SO pleased with my move - Linux/Astroberry/Ekos/Siril

[Dazzyt66]

I just wanted to say out loud, to everyone, how happy I am I made the switch to the above packages. Not only have they transformed how I view the night sky, but I am now able to achieve images like never before, albeit unguided with manual focus. It’s so liberating to be able to quickly set-up (I’ve located my HEQ5 tripod permanently in the garden) and be able to quickly and accurately get to targets and either observe remotely (EEVA esque) or (as I do now) set up a schedule, go to bed and enjoy the benefit in the morning!

And all this with free software!

if anyone involved with those packages are on here - THANK YOU! You have rekindled my love of the hobby!

😁

[TerryMcK]

Glad you are enjoying the packages. I don't use Siril but certainly use the rest.

[Len1257]

Unfortunately I have moved away from Astroberry. I realised that I had too many sporadic issues interfering with imaging time. I've moved to a NUC and NINA. A better knowledge on my part of Linux would undoubtedly have helped.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Len1257

[Dazzyt66]

27 minutes ago, Len1257 said:

Unfortunately I have moved away from Astroberry. I realised that I had too many sporadic issues interfering with imaging time. I've moved to a NUC and NINA. A better knowledge on my part of Linux would undoubtedly have helped.

That is interesting. I really was expecting a lot of faff (having never used any of the software before), but its been pretty painless for me - even running everything over wifi hasn't caused a problem (yet). That said, my setup is really basic so I'm not pushing the hardware or software in any way. I think the moral of everything here though is: if it works for you then that's the way to go. 🙂

[Stuart1971]

29 minutes ago, Dazzyt66 said:

That is interesting. I really was expecting a lot of faff (having never used any of the software before), but its been pretty painless for me - even running everything over wifi hasn't caused a problem (yet). That said, my setup is really basic so I'm not pushing the hardware or software in any way. I think the moral of everything here though is: if it works for you then that's the way to go. 🙂

A lot of people think because software is free that it will be not so good or difficult to use, but I think Kstars / Ekos is the exception to that rule, I have used it for a few years, and would never use anything else, there are easy and hard ways to use, and once you figure out the easy ways then it’s superb, just open up your PC set up a profile in ekos for your drivers, and connect to your INdI server on the mount, and that does the rest with all the hardware...what could be simpler.....👍🏼👍🏼

[Dazzyt66]

15 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

A lot of people think because software is free that it will be not so good or difficult to use, but I think Kstars / Ekos is the exception to that rule, I have used it for a few years, and would never use anything else, there are easy and hard ways to use, and once you figure out the easy ways then it’s superb, just open up your PC set up a profile in ekos for your drivers, and connect to your INdI server on the mount, and that does the rest with all the hardware...what could be simpler.....👍🏼👍🏼

100% agree with this - I’m a true Ekos convert - LOVE IT! 😀

[Stuart1971]

1 minute ago, Dazzyt66 said:

100% agree with this - I’m a true Ekos convert - LOVE IT! 😀

Do you run it from your PC and just use the RPI as an INdI server or do you run all direct from the RPI over VNC or alike..?.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I too love KStars / EKOS.

I am running Stellarmate myself but to be honest I was just curious to see what Stellermate had to offer that was different to AstroBerry and it isn't expensive so gave it a try but apart from some very small differences, none really that make any difference to the imaging, they are both pretty much identical.

And to be fair I too have had some issues that have caused my RPI to reboot, ot I have had to reboot it due to it freezing despite using the latest RPi 4 but none of them were whilst an imaging session was underway, they were always when setting up so not a major issue and I have had an odd issue with some equipment not connecting through USB2 but not often od always resolved by a reboot.

So not sure if similar issues as @Len1257 but it has not all been plain sailing.

So why have I stuck with it?

Well mainly down to EKOS, I just love the layout.
Most other software will do the same but I just find how EKOS is laid out is is so easy to follow all the steps needed to get a session going very quickly and I am not looking around for which tab or which button to click to get it all done.

