Clarify astroberry for me

[Shimonu]

So I'm just getting into AP and looking at what camera I should get. I'm considering whether I should go for a dedicated camera from the get-go and what that would mean. Astroberry seems interesting because I have several raspberry pi at home for other projects and I could pretty easily set one up with Astroberry. I still haven't quite understood how it's used once you're in the field though. If possible I'd like to avoid carrying a laptop with me as that's the point with something like this in my mind. But are you able to control it with your phone or is a tablet required? I've seen reviews of the ASIAir and it seems to have a pretty good mobile application interface but I haven't seen anything like this for Astroberry.

So I guess I'm asking how Astroberry is controlled and what is actually required besides the RPi? I won't have a backyard to image from so no home network connection.

Thanks!

[catburglar]

You can use astronerry via a vnc app or web browser (astroberry shops with 'novnc' enabled by default I think. But the interface isn't optimised for phones so you're left trying g to use a standard linux desktop on a small screen touch device...you can do it  but I don't find it enjoyable....a tablet is much better in my view, but it's still harder work than  using a laptop....However, one of the key benefits of astroberry is that you can be almost fully automated, so you only need to connect to set your run off, so you may fi d it works OK

[gilesco]

1 minute ago, catburglar said:

You can use astronerry via a vnc app or web browser (astroberry shops with 'novnc' enabled by default I think. But the interface isn't optimised for phones so you're left trying g to use a standard linux desktop on a small screen touch device...you can do it  but I don't find it enjoyable....a tablet is much better in my view, but it's still harder work than  using a laptop....However, one of the key benefits of astroberry is that you can be almost fully automated, so you only need to connect to set your run off, so you may fi d it works OK

you can also use it via INDI protocol or ssh.

[MarkAR]

In Astroberry you would set up a schedule in KStars/Ekos at home then once in the field you would connect to its hotspot and start the schedule from phone/laptop via noVNC.

It would be easier using a laptop especially if Ekos throws up a gremlin and you have to dicker.  If you use a laptop then you would run Kstars/Ekos on that as remote and set the Pi to launch the INDI drivers on startup and you can download the files direct to laptop. The last is so much quicker over LAN than wifi hotspot.