able to slew to exact position using a previous sub I don't really need to use it every night and now I have the images of DSO's on it then it does everything I need it to do so am happy 🙂 

And I know we only had 2 - 3 hours of imaging before but that seems to have gone for a while now with this weather 😞 

Steve