Astroberry question

[gilesco]

2 hours 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. 

My understanding of this issue is to not plug in  ZWO cameras into USB3 ports that are not capable of USB2 operation, in that they start off with USB2 operation and somehow upgrade to USB3 later in the process.

Without the USB2 start they don't initialise.

 

[Richie092]

14 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

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

It was well worth it. I coupled it with a Telegizmo365 cover for the mount/tripod. My rig stays assembled so I just have to plonk it on, slide it up to the bolt on the dovetail that means I'm balanced, a quick tweak on alignment then I am all ready to go in 5 mins. I just use one of the USB ports to power the RPi, been fine.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

On 29/12/2020 at 13:41, gilesco said:

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.

Thanks for this idea I have just bought a 240Gb M2. SSD and the case you recommend.  
Is there any easy instructions anywhere for booting the RPi from the SSD ?
I will start a search but just thought if you are on line if you can point me in the right direction 🙂 

Steve

[gilesco]

1 minute ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Thanks for this idea I have just bought a 240Gb M2. SSD and the case you recommend.  
Is there any easy instructions anywhere for booting the RPi from the SSD ?
I will start a search but just thought if you are on line if you can point me in the right direction 🙂 

Steve

Depending on where you got the Pi4 from, you will need to ensure that it has the EEPROM firmware after 1st September 2020. You can do this by booting Raspbian off a SD card, performing a "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade", and then run "sudo rpi-eeprom-update", check that the date of the EEPROM is after 1st September 2020.

If you have booted of the SD card, then you can now plug-in the SSD, and if the space on the SD card allows, install rpi-imager "sudo apt install rpi-imager", and run it, select the Astroberry image, and select the 240GB SSD as the destination (it should be detected).

If you don't have a SD card, then on a laptop you can attach the SSD and download the raspberry imager for whatever OS you have on your laptop. If the SSD is M.2 then you may need a USB A <--> USB A cable to detect the SSD on the lower part of the M.2 case.

Some helpful links:

https://linuxhint.com/install_raspberry_pi_imager/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-imager-imaging-utility/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

Most of the installation methods are cross-compatible with the methods for SD cards, the SSD will be detected as a valid destination just as a SD card would.

PS I recently bought a Pi4 8GB and it already had the latest firmware already loaded, but if yours has been on a warehouse shelf for a while it might not be up to date.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Thanks, just got my Pi4 8GB (yes I also always want the latest one when I could have just used my existing Pi 4 🙂 ), not powered it up yet but its from the Pi Hut so i expect it will be pretty up to date.

Once again many thanks for the help 🙂 

Steve

[gilesco]

31 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Pi Hut so i expect it will be pretty up to date.

I recently got the same model from the same online reseller, and it already had the right firmware, which should look something like this:

astroberry@indi:~ $ sudo rpi-eeprom-update 
BCM2711 detected
VL805 firmware in bootloader EEPROM
BOOTLOADER: up-to-date
CURRENT: Thu  3 Sep 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)
 LATEST: Thu  3 Sep 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)
 FW DIR: /lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader/critical
VL805: up-to-date
CURRENT: 000138a1
 LATEST: 000138a1

If not, reboot and run it again (once the rpi-eeprom-update package is installed/updated, it will update the firmware at boot time).

[teoria_del_big_bang]

22 hours ago, gilesco said:

Depending on where you got the Pi4 from, you will need to ensure that it has the EEPROM firmware after 1st September 2020. You can do this by booting Raspbian off a SD card, performing a "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade", and then run "sudo rpi-eeprom-update", check that the date of the EEPROM is after 1st September 2020.

If you have booted of the SD card, then you can now plug-in the SSD, and if the space on the SD card allows, install rpi-imager "sudo apt install rpi-imager", and run it, select the Astroberry image, and select the 240GB SSD as the destination (it should be detected).

If you don't have a SD card, then on a laptop you can attach the SSD and download the raspberry imager for whatever OS you have on your laptop. If the SSD is M.2 then you may need a USB A <--> USB A cable to detect the SSD on the lower part of the M.2 case.

Some helpful links:

https://linuxhint.com/install_raspberry_pi_imager/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-imager-imaging-utility/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

Most of the installation methods are cross-compatible with the methods for SD cards, the SSD will be detected as a valid destination just as a SD card would.

PS I recently bought a Pi4 8GB and it already had the latest firmware already loaded, but if yours has been on a warehouse shelf for a while it might not be up to date.

Thanks ever so much, up and running off the SSD in no time at all.

The case you recommended is brilliant.

Out of interest I also bought the Stellarmate OS. When I had looked at this before I did not consider buying it as I did not think it had anymore features than Astroberry and from what I have seen so far is probably correct.
However, I will give it a go. I transferred my EKOS profiles from my old Rpi with astroberry and seems to work fine. 
As I  say cannot really see any particular advantages to Stellarmate over astroberry, but to be fair I personally think the process of downloading and putting it on the RPi was very easy and for a little more than £40 is maybe a good option for somebody not that Tech savy and has some good documentation and I believe you can get some technical assistance if required so I think has its place and I think for around £160 (Pi 4 4Gb £50, Case £40, SSD £30, Stellarmate o.s £40) you end up with a real robust and compact control of your imaging rig, which comparing to the Stellarmate plus or Asair pro is a bargain. But I know the Asair pro is not just same as either Stellarmate or Astroberry, which are essentially the same, so am still curious to how this performs and what advantages it may have over either of these systems (if using ZWO cameras).

Steve

Edited January 1, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[Mark - Coventry]

On 29/12/2020 at 13:55, Ags said:

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

I use a Poweradd Pilot X7 20000mAh Power Bank and it runs seamlessly for 7 - 8 hours with the benefits of no mains wires etc.

[Mark - Coventry]

On 29/12/2020 at 13:55, Ags said:

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

I use a Poweradd Pilot X7 20000mAh Power Bank and it runs seamlessly for 7 - 8 hours with the benefits of no mains wires etc.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Mark - Coventry
Sorry about this. There was no confirmation of submission for the post and I ended up submitting twice. Can this duplicate be deleted?

[trailer]

On 01/01/2021 at 11:56, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Out of interest I also bought the Stellarmate OS. When I had looked at this before I did not consider buying it as I did not think it had anymore features than Astroberry and from what I have seen so far is probably correct.

Stellarmate has a dedicated app as well. I haven't used any of the options mentioned but maybe the app gives you a bit more flexibility than going in via VNC for instance?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

30 minutes ago, trailer said:

Stellarmate has a dedicated app as well. I haven't used any of the options mentioned but maybe the app gives you a bit more flexibility than going in via VNC for instance?

Yes I have had a go with the ap and I think it is very good. Only issue I have is that I struggle seeing things on my 17" screen laptop and just impossible on my phone, but that is an age thing and probably on out of date glasses prescription 🙂 

But despite not using the app I have stuck with stellarmate and for £50 I think is value for money. Yes you can load just about everything it has yourself for free but to save the hassle it isn't a big price to pay. But AstroBerry is probably exactly the same, although there were a couple of things that were just a bit more tricky to setup, and I never could get it to think I wan't in Poland, but that again is probably me not the software, so still not really much to choose between them except AB is free 🙂 

Steve