Astroberry question

[Anthonyexmouth]

Thinking about installing a R/Pi with astroberry on my pier to be able to lose the usb cable into the house. To anyone using astroberry, is there any benefit to getting an 8Gb Pi? 

Any newbie pitfalls to avoid when setting up? Would I be better off putting my hand in my pocket and buying the Stellarmate OS? 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Certainly would recommend getting rid of any long USB cables, they are just a  headache you can do without.

I have been using a RPI 4 with astroberry but bought the 4Gb before the 8Gb appeared. I did ask the question on here if the 8Gb would be an improvement over the 4Gb and I think somebody replied it would be negligible. However, even if it is only small improvement if I had not already got the 4Gb version I would pay the extra and get the 8Gb for sure. Mind you looking at the Stellarmate+ which sells for around £250 that only uses a 2Gb RPi4.

I have used Astroberry since the beginning of the year (but this year my imaging has been limited due to poor weather and generally just other things going on in my life so my experience is limited) and all in all I really like it but certainly not 100% happy.
I love the setup using the INDI platform and love the way that KStars works.
What I am not so keen on is the KStarts planetarium. It works but is very clunky compared to something like Stellarium which is far smoother and detailed but even if you could use it with Astroberry is probably too processor hungry for an RPi.

Also I have had quite a few freezes of the RPI meaning a complete reboot. But fortunately I think all of these have always while I am setting up the session so I have been in attendance and not too big an issue doing the reboot. I have never had an issue once left imaging and has always completed the session, unless clouds roll in etc.

So if Astroberry worked without any freezing and you could link it to Stellarium I think I would be perfectly happy (in fact more than happy).

I want to stick with the idea of some form of remote computer on the mount and also thinking of other alternatives to Astroberry but not looked into them yet. So Stellermate is one I need to look at.

I have not looked at Stellarmate in depth yet but I take it you can either buy a unit already loaded up (for what is a fair bit of money considering it is only a RPi, and in the past I think only a RPi2, the newer Stellermate+ is at least an RPi 4 if only 2Gb) OR just by the OS and load it yourself onto your own RPi ?
If that is true then unless the pre-loaded version at £250 for the + version I would definitely go for the OS loaded onto my own RPi 4 8Gb.

Sorry I can't help any more but very interested in your thread as I am still trying to decide myself.

Steve

[rnobleeddy]

Works fine here - no issues at all, other than ensuring a good WiFi signal when the Pi is directly behind the scope. 

I have the 4Gb version and it's never close to using all the RAM, so I don't think 8Gb would be useful for astroberry, but may help you if you also use the Pi for something else.

Mainly I'd suggest being careful with the hardware you use - not everything works well (or at all) with Indi, for example, a number of the ZWO USB2 planetary cams have issues.

[Anthonyexmouth]

The 15m USB cable has served me well for years, when i build the pier i laid conduit to the little workshop at the back of the garden with 12v / 240v and cat6 to the pier with the intention of running the setup from there but as it turns out I prefer my warm house and the reclining chair more than the cold workshop. 

I think Stellarmate is just a polished version of astroberry for with a £50 price tag which for simplicity in setup might be worth it.. 

whats it like operating remotely with the Pi, is there much lag? 

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 hour ago, rnobleeddy said:

Works fine here - no issues at all, other than ensuring a good WiFi signal when the Pi is directly behind the scope. 

I have the 4Gb version and it's never close to using all the RAM, so I don't think 8Gb would be useful for astroberry, but may help you if you also use the Pi for something else.

Mainly I'd suggest being careful with the hardware you use - not everything works well (or at all) with Indi, for example, a number of the ZWO USB2 planetary cams have issues.

At present i'm using a ZWO 294 for main capture and a 290mc for guiding due to my 120mm dying last year. plan on getting a ZWO EAF this year, does that work with INDI ok?

 

Pi will only be for astroberry, probably go for the 4Gb version then, spend the savings on a nice case/heatsink. 

[gilesco]

Astroberry is based on Raspbian, which is 32-bit currently. Now, there is a 64-bit Raspbian in the works, but Astroberry is based on the 32-bit version currently.

Under Linux, when running on a 32-bit operating system any one process can only address 4GB of memory.

So the only benefit of 8GB, at the moment, is that a number of processes could simultaneously use more than 4GB between them, but individually they would only see a 4GB address space.

