Stellarmate plus controller

[P.Rees]

Dear All

           I am considering buying the Stellermate controller, I have an eq6ne pro mount an Altair triplet with Atik 314L Atik filter wheel and Pegasus focuser with Hitech control. I also use a 400mm camera lens with QHY5 for auto guiding, At the moment I use an old laptop which works well for deep sky images.

I read a review of the  ZWO Asiar in AN magazine and I heard a talk on the Rasberry pi astroberry from my astro society. I thought I could control my imaging from inside my house? I have since heard that the Asiar will only work on ZWO cameras? I am not particuarly good with tech so I was thinking that SM controller would be best. I notice that astroshop.eu sell it I have used this supplier before. Will I need outdoor wi fi extender? If so is there one you would recommend? Also I occasionally use an image souce camera for planetary images when I do this I use a faster Win 10 laptop. Is the SM / Raspi fast enough for planetary images?

Many thanks Peter

[Stuart1971]

Hi Peter,

As a user is SM for a few years, I can say it’s superb.

And you are correct about the ASIair it will only work with ASI cameras..

Now you have a few options here..

1. Buy the full SM unit you are mentioning...

2. Jusy buy the raspberry PI4 and then you can just buy the SM OS for $49 and you have the same thing...as SM unit...easy to set up, and am here to help...

3. Buy a raspberry PI and then use the superb free Astroberry, which is pretty much identical to SM and it’s Free..!, this is what I now use...also very easy to set up and agin here to help...

HTH 👍🏼

Stuart

[P.Rees]

Hi Stuart

Many thanks for your reply and your offer to help. I am tempted to purchase a raspberrry pi as you suggest. I have a few questions just looked on Amazon they vary in price due to RAM is 4GB enough? Also do all rasberry pi include SD card which I will need. Also I will need a case are the cases  weather proof? (I plan to attach the Rasb Pi to the mount which I cover when not in use)

I use a mains power supply to power my mount it has just  one socket. What do you use to power your Rasb Pi ? I am also wondering how to get wi fi in my garden (with a booster as I mentioned ). Will Rasb Pi / SM work on planertary  images when  avi video files are used

Best wishes thanks again Peter

[Stuart1971]

22 minutes ago, P.Rees said:

Hi Stuart

Many thanks for your reply and your offer to help. I am tempted to purchase a raspberrry pi as you suggest. I have a few questions just looked on Amazon they vary in price due to RAM is 4GB enough? Also do all rasberry pi include SD card which I will need. Also I will need a case are the cases  weather proof? (I plan to attach the Rasb Pi to the mount which I cover when not in use)

I use a mains power supply to power my mount it has just  one socket. What do you use to power your Rasb Pi ? I am also wondering how to get wi fi in my garden (with a booster as I mentioned ). Will Rasb Pi / SM work on planertary  images when  avi video files are used

Best wishes thanks again Peter

Hi,

So yes 4gb is enough, as both SM and Astroberry are 32 bit, so can only use 4gb of RAM, but for future proof you could get the 8gb version.

Yes you will need an SD card, 64gb is good but 32gb will suffice. You won’t get one with RPI unless you buy a kit...

You can also run it direct from an SSD drive from the USB 3 ports, but that’s for another day....

As for a case I use a Flirc case, they are metal with special built in heatsinks and keep the RPI nice and cool, these are about £16

As for powering I use a Pegasus UPB so not an issue, you will need a good 3amp 5v supply, so you can get a buck converter 12v to 5v..or you can get the official power supply for them if you ha e a mains socket available at the mount...

If you Use Astroberry there are a couple of planetary capture programmes already built in, OACapture, and Firecapture...on SM you would either ha e to load these yourself, or use EKos which I know some people do...but I am just deep Sky...

Hope that helps..👍🏼

 

[fozzybear]

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

Hi,

So yes 4gb is enough, as both SM and Astroberry are 32 bit, so can only use 4gb of RAM, but for future proof you could get the 8gb version.

Yes you will need an SD card, 64gb is good but 32gb will suffice. You won’t get one with RPI unless you buy a kit...

You can also run it direct from an SSD drive from the USB 3 ports, but that’s for another day....

As for a case I use a Flirc case, they are metal with special built in heatsinks and keep the RPI nice and cool, these are about £16

As for powering I use a Pegasus UPB so not an issue, you will need a good 3amp 5v supply, so you can get a buck converter 12v to 5v..or you can get the official power supply for them if you ha e a mains socket available at the mount...

If you Use Astroberry there are a couple of planetary capture programmes already built in, OACapture, and Firecapture...on SM you would either ha e to load these yourself, or use EKos which I know some people do...but I am just deep Sky...

