OK, now I can't wait!

[Dazzyt66]

I've just taken the plunge and got a RasPi 4 & FLIRC Case on the way! Been checking out KStars and EKos for the last few days and have it all working on my macbook with my HEQ5 perfectly. So, Astroberry will be my solution now for getting more into AP and pretty much all EEVA. No cables at all running to the house - mount and pi will be powered by powertank when UK weather allows and atm my mount is using the Synscan App (which I still need to use from my phone until I replace it with an EQMod cable direct to the pi next month ). No longer will I need to use a PC for astro stuff and my mac for everything else! It feels quite liberating... 😁

Edited March 25, 2021 by Dazzyt66

[Jonny_H]

11 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I've just taken the plunge and got a RasPi 4 & FLIRC Case on the way! Been checking out KStars and EKos for the last few days and have it all working on my macbook with my HEQ5 perfectly. So, Astroberry will be my solution now for getting more into AP and pretty much all EEVA. No cables at all running to the house - mount and pi will be powered by powertank when UK weather allows and atm my mount is using the Synscan App (which I still need to use from my phone until I replace it with an EQMod cable direct to the pi next month ). No longer will I need to use a PC for astro stuff and my mac for everything else! It feels quite liberating... 😁

I treated myself to an ASIAIR Pro not long ago and it's amazing!

No more laptop, extra cables etc... definitely a game changer! 🙂

[BCN_Sean]

I've a couple of Pi for things, one of them for Astroberry and one thing I've found which really does make a difference to them is to not mess around with the MicroSD but set it to boot over USB and then use a fast USB drive or an external SSD.  I use these Sandisk on mine, and they don't stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

[Dazzyt66]

11 hours ago, BCN_Sean said:

I've a couple of Pi for things, one of them for Astroberry and one thing I've found which really does make a difference to them is to not mess around with the MicroSD but set it to boot over USB and then use a fast USB drive or an external SSD.  I use these Sandisk on mine, and they don't stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

That USB tip is great - I do have an existing 128gb micro card at the mo but was going to go down the USB SSD route at some point so that all my imaging can be stored locally on the Pi initially and then transferred as I want, rather than transfer 'live' over the wifi an possibly slow things down in Ekos. Rpi and astroberry is still a big learning curve for me - the Rpi4 arrives today! 😀

[Dazzyt66]

11 hours ago, Jonny_H said:

I treated myself to an ASIAIR Pro not long ago and it's amazing!

No more laptop, extra cables etc... definitely a game changer! 🙂

Yep! I'm definitely happy with the way things are going - although I think at some point I may miss sitting outside on a crisp winter night and seeing things with my own eyes! 😂

[BCN_Sean]

6 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

the Rpi4 arrives today

Cool! Just watch out for something that's got me a few times before I realised... When setting it up and connecting it to a HDMI use the port that is closest to the power port as sometimes it looks like the device hasn't finished booting if it's in the other one and it has.

[Dazzyt66]

2 hours ago, BCN_Sean said:

Cool! Just watch out for something that's got me a few times before I realised... When setting it up and connecting it to a HDMI use the port that is closest to the power port as sometimes it looks like the device hasn't finished booting if it's in the other one and it has.

I'm in OK! But I don't have a mini hdmi lead anyway... 😂

[fozzybear]

mine live in a flirc case and run at low temp  wifi ok as well, some people have commented about low signal but i suppose it depends on your wifi router AP

[fozzybear]

mine live in a flirc case and run at low temp  wifi ok as well, some people have commented about low signal but i suppose it depends on your wifi router AP are you powering your Rpi from a genuine PSU or using a buck convertor? if the first make sure it is a genuine PSU as some 3rd party one's don't provide enough power once you get kit connected to it or use a powered hub

[Dazzyt66]

59 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

mine live in a flirc case and run at low temp  wifi ok as well, some people have commented about low signal but i suppose it depends on your wifi router AP are you powering your Rpi from a genuine PSU or using a buck convertor? if the first make sure it is a genuine PSU as some 3rd party one's don't provide enough power once you get kit connected to it or use a powered hub

Actually I was planning to use a buck converter but for now I’m using a lithium power bank rated at 3.5 amps - seems ok so far. I didn’t know if a buck converter would be good enough as they are pretty cheap - I do eventually want to run it from my 12v power tank which I also use for the mount. I didn’t think a straight cigarette 12v to usb (above 3a obvs) would be good enough either?

[fozzybear]

Maybe a dedicated Buck for the Rpi regulated when on 12vdc 

[iapa]

11 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

Yep! I'm definitely happy with the way things are going - although I think at some point I may miss sitting outside on a crisp winter night and seeing things with my own eyes! 😂

Not mutually exclusive

[rickwayne]

If you think you might someday put together an autofocuser, the Waveshare Motor HAT board serves as a 12V power converter. It also has two stepper-motor outputs, and there's an INDI driver for autofocusing. 5.5x1.2mm barrel connector, pretty standard in the astro world. My autofocus setup is well under US$100; after the HAT, I needed a stepper motor, a pulley, a toothed drive belt, and a bracket to hold the motor, which I built out of some scrap steel.

Edited March 26, 2021 by rickwayne

[Dazzyt66]

1 hour ago, rickwayne said:

If you think you might someday put together an autofocuser, the Waveshare Motor HAT board serves as a 12V power converter. It also has two stepper-motor outputs, and there's an INDI driver for autofocusing. 5.5x1.2mm barrel connector, pretty standard in the astro world. My autofocus setup is well under US$100; after the HAT, I needed a stepper motor, a pulley, a toothed drive belt, and a bracket to hold the motor, which I built out of some scrap steel.