Now things may change in the future, and you might want to look at your usage, if FITS viewer and Ekos and Kstars are different processes then there is some mild benefit there as you might have some extra headroom.

But by and large, the only benefit of the 8GB version is you might future-proof yourself by going for the higher spec.

Raspberry Pi Foundation seem to come out with a new model and revision of the Pi quite often (perhaps at least once every two years), and personally, I just can't help buying the latest and greatest whenever a new one is released.

[gilesco]

18 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

At present i'm using a ZWO 294 for main capture and a 290mc for guiding due to my 120mm dying last year. plan on getting a ZWO EAF this year, does that work with INDI ok?

Yes, I have both of these, together with a ASI1600MM Pro, OAG etc... They all work with INDI pretty seemlessly.

[gilesco]

19 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Pi will only be for astroberry, probably go for the 4Gb version then, spend the savings on a nice case/heatsink. 

One way of improving the performance of the Pi is to use a SSD instead of the SD card, a nice case that uses a SSD seamlessly is the Argon One M.2 case, I have blogged about it on my website.

[Ags]

Looking at getting aPi too but stuck on the silly issue of powering it. What battery pack do people usually use?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

14 minutes ago, Ags said:

Looking at getting aPi too but stuck on the silly issue of powering it. What battery pack do people usually use?

So far all my imaging with RPi has been back yard stuff so used the official 240V 5VDC supply. So for remote stuff you will need something like this. 
Step Down Module, 12V 24V to 5V 5A 25W Buck Converter

Steve

Edited December 29, 2020 by teoria_del_big_bang

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 minute ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

So far all my imaging with RPi has been back yard stuff so used the official 240V 5VDC supply. Sor remote stuff you will need something like this. 
Step Down Module, 12V 24V to 5V 5A 25W Buck Converter

Steve

That's what I planned to do at the garden pier to avoid using an adapter. I do have 240v at the pier but I save that socket for my laptop on warm nights in the garden. Now if I could only get rid of the neighbours house. 

[gilesco]

26 minutes ago, Ags said:

Looking at getting aPi too but stuck on the silly issue of powering it. What battery pack do people usually use?

I used one of these in a Cigarette Lighter socket:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07L2YWVLC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I now use the port 1 on the Pegasus PowerBox Advance, which serves other purposes too.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

The neighbours house may be more problematic to solve 🙂 

[Ags]

1 hour ago, gilesco said:

I used one of these in a Cigarette Lighter socket:

 

Thanks - I have an unused SW Power Tank sitting under the stairs. It will finally gt some use...

Edited December 29, 2020 by Ags

[gilesco]

11 minutes ago, Ags said:

Thanks - I have an unused SW Power Tank sitting under the stairs. It will finally gt some use...

Yes, just remember that the Pi4 needs 3A + of power, best suited with another powered USB hub, which you can find ones that run off 12V sources.

I only say that as the PowerTanks have USB, but I'm sure you already are aware, they only supply 1.5A or 2.1A at best.

[stash_old]

5 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Stellarmate OS

It still runs the same OS as Astroberry.  Stellarmate just has one to one paid support and a few more bells and whistles.

Astroberry is purposely NOT leading edge so tends to be 1 step behind in standard form. So individual components may not be the latest ("cant please all the people all the time")- so for example any new ZWO or DSLR camera may not be supported.

IMHO I would NOT wait for the next RPI release as past major releases have come with problems - NO USB Boot,USB3/WiFi interference etc - they do get resolved in the end. Plus if the new Compute release is anything to go by they have production problems - last time I looked RPI Compute 4 was on back order until June 2021. Remember once you install a non supported piece of software on Astroberry you will be on your ownish.

You can also Compile the whole thing yourself on Raspbian OS (even with beta versions of libs and software).

Not tried it but Stellarium can still be run on Windows (Mac and Linux) and "talk" to Astroberry/Stellarmate using the Indi protocol. CDC will work on Windows/MAC/Linux and will talk to Astroberry/Stellarmate from other devices.

The ZWO camera's you quoted should be OK but check on the Indi forum to be on the safe side - that includes any other piece of computer controlled gadgets (focuser ,mount,Dome  etc etc) you wish to use with Indi.