Even the colour scheme helps me find everything, My eyes now are not too brilliant and I need good clear reasonably bold fonts and in EKOS I have no issues seeing it all.
When you get used to using the full scheduler it is brilliant and amazing how it works every time without issue.
Just lately I was struggling to decide on a target to image but didn't want to wast the 3 or 4 clear nights I have had recently but having lots of data for Pinwheel Galaxy did not really want another galaxy and it was after 1:30 am before any real nebulas I wanted came into view from my patio ,but I just set a time to start, set a loop of 1 Ha, 1 OIII and 1 SII, gave it a link to an image I took the previous night, and a time to stop as the darkness would be fading ,and just went to bed an left it.
So at 1:30 am it all sprung into action and slewed to the just appeared target, auto-focused, then plate solved so the target was framed exactly like the image from previous night, started the PHD2 guiding (including calibration of PHD2) then away it went running round that loop of 3 images until whatever time I had set and in the morning I had several images of Ha, OIII and SII.
It handles flips flawlessly as well and will check its position before the flip and ensure it is exactly same (but 180 different) after the flip.

The freezing or reboots are very rare these days and I just love having all my kit run from a small £80 Rpi and SSD, and the freezes more down to the RPi I suspect than the software.

I am also not over keen on the KStars planetarium and it is way behind some others like Stellarium, BUT you do not need to use this all night just to select the targets at start of session - and if it is a repeat session then no need to use at all just tell it where a previous image is and it gets all the data from the fits header and also p[late solves to the image. So I can live with the shortcomings of this 🙂 

Now I did try NINA running on a smallish but powerful Windows fan-less computer, still mounted on mount, as it has some great reviews, and it can run in conjunction with Stellarium.
I do think it a great bit of software, with some really good innovations, but in a way (for me) is too complicated with more than one tab or button to get to the same thing and one issue for me is that I struggled to see some of the writing on the tabs and buttons, the font was just too small and color contrasts not so good. Now that is my issue I know, and maybe with time messing about I could have changed it to suit me and maybe I didn't give it a fair chance, but I think I just missed EKOS so my RPi went back onto the mount and still using it.

Steve

Edited April 20, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[Dazzyt66]

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

Do you run it from your PC and just use the RPI as an INdI server or do you run all direct from the RPI over VNC or alike..?.

I run it all on a RPI 4 (2gig) with a 128gb microsd card (as I'd read and been advised that its quicker to do it that way with no dependency on network speed). I VNC into it from my laptop and off I go. Scope is around 5m from the house, but the router is at the front and I haven't had any issues with speed - yeah, VNC can be a little slow to respond sometimes but I'm now doing all of my captures using the scheduler, so once its set up I just leave it until the morning - the only issue Ive had at the moment is that the 1100d battery died last night but I had been capturing for 4 hours at that point and only lost about 80 subs before the end of the session anyway - despite that INDI/Ekos handled it all parked the mount. All I do in the AM is bring the RPI inside and copy across the images (I bring it inside so that its faster cos of better wifi - but I don't really need to do that either as the time it takes isn't an issue). I just cant believe its taken me this long to try it! 😀

[Dazzyt66]

15 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

...When you get used to using the full scheduler it is brilliant and amazing how it works every time without issue.
Just lately I was struggling to decide on a target to image but didn't want to wast the 3 or 4 clear nights I have had recently but having lots of data for Pinwheel Galaxy did not really want another galaxy and it was after 1:30 am before any real nebulas I wanted came into view from my patio but just set a time to start, set a loop of 1 Ha, 1 OII and 1 SII, gave it a link to an image I took the previous night, and a time to stop as the darkness would be fading and just went to bed an left it.
So at 1:10 am it all sprung into action and slewed to the just appeared target, auto-focused, then plate solved so the target was framed exactly like the image from previous night, started the PHD2 guiding (including calibration of PHD2) then away oit went running round that loop of 3 images until whatever time I had set and in the morning I had several images of Ha, OIII and SII.
It handles flips flawlessly as well and will check its position before the flip and ensure it is exactly same (but 180 different) after the flip...