Yeah, I am considering that as I do want to do an AF at some point. Thanks for the tip 😊

[BCN_Sean]

6 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I'm in OK! But I don't have a mini hdmi lead anyway... 😂

Ah man, there's always something to temper it!   I've one permanently connected to a HDMI switch to the side of my monitor, just so much easier to couple it and flick a switch out than fishing round the back of the screen to unplug (and as I've seen smoked graphics cards because of that as well, a switch is definitely a worthwhile security blanket).

As for the WiFi, my Astro is in a bit of a heavier duty radiator case than a FLIRC, and I've not found any issues with it so far.

[Dazzyt66]

8 hours ago, BCN_Sean said:

Ah man, there's always something to temper it!   I've one permanently connected to a HDMI switch to the side of my monitor, just so much easier to couple it and flick a switch out than fishing round the back of the screen to unplug (and as I've seen smoked graphics cards because of that as well, a switch is definitely a worthwhile security blanket).

As for the WiFi, my Astro is in a bit of a heavier duty radiator case than a FLIRC, and I've not found any issues with it so far.

I’ve just been using vpn/browser access to set it all up via my Mac. Just a dry run with Ekos left to do (I’m going to use it in client/server mode so I do all the big stuff on the Mac) and then  I just need a clear night to try it out...

[Avocette]

1 hour ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I’ve just been using vpn/browser access to set it all up via my Mac. Just a dry run with Ekos left to do (I’m going to use it in client/server mode so I do all the big stuff on the Mac) and then  I just need a clear night to try it out...

The BIG advantage of running everything on the RPi4 is that you only monitor and control the actions from your Mac or PC. This means that at any moment if the WiFi link goes down (it does occasionally happen) the RPi4 carries on regardless, carrying out the jobs it has in its list, and you can just reset the Mac or PC and you’re back connected. In my case I run two astro systems a few metres apart. I have modified the astroberry hotspot SSID names to be able to distinguish between them (AstroberryBlue and AstroberryRed). I set each one up - Polar Align, Focus on a bright star, move to target, ‘capture and solve’ with slew to target to get precisely lined up, and then a test image or two before committing to an hour or two of captures for each kit in turn. Then I monitor from indoors, hopping back and forwards between each WiFi network from time to time to see how things are going. If I feel like doing a bit of live stacking, I use VNC Viewer File Transfer to download some image files from the RPis and run ‘live stacking from folder’ in Sharpcap Pro on my laptop.

I used to do this a lot six months ago because I was running KStars by default in ‘reduced resources mode’ which meant my images were not debayered. However I learnt that an RPi4 is perfectly powerful enough to do the debayering as well and the Fits Viewer auto stretch is much improved these days, so I get a good idea of the incoming images directly without further processing on the laptop.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Avocette

[Dazzyt66]

42 minutes ago, Avocette said:

The BIG advantage of running everything on the RPi4 is that you only monitor and control the actions from your Mac or PC. This means that at any moment if the WiFi link goes down (it does occasionally happen) the RPi4 carries on regardless, carrying out the jobs it has in its list, and you can just reset the Mac or PC and you’re back connected. In my case I run two astro systems a few metres apart. I have modified the astroberry hotspot SSID names to be able to distinguish between them (AstroberryBlue and AstroberryRed). I set each one up - Polar Align, Focus on a bright star, move to target, ‘capture and solve’ with slew to target to get precisely lined up, and then a test image or two before committing to an hour or two of captures for each kit in turn. Then I monitor from indoors, hopping back and forwards between each WiFi network from time to time to see how things are going. If I feel like doing a bit of live stacking, I use VNC Viewer File Transfer to download some image files from the RPis and run ‘live stacking from folder’ in Sharpcap Pro on my laptop.

I used to do this a lot six months ago because I was running KStars by default in ‘reduced resources mode’ which meant my images were not debayered. However I learnt that an RPi4 is perfectly powerful enough to do the debayering as well and the Fits Viewer auto stretch is much improved these days, so I get a good idea of the incoming images directly without further processing on the laptop.

That’s really useful info! Thanks! 😊

Edited March 27, 2021 by Dazzyt66

[Len1257]

15 hours ago, fozzybear said:

Maybe a dedicated Buck for the Rpi regulated when on 12vdc 

I was using one of the cheap LM2596 buck converters from the usual auction site. However once I started guiding the power draw from the RPi put it into thermal problems and the Pi was getting low volts. Currently looking at the 5A versions. This was with heatsinks and fan cooling BTW.

[Dazzyt66]

It works!!!

Had a few clear night hours through the week to assist me getting it all set up. Last night was pretty clear all night so tried it out properly. To summarise:

RPI 4 (2gb) running Astroberry 

Heq5 mount connected via my new eqomod cable (thanks flo!!)

Canon 1100d unmodded 

for last night I was using my ST80.

It all worked a charm! After start up I got a rough focus through the camera viewfinder and then plate solved vega (offline as I’d downloaded the necessary files in the week) then using the focus in Ekos I got everything set up as good as I would get with the ST80 (manual focus). Back to Polaris to check PA - set that up perfectly using the PA tool in Ekos. 

 

Then, just to check it was all working I plate solved and imaged M42, M31 and M81. All taken with 10 x 30s lights and darks (I did flats and bias in the week).

I know I’ve got something cos I saw the stretched images were dead centre, so some processing in Siril and Gimp will show me.

All this done wirelessly from my kitchen on my Mac! Superb!!!

😊😊😊