CCDCIEL is an alternative to Full blown Indi and it gives you the ability to run on Windows but talk to both Indi and Ascom devices at the same time - within certain limits.

In short you can have your Xmas cake and eat it - well sort of! 🙂

[rnobleeddy]

5 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

The 15m USB cable has served me well for years, when i build the pier i laid conduit to the little workshop at the back of the garden with 12v / 240v and cat6 to the pier with the intention of running the setup from there but as it turns out I prefer my warm house and the reclining chair more than the cold workshop. 

I think Stellarmate is just a polished version of astroberry for with a £50 price tag which for simplicity in setup might be worth it.. 

whats it like operating remotely with the Pi, is there much lag? 

 

It's not as smooth as running locally but with decent wifi it works fine for me. You can run the software locally and just connect to the Pi as a server, although I never quite worked out if this improved matters, depending on if you move the subs over the network. May be worth a try if you find it slow.

[gilesco]

5 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

whats it like operating remotely with the Pi, is there much lag? 

I did this for the first time on 24th. Kstars and everything off the Pi. Normally I run Kstars on study desktop and just INDI on the Pi. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went. Although I've souped up the Pi with a SSD rather than an SD card setup, which might turn out to be the bottleneck.

Apart from some snags, power related and GPS receiver related (think overcome now). I am thinking this is now good to take out to the field, which I may be trying in a week or two.

[Richie092]

I use StellarMate OS on an RPi 4gb and it’s faultless. Unless I try to use USB3 and then it occasionally freezes but if I only use USB2 it’s rock solid. 
 

The new multi star guiding is great and the polar align software is easy to use and very fast. Worth trying for the small outlay it will cost you in my opinion. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

15 minutes ago, Richie092 said:

I use StellarMate OS on an RPi 4gb and it’s faultless. Unless I try to use USB3 and then it occasionally freezes but if I only use USB2 it’s rock solid. 
 

The new multi star guiding is great and the polar align software is easy to use and very fast. Worth trying for the small outlay it will cost you in my opinion. 

Reading through the info on Stellermate it does say not to plug ZWO cameras with USB2 hubs into USB3 port even though the camera itself is USB3.0.
So the usb 3 capability of the camera is lost.
Now, it maybe that is no big deal if the transfer rate of the usb 2 is faster than the transfer rate of the camera, on this I have no idea - can anyone tell me what i am losing running a camera designed to run on USB3 on USB2.

Steve

[Anthonyexmouth]

4 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Reading through the info on Stellermate it does say not to plug ZWO cameras with USB2 hubs into USB3 port even though the camera itself is USB3.0.
So the usb 3 capability of the camera is lost.
Now, it maybe that is no big deal if the transfer rate of the usb 2 is faster than the transfer rate of the camera, on this I have no idea - can anyone tell me what i am losing running a camera designed to run on USB3 on USB2.

Steve

I may be wrong but I think USB3 is only really beneficial when using high frame rate planetary cameras. If USB2 can't transfer an image from the buffer in between 2-6min subs there's a problem. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

16 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

I may be wrong but I think USB3 is only really beneficial when using high frame rate planetary cameras. If USB2 can't transfer an image from the buffer in between 2-6min subs there's a problem. 

Ah, yes of course, silly me 🙂 

[Richie092]

I run everything through a Pegasus upbv2 with a single USB2 connection to the RPi and it works fine. My subs are only 16mb but I’m sure larger would be fine. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

18 minutes ago, Richie092 said:

I run everything through a Pegasus upbv2 with a single USB2 connection to the RPi and it works fine. My subs are only 16mb but I’m sure larger would be fine. 

I keep thinking of getting a UPBv2 but price always puts me off.
Like most things i have bought over past couple of years that cost £100's I will probably eventually buy one and think why did I not get one to begin with.
It does look a nice piece of kit but although it may make life easier probably would not improve my images.
No doubt I will keep looking at them and one day (probably after one more wine than usual) will press the buy button 😉 

Are you powering your RPi via the Pegasus using one of the programmable outputs ?

Steve

[gilesco]

12 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Are you powering your RPi via the Pegasus using one of the programmable outputs ?

On my PPBA I am using the USB3 port 1 for Pi power, it is rated to power it. Thought about the ADJ output, but don't have the cable and not sure about the power amp supplied.