Hope that helps..👍🏼

 

I agree with Stuart as above it's what I use. If you go down the mains power supply route for the RPi get the official one, I have mine mounted in Flirc case's sourced from "the pi hut" and have not had any probs via wifi (depends on your wifi router power). Get a well known branded SD card like Sandisk. I have been playing with both Radek's Astroberry  "free" and SM cheap at $49-00 includes upgrades  So cheapest option is to build one as opposed to buying off the shelf. Btw i bought an 8gb rpi just for the fun of it (chrimbo prezzie) I have around 8 Rpi's various models from the very first for various use. video,printing,Flight Nav.

[david_taurus83]

I love Stellarmate and I have an RPi 4 with SM loaded onto it for my mobile setup but I wouldn't exactly call it easy to setup for a beginner. If you can receive wifi signal on your laptop outdoors on your home WiFi, if you had a spare laptop/pc you can access the one outside and control it from indoors. There are a few methods available like remote desktop or VNC Viewer etc

[StevieDvd]

A few points to note.

• Some ASIAir Pro (AAP) users who just want to control from inside their house look for ways to run the ZWO app on their PCs - both Stellarmate & Astroberry can do this. 
• The metal case of the AAP hinders the wifi signal, for some they need to add wifi extenders
• Regardless of your choice there will be folk here to help out.

[P.Rees]

Hi Many thanks for your replies.
I notice that the R pi comes with 4 USB ports . I use powered hub with my laptop as I need more ports will the R pi work the hub? I also use a wired games pad to to control the mount for alignment this was set up with eqmod.

 I think that SM / astroberry will run eqmod?

So if I buy a R pi 4  I need 4gb RAM a case power supply HDMI lead to load the software 

and can I use my existing usb leads? (shorter ones would be easier) I also have eqdir lead connects the eq6 to the laptop can that be used?

 Cheers Peter

[Stuart1971]

2 minutes ago, P.Rees said:

Hi Many thanks for your replies.
I notice that the R pi comes with 4 USB ports . I use powered hub with my laptop as I need more ports will the R pi work the hub? I also use a wired games pad to to control the mount for alignment this was set up with eqmod.

 I think that SM / astroberry will run eqmod?

So if I buy a R pi 4  I need 4gb RAM a case power supply HDMI lead to load the software 

and can I use my existing usb leads? (shorter ones would be easier) I also have eqdir lead connects the eq6 to the laptop can that be used?

 Cheers Peter

Yes, in fact it runs better if you put your kit into a USB powered hub, as the ports on the RPI are not very powerful...so it’s recommended to use the hub, and yes the EQMOD INdI driver works fine, I use it all the time, with my EQ8 mount, and yes a game pad can be set up too...

and yes to all the cables too.👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Edited February 5, 2021 by Stuart1971

[Tomatobro]

on the pi 4 you might find that the brand of USB hub you have does not work on the chosen port. No worries just try plugging it in to another port till you find one that does work.

[StevieDvd]

Oh and Pi4 has micro-hdmi  display ports

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications/

[P.Rees]

Thanks for all your help. I notice that the Pi Hut sell a Sandisc SD 32GB card pre installed with OS NOOBS for £9 seems reasonable I assume I will need this? Or I can download it myself on blank card. 

Cheers

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, P.Rees said:

Thanks for all your help. I notice that the Pi Hut sell a Sandisc SD 32GB card pre installed with OS NOOBS for £9 seems reasonable I assume I will need this? Or I can download it myself on blank card. 

Cheers

No, you don’t need this, just buy a blank card, and then put Astroberry  or Stellarmate on from scratch, that’s all you need.... 👍🏼

Edited February 7, 2021 by Stuart1971

[P.Rees]

Hi All

       I am awaiting all the hardware. Ras Pi4 with 4 RAM, Flirc case, official power supply and HDMI adapter. I have bought 2 SD cards one 32GB and a 64GB.( I can use one for my camera). Which card is best for the Ras Pi ? I watched a youtube astronomy guide to astroberry installing and setting up last night (which is 3 months old).

      Will my SD card need formating ? I understand you load Aberry/SM on the card with a PC and then load onto the Ras Pi and use the HDMI and monitor. You can then change the AB/SM from a wifi hotspot and use the home wifi LAN.  Can this all be done inside the house with strong wifi signal?

Looking forward to setting this all up many thanks Peter

[fozzybear]

38 minutes ago, P.Rees said:

Hi All

       I am awaiting all the hardware. Ras Pi4 with 4 RAM, Flirc case, official power supply and HDMI adapter. I have bought 2 SD cards one 32GB and a 64GB.( I can use one for my camera). Which card is best for the Ras Pi ? I watched a youtube astronomy guide to astroberry installing and setting up last night (which is 3 months old).

      Will my SD card need formating ? I understand you load Aberry/SM on the card with a PC and then load onto the Ras Pi and use the HDMI and monitor. You can then change the AB/SM from a wifi hotspot and use the home wifi LAN.  Can this all be done inside the house with strong wifi signal?