 

 

 

 

Steve

I am amazed how easy the scheduler is to use - like you I just give it an image to reference that I'd taken on my first run and then off it goes and gives me another set of images that match - I've been doing M81/82 the last few nights with consistent images to stack. My next job is to make a diy autofocuser so that everything is automatic (I have to focus manually before I schedule atm). I do agree that the layout is great - super intuitive - and you just work your way through. Plate solving is a dream and the PA routine was a doddle! Also, the Youtube videos from Jasem explaining it all are great!

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Just to add to my previous ramble I have had some issues with auto focus lately which now has settled down and has worked flawlessly last 4 or 5 sessions.

Generally it needs to pretty much close to focus before letting it run or it can struggle.

Also there a a host of things you can change, things like parameters, exposure time, averaging over more than one exposure, algorithms.
And not sure which way to point you as I asked the question about what parameters work best .

ekos-auto-focusing-what-parameters-do-you-use

I also did a lot of searching Google and apart from ensuring it has all the correct settings for your scope, camera etc people seemed to use quite a differing variety of parameters and algorithms, some claiming they were the best , others to say just what they used.

So whether this is just a difficult process to get right anyway, or all these algorithms do the same job essentially I am not sure.

Some common things did seem to run through what most of them suggested:

1) needs to be manually focussed to be somewhere close first - can be done several ways but I found taking a quick image of stars and zooming in on the stars in the resultant image and if looked blurry moved focusser one direction and another quick (3 sec) image - if less bloated then continue in that direction or change directions until best image is seen. Sounds faffy but unless you are miles away then really doesn't take long and saves going out fitting the Bahtinov . I now also put the focusser lock on whenever I finish a session and power down to prevent the focuser getting moved when no power to motor, Just remember to unlock it at start of next session - becomes 2nd nature after a couple of sessions. It then always focusses and sometimes moves a little but not much.

2) Average over at least 2 images.

3) Keep guiding enabled.

4) if any issues use longer exposures. 2 to 3 seconds seems to be common.

Steve

[Feccy]

1 hour ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I run it all on a RPI 4 (2gig) with a 128gb microsd card (as I'd read and been advised that its quicker to do it that way with no dependency on network speed). I VNC into it from my laptop and off I go. Scope is around 5m from the house, but the router is at the front and I haven't had any issues with speed - yeah, VNC can be a little slow to respond sometimes but I'm now doing all of my captures using the scheduler, so once its set up I just leave it until the morning - the only issue Ive had at the moment is that the 1100d battery died last night but I had been capturing for 4 hours at that point and only lost about 80 subs before the end of the session anyway - despite that INDI/Ekos handled it all parked the mount. All I do in the AM is bring the RPI inside and copy across the images (I bring it inside so that its faster cos of better wifi - but I don't really need to do that either as the time it takes isn't an issue). I just cant believe its taken me this long to try it! 😀

For £15 on Amazon I got a mains adaptor for my 550D to replace the battery - camera now goes all night

 

[Feccy]

4 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I just wanted to say out loud, to everyone, how happy I am I made the switch to the above packages. Not only have they transformed how I view the night sky, but I am now able to achieve images like never before, albeit unguided with manual focus. It’s so liberating to be able to quickly set-up (I’ve located my HEQ5 tripod permanently in the garden) and be able to quickly and accurately get to targets and either observe remotely (EEVA esque) or (as I do now) set up a schedule, go to bed and enjoy the benefit in the morning!

And all this with free software!

if anyone involved with those packages are on here - THANK YOU! You have rekindled my love of the hobby!

😁

Having just purchased my 1st goto mount in February and wanting a cable free/WIFI (warm house!) solution I opted for Astroberry  like you I LOVE IT! It hasn't skipped a beat since I started

[Dazzyt66]

30 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Just to add to my previous ramble I have had some issues with auto focus lately which now has settled down and has worked flawlessly last 4 or 5 sessions.

Generally it needs to pretty much close to focus before letting it run or it can struggle.

