Astroberry with the skywatcher star adventurer

[AnonymousAnimosity]

Hello, a few months ago I bought a cheap guidescope, a T7M guide camera and a raspberry pi 4 to perform polar alignment, dithering and eventually guiding on the skywatcher star adventurer.  I have read the documentation for the "align" module, however I can't seem to get it working, all the buttons in the "align" tab of EKOS are greyed out. Has this happened to anybody else? If you use a similar setup with astroberry and a tracker I would be thankful if you shared your experience.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

It sounds like either the main CCD camera or the mount is not recognized by EKOS.

Can you put up some screen shots of all your tabs in EKOS as a start then we may be able to see what is missing and point us in the right direction (not intended as a pun but quite funny).

You talk a lot about getting a guidescope and guide camera, normally this has nothing to do with the align module, unless you are trying to align via your guidecam and guidescope instead of main scope and main camera.

Steve

[teoria_del_big_bang]

26 minutes ago, AnonymousAnimosity said:

Hello, a few months ago I bought a cheap guidescope, a T7M guide camera and a raspberry pi 4 to perform polar alignment, dithering and eventually guiding on the skywatcher star adventurer.  I have read the documentation for the "align" module, however I can't seem to get it working, all the buttons in the "align" tab of EKOS are greyed out. Has this happened to anybody else? If you use a similar setup with astroberry and a tracker I would be thankful if you shared your experience.

This is what my Align module looks like.
 

Now you may not have the "Capture & Solve" key enabled if you have not loaded any plate solving software but you should at least have the "Load & slew" key enabled so you can load a previous image and align exactly to same position.

I think I am right in my understanding here, somebody may correct me though as I do not profess to be an expert on EKOS.

Steve

[AnonymousAnimosity]

22 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

It sounds like either the main CCD camera or the mount is not recognized by EKOS.

Can you put up some screen shots of all your tabs in EKOS as a start then we may be able to see what is missing and point us in the right direction (not intended as a pun but quite funny).

You talk a lot about getting a guidescope and guide camera, normally this has nothing to do with the align module, unless you are trying to align via your guidecam and guidescope instead of main scope and main camera.

Steve

Both cameras seem to work properly, at least I can capture preview images. My tracker can't be connected directly to the raspberry so I figured I had to use the ST4 port of the guide camera.

Here are the screenshots:

 

edit: I have just now noticed that I'm supposed to have a mount in the EKOS profile, however it doesn't look like the star adventurer is recognized through either ST4 or usb (I guess it's just for power).

Edited July 30, 2021 by AnonymousAnimosity

[teoria_del_big_bang]

There is no Mount module there so the Align will not be enabled.

 

In your profile what do you have in the mount ?

 

In the INDI panel do you have your mount connected ?

Steve

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Ah, I think I have missed one of your comments here in that you say the mount (or tracker) cannot be connected to RPi.
If that is the case then the Align module will not enable because it cannot do anything.

The Align module is used to send the mount to its target and if you have the plate solving software installed basically takes a short exposure and plate solves it to see if there is an error and the mount is not pointing at the target and will then correct this error.

BUT, if EKOS is not connected to the mount it cannot do any of this because it has no control over the mount.

Steve

[AnonymousAnimosity]

1 minute ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Ah, I think I have missed one of your comments here in that you say the mount (or tracker) cannot be connected to RPi.
If that is the case then the Align module will not enable because it cannot do anything.

The Align module is used to send the mount to its target and if you have the plate solving software installed basically takes a short exposure and plate solves it to see if there is an error and the mount is not pointing at the target and will then correct this error.

BUT, if EKOS is not connected to the mount it cannot do any of this because it has no control over the mount.

Steve

According to information found on the INDI forums it seems that the only way to get it working is to select "telescope simulator" as a mount, that does in fact "unlock" the align module. I will read up some more and test this on the first clear night. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Sorry but I have no experience with the SW Star Adventurer tracker but are you saying that there is no port on them that connects to a computer ?
How do you send it to a target then ?

In Ekos I see there is a driver for this mount so I am a bit confused.

Steve

Edited July 30, 2021 by teoria_del_big_bang

[AnonymousAnimosity]

3 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Sorry but I have no experience with the SW Star Adventurer tracker but are you saying that there is no port on them that connects to a computer ?
How do you send it to a target then ?

In Ekos I see there is a driver for this mount so I am a bit confused.

Steve

It's not a GOTO mount, just a tracker with a motorized RA axis, so targets are aimed at manually. There is an ST4 port for autoguding and a usb port but I've read that it's not for connection to a PC.

I noticed there is a driver in EKOS but I couldn't connect to it so that's confusing.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I have to admit I am a bit lost with this now not having that mount to try.
But I have made a test profile and selected simulator for the mount as you suggested and my Align module does get enabled.

I still am not sure what the Align module would do for you as it cannot align the mount. Maybe it can tell you the error so you can manually adjust it to account for any error ?

Steve

[AnonymousAnimosity]

5 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I still am not sure what the Align module would do for you as it cannot align the mount. Maybe it can tell you the error so you can manually adjust it to account for any error ?

Yes that's what I'm hoping for! In normal conditions polar alignment is pretty quick, but if this method worked it would be useful when polaris is not visible.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Ah, its the polar alignment part of the module you need - ah I understand now and yes that makes sense.

Does THIS tutorial help at all ?

Good luck with it all, I am sure it will all become clear to you soon 🙂 

Steve

[AnonymousAnimosity]

3 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Ah, its the polar alignment part of the module you need - ah I understand now and yes that makes sense.

Does THIS tutorial help at all ?

Good luck with it all, I am sure it will all become clear to you soon 🙂 

Steve

That is indeed very helpful, thank you!  

I don't have much time to dedicate to astrophotography so for the time being dithering and polar alignment are the only uses I'm looking ot get out of astroberry, I will look into guiding in the future.

[BCN_Sean]

If the mount is the 2i version, connect it to the Pi with the USB, set the App mode on the control dial and then in EKOS/Indi, set the driver as the Skywatcher EQMod driver with a baud rate of 115200.  The only thing that won't be available in the align module is anything that requires DEC alignment, but the polar align tool works, and it will slew to targets on the RA axis once the mount is synced to coordinates.

I don't think it's officially supported in the driver, and also there are a few bugs which may or not present (biggest one I've found is when polar aligning, and if tracking is enabled it'll start a west slew but then cut back to tracking rate); but for guiding and polar alignment it works well.