Looking forward to setting this all up many thanks Peter

Astroberry min 16gb recommended but if you want to save your images to the Rpi first then download to Pc then the more memory the better, Have you had a look on Radek's website (Astroberry Owner) https://www.astroberry.io to download the Image Then either use etcher or Win32Diskimager to write the image to the SD card.

You do not need to Format your new SD card 

You will/may need a usb keyboard & mouse or all in one combo during first install to the Rpi 

Once installed you then connect to your local Wifi and set up other Locale details like keyboard location etc etc

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by fozzybear

[StevieDvd]

I think if you create the astroberry sdcard on your PC and place it in the RPi4 with a network cable connected, you can then connect to it using astroberry.local in yor PC web browser and can then set it up to be wireless.

[fozzybear]

6 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

I think if you create the astroberry sdcard on your PC and place it in the RPi4 with a network cable connected, you can then connect to it using astroberry.local in yor PC web browser and can then set it up to be wireless.

if it goes west then a keyboard and mouse required thats where i went wrong and screwed it up 

[P.Rees]

Dear All

            I have sucessfuly loaded astroberry onto my rasberry pi. I was not going to plug in a mouse and keyboard into the Ras pi as I watched a youtube  video which showed how you can change the Ras pi from a bluetooth hotspot and controlled it from the home wifi?

However once the software had loaded I could not see how to turn it off properly. So I plugged in the mouse and keyboard entered the password and turned off. I assume that when I turn on again I can set up all the INDI software from my desktop PC? With the astroberry Ras pi connected to my home wifi?

          Does the Ras pi need to be running to set up all the INDI settings? Is it then just a case of entering all of the correct INDI settings plugging in all the wires hub and testing

Many thanks Peter

[StevieDvd]

If you have changed your wifi to your home server then you can connect via a browser using http://astroberry.local/desktop/ from the same network.  There you can setup everything that is going to be used mount, cameras etc without them being connected - ready for when you connect the hardware and do the first start of the live connection. Power switch off of the Pi needs either an in-line on/off switch on the power cable lead, pulling the power lead from the Pi or turning off where the psu is plugged in.  You should not cut the power without doing a shutdown of the Astroberry via it's desktop.

 

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, StevieDvd said:

If you have changed your wifi to your home server then you can connect via a browser using http://astroberry.local/desktop/ from the same network.  There you can setup everything that is going to be used mount, cameras etc without them being connected - ready for when you connect the hardware and do the first start of the live connection. Power switch off of the Pi needs either an in-line on/off switch on the power cable lead, pulling the power lead from the Pi or turning off where the psu is plugged in.  You should not cut the power without doing a shutdown of the Astroberry via it's desktop.

 

It’s really not an issue just pulling the power on AB and the RPI, they are built to be used like that...I just close down Kstars on mine and then shutdown AB via the main power me u and then pull the power plug....never had an issue, no need for an on / off switch... 👍🏼

[P.Rees]

Hi

Thanks for your replies, I am trying to change wifi to home server. I am connected to the AB using the http address that Steve described I  put in my wi fi details in the Preferences advanced network config. When I then click on connect to hidden network as explained in the youtube video I  lose connection and I am back to square one! My PC is hardwired to the router in the video a laptop is used wirelessly not sure if this is an issue?

I am set up at the moment I will spend another hour otherwise I will try again tommorrow

Cheers Peter 

[StevieDvd]

Wireless & wired devices can access each other on the same network.  You can also use an ethernet cable on the AB at boot time, it will use the ethernet connection first. That may make it easier to setup the wireless connection to your router.

 

[Stuart1971]

45 minutes ago, P.Rees said:

Hi

Thanks for your replies, I am trying to change wifi to home server. I am connected to the AB using the http address that Steve described I  put in my wi fi details in the Preferences advanced network config. When I then click on connect to hidden network as explained in the youtube video I  lose connection and I am back to square one! My PC is hardwired to the router in the video a laptop is used wirelessly not sure if this is an issue?

I am set up at the moment I will spend another hour otherwise I will try again tommorrow

Cheers Peter 

After you have done this, rather than connect via the hotspot, the RPI will then connect to your home router and so as long as your PC is in same network you should be able to connect via the NoVNC in your web browser with the address Astroberry.local

Edited February 17, 2021 by Stuart1971

[P.Rees]

Thanks Steve I think that has worked. AB server shows a wired connection when I click on hidden wireless conection astroberry hotspot disappears as described in the video. And the server has stayed connected Many thanks

[fozzybear]

people who are just pulling power out from under their Pi's should really stop doing that. I've had two start kernel panicking because of corrupt file systems from improper shutdowns (eg. pulling the power). I had to re-image the card in both cases and re-do all the work I put in to configure it. Would you do it to your windows PC?