Also there a a host of things you can change, things like parameters, exposure time, averaging over more than one exposure, algorithms.
And not sure which way to point you as I asked the question about what parameters work best .

ekos-auto-focusing-what-parameters-do-you-use

I also did a lot of searching Google and apart from ensuring it has all the correct settings for your scope, camera etc people seemed to use quite a differing variety of parameters and algorithms, some claiming they were the best , others to say just what they used.

So whether this is just a difficult process to get right anyway, or all these algorithms do the same job essentially I am not sure.

Some common things did seem to run through what most of them suggested:

1) needs to be manually focussed to be somewhere close first - can be done several ways but I found taking a quick image of stars and zooming in on the stars in the resultant image and if looked blurry moved focusser one direction and another quick (3 sec) image - if less bloated then continue in that direction or change directions until best image is seen. Sounds faffy but unless you are miles away then really doesn't take long and saves going out fitting the Bahtinov . I now also put the focusser lock on whenever I finish a session and power down to prevent the focuser getting moved when no power to motor, Just remember to unlock it at start of next session - becomes 2nd nature after a couple of sessions. It then always focusses and sometimes moves a little but not much.

2) Average over at least 2 images.

3) Keep guiding enabled.

4) if any issues use longer exposures. 2 to 3 seconds seems to be common.

Steve

Cool. Thanks Steve. I have used the focus module to focus manually and it seems OK - as you say you need to be close to start with - but I'm OK with that. As I'm doing it DIY I guess success will depend on how well I build it - but nothing ventured nothing gained. I don't use guiding at the moment, but I'm assuming (as with plate solving), when I schedule a repeated sequence (I usually do around an hour of lights as a sequence) it will focus again when the sequence begins again.

Daz

Edited April 20, 2021 by Dazzyt66

[Dazzyt66]

6 minutes ago, Feccy said:

For £15 on Amazon I got a mains adaptor for my 550D to replace the battery - camera now goes all night

 

I did think about something like this but I'm running everything from a powertank (no mains) and I'm likely to switch to an ZWO at some point when funds allow. Good shout though! 😀

[TerryMcK]

2 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Just to add to my previous ramble I have had some issues with auto focus lately which now has settled down and has worked flawlessly last 4 or 5 sessions.

Generally it needs to pretty much close to focus before letting it run or it can struggle.

Also there a a host of things you can change, things like parameters, exposure time, averaging over more than one exposure, algorithms.
And not sure which way to point you as I asked the question about what parameters work best .

ekos-auto-focusing-what-parameters-do-you-use

I also did a lot of searching Google and apart from ensuring it has all the correct settings for your scope, camera etc people seemed to use quite a differing variety of parameters and algorithms, some claiming they were the best , others to say just what they used.

So whether this is just a difficult process to get right anyway, or all these algorithms do the same job essentially I am not sure.

Some common things did seem to run through what most of them suggested:

1) needs to be manually focussed to be somewhere close first - can be done several ways but I found taking a quick image of stars and zooming in on the stars in the resultant image and if looked blurry moved focusser one direction and another quick (3 sec) image - if less bloated then continue in that direction or change directions until best image is seen. Sounds faffy but unless you are miles away then really doesn't take long and saves going out fitting the Bahtinov . I now also put the focusser lock on whenever I finish a session and power down to prevent the focuser getting moved when no power to motor, Just remember to unlock it at start of next session - becomes 2nd nature after a couple of sessions. It then always focusses and sometimes moves a little but not much.

2) Average over at least 2 images.

3) Keep guiding enabled.

4) if any issues use longer exposures. 2 to 3 seconds seems to be common.

Steve

That's interesting advise Steve. I haven't really got to grips with EKOS auto focusing finding it hunts around never really stopping and me randomly setting a few parameters to no avail. I will have a look at your suggestions thanks.

I am using Lakeside focusers on my William Optics scopes and somebody suggested using a dial indicator to find out how much backlash I may have in the focuser (which I still have to do). I can then dial that into EKOS. Once I have autofocusing nailed I think I should be good to go.  

[Stuart1971]

3 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

That's interesting advise Steve. I haven't really got to grips with EKOS auto focusing finding it hunts around never really stopping and me randomly setting a few parameters to no avail. I will have a look at your suggestions thanks.

