Transfer software

[Anthonyexmouth]

Just ordered a mini pc for my pier, does anyone know if Nina, phd2, sharpcap, apt, platesolve2, astap stellariun are all self contained in their own folder and can be copy/pasted to new pc or will I have to reinstall some or all? 

[StevieDvd]

I'd say that most should be installed cleanly and not copied as apps today generally use the %AppData% location to store settings and local configurations.

[Tomatobro]

When I set up my latest NUC mini pc from what I can recall the plate solving data files can be copied but all the rest were downloads and fresh installs.

NINA and PHD requires a configuration set and a calibration. Sharpcap will need its license file copying across.

At least you will start with all the latest upgrades👍

[Anthonyexmouth]

32 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

I'd say that most should be installed cleanly and not copied as apps today generally use the %AppData% location to store settings and local configurations.

I kinda thought that, was wishful thinking I guess. Only done a fresh install a couple of weeks ago and was hoping to avoid it. 

[bottletopburly]

Apt you can export your settings .

[ONIKKINEN]

Transfer the executables/installers with a USB stick and install them on the mini-pc. You can keep your mini-pc offline indefinitely and dont need to download anything on it!

My mini-pc has never, and will never be connected to the internet. Makes life much easier with windows being unable to "help" by updating itself randomly.

[Anthonyexmouth]

33 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Transfer the executables/installers with a USB stick and install them on the mini-pc. You can keep your mini-pc offline indefinitely and dont need to download anything on it!

My mini-pc has never, and will never be connected to the internet. Makes life much easier with windows being unable to "help" by updating itself randomly.

How do you keep it offline? 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Ok, here's another question for you pier mounted mini pc guys. When you remote in, do you have your chosen apps start on boot or do you manually start them? 

[ONIKKINEN]

26 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

How do you keep it offline? 

I have a USB travel router attached to it that creates its own wifi network, just without actual internet connectivity. I then connect my tablet to that dummy wifi and control the PC with remote desktop on android. Works anywhere, even when there is no cell reception in some backwater dark sky location.

For file transfer i just use a USB stick.

[malc-c]

There are various apps such as Macrim Reflect that have options to clone drives, so if you have an existing PC it can be cloned to the new one.  Granted you may have to reactivate windows as the hardware will have changed, but it's one way that saves a lot of time...

[Anthonyexmouth]

28 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

I have a USB travel router attached to it that creates its own wifi network, just without actual internet connectivity. I then connect my tablet to that dummy wifi and control the PC with remote desktop on android. Works anywhere, even when there is no cell reception in some backwater dark sky location.

For file transfer i just use a USB stick.

Ah ok, in setting it up on a permanent pier and pretty sure a hot stop won't reach to my bedroom for monitoring during the night. It'll have to connect to my home network. I'll just set up the active hours to stop reboots

[scotty38]

15 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Ah ok, in setting it up on a permanent pier and pretty sure a hot stop won't reach to my bedroom for monitoring during the night. It'll have to connect to my home network. I'll just set up the active hours to stop reboots

Yes that's all I do with mine, I have it set to do updates in the daytime, anything between 5pm and 7am is out of bounds as it were..... Having an internet connection is far more handy to me for plate solving, NINA updates etc etc than worrying about a random reboot or windows update that I can control anyway.

[Tomatobro]

On 20/07/2022 at 19:33, Anthonyexmouth said:

When you remote in, do you have your chosen apps start on boot or do you manually start them? 

After remote desktop connects I start each APP from scratch.

[AstroMuni]

On 21/07/2022 at 11:45, scotty38 said:

Having an internet connection is far more handy to me for plate solving,

Out of interest dont you keep the data files on your pc for offline solving?

[scotty38]

2 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Out of interest dont you keep the data files on your pc for offline solving?

No I don't but not for any premeditated reason just I never thought about it. I don't have any machines without a connection and don't image away from home so it's never cropped up. I have considered what I would do if I lost Internet connectivity during acquisition but I've not done anything about it although NINA has the offline cache for this very reason although I've not tested it really.

[AstroMuni]

17 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I don't have any machines without a connection and don't image away from home so it's never cropped up.

I personally find that doing local platesolving is way faster, hence I opt to do that. I use the internal solver in Ekos.

[Anthonyexmouth]

29 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

No I don't but not for any premeditated reason just I never thought about it. I don't have any machines without a connection and don't image away from home so it's never cropped up. I have considered what I would do if I lost Internet connectivity during acquisition but I've not done anything about it although NINA has the offline cache for this very reason although I've not tested it really.

NINA offline cache is just framing, isn't it. It doesn't do it's own plate solving. Local plate solving is so much faster than astrometry net

[scotty38]

1 hour ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

NINA offline cache is just framing, isn't it. It doesn't do it's own plate solving. Local plate solving is so much faster than astrometry net

Yes it is, I wasn't thinking straight....

Having said that I don't use astrometry.net I use astap and it's plenty fast enough to not need local solving.

 

Has it just dawned on me that folk saying local solving is faster are not using ASTAP?????

Edited July 29, 2022 by scotty38

[skybadger]

I don't understand this . I use ASTAP under Voyager because ASTROMETRY.net is so slow. It is local on my PC. ASTAP solves in something like 2 seconds whereas ASTROMETRY remote can take 6 minutes or so. 

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

Yes it is, I wasn't thinking straight....

Having said that I don't use astrometry.net I use astap and it's plenty fast enough to not need local solving.

 

Has it just dawned on me that folk saying local solving is faster are not using ASTAP?????

Astap is local, isn't it? 

[scotty38]

5 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Astap is local, isn't it? 

Ah I see what you mean, yes the database is installed locally but I must admit  I had always assumed there was some comms up to the internet anyway but as I'm always connected it's never shown up as an issue or not. I'll try a test and see.... You learn something every day even though I have to say I'd not really actually given it much thought 🙂

[ONIKKINEN]

5 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Astap is local, isn't it? 

It is. I use it with the H18 star database on my mini-pc which has never been connected to the internet and so far platesolving has never failed if the frame was decent.