I am using Lakeside focusers on my William Optics scopes and somebody suggested using a dial indicator to find out how much backlash I may have in the focuser (which I still have to do). I can then dial that into EKOS. Once I have autofocusing nailed I think I should be good to go.  

There is an excellent video on YouTube regards setting up backlash on a scope by a guy off this forum, @RayD his YouTube channel is “Simplified Astro” I followed it and it works a treat and a really simple but clever way to do it...

One thing is that most backlash comes from the focuser and not the motor when you have a rack and pinion, I have 70 steps set as backlash compensation on my Tak FSQ85, and seems to work, but as has been said it needs to be pretty close for autofocus to work...👍🏼

[teoria_del_big_bang]

1 hour ago, TerryMcK said:

That's interesting advise Steve. I haven't really got to grips with EKOS auto focusing finding it hunts around never really stopping and me randomly setting a few parameters to no avail. I will have a look at your suggestions thanks.

Yes that's pretty much were I was a few weeks ago, and apart from the suggestions I made, that was gathered form several sources, I am still not fully sure what all the parameters do and how it affects how it gets focus.
But whether it is luck or what last few sessions it has seemed to work well each time (but as I said starting off from pretty much in focus anyway).

One thing I forgot to mention that helped is having a fairly low initial step size. I think the default is quite big (maybe 100 or more can't remember) but this seemed to take it too far out of focus and it never recovered.~I am not sure what it is now but it is in the tens, 30 or something like that and very much improved.

I will power up the Rpi and list my parameters if it helps, bear in mind I still not fully sure what everything does so in no way am I saying these are the parameters to use jut what is working for me now.
As I said others on SGL have posted their parameters for which I was very grateful, and I have looked at others on different websites but there doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency between them all so either there is no defining right or wrong or all work equally well, or equally badly 🙂 

If anyone on SGL is the auto focus guru I would love to hear from them 🙂 

Steve

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[TerryMcK]

That's great help guys and I'm sure it will certainly help all us EKOSers (is that a word)

[teoria_del_big_bang]

14 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

That's great help guys and I'm sure it will certainly help all us EKOSers (is that a word)

I'd take that, thank God they did not call it ETOS. 🙂 

Steve

[Dazzyt66]

18 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

That's great help guys and I'm sure it will certainly help all us EKOSers (is that a word)

it is now! Although @teoria_del_big_bangdid make me LOL!

[teoria_del_big_bang]

If of any use my current Focus parameters.

As already said if anyone sees something that could be better please tell me.

I have no real confidence these are anywhere near best settings and if I get another clear night this week then I will try to spend a bit of time doing some more messing around with different parameters to see if I can get them any more reliable, although for several nights it has focussed withing 100 steps each night and that could be down to temperature differences rather than errors (not sure).

I noticed that I am now using 5 sec exposures which may be a big part of why it seems more stable, albeit now a longer process.

There are several things I would like to resolve:

1. I have not looked into backlash compensation so will also look into this and follow the link from @Stuart1971
2. Does the filter make a difference if they are all parfocal ? In theory it should not but does one filter help with focussing over others ?
3. What effect does changing the binning have - should it be the same as whatever you are using for the imaging ? I assume focus should be the same for all binning options so would using 2x2 or 4x4 make focussing quicker or more reliable ?
4. What effect does the box size have ?
5. What effect does kernel size have ?
6. What effect does Sigma have ?
7. What Detection system and Algorithm work best ? I have used all the algorithms and to be honest not sure one was any more successful than the other but I have not tried all combinations of algorithms and detections, that will take sometime.

I know there are boxes that appear to explain what all these do (another great feature of EKOS) but that does not really tell me which will work best for me.

There is so much I do not know and I really have only got mine all "Apparently" working by hit and miss or "suck it and see" methodology.  So would be great to know what I was doing.

Steve

Edited April 20, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[TerryMcK]

Thanks Steve. I think I have a couple of clear nights coming up so will test out focusing as part of one of the sessions.