Firecapture install onto a raspberry pi4?

[bottletopburly]

Does anyone have an idiots guide to install firecature onto a raspberry pi4, I want to try the pi4 with my zwo 585mc as my main pc is too far from my pier and affects frame rates so I need a usb 3 computer next to pier so I have a pi4 sitting idle so would like to see if it would work there fore having a short cable from camera to pi4 , I can only find one thread on CN and got lost reading it so looking for an idiots guide  can anyone help.

[Avocette]

Hi - perhaps the easiest way is to download Astroberry (astroberry.io). This is a great compilation prepared by @RadekK and including FireCapture 2.7.10 ported specially for Raspberry Pi. The present Astroberry image for downloading was compiled a year ago, but since then Radek has set up a repository with regular updates, so you will need to carry out an update/upgrade which will make a lot of changes. I’m assuming that since you own an RPi4 (gold dust due to supply shortages) you know a bit about burning an image onto a microSD card or SSD and Raspberry Pi OS commands.

[bottletopburly]

4 minutes ago, Avocette said:

Hi - perhaps the easiest way is to download Astroberry (astroberry.io). This is a great compilation prepared by @RadekK and including FireCapture 2.7.10 ported specially for Raspberry Pi. The present Astroberry image for downloading was compiled a year ago, but since then Radek has set up a repository with regular updates, so you will need to carry out an update/upgrade which will make a lot of changes. I’m assuming that since you own an RPi4 (gold dust due to supply shortages) you know a bit about burning an image onto a microSD card or SSD and Raspberry Pi OS commands.

Thanks for that ,i will have to look at that ,i bought it when they first came out to put APT server on so will need to refresh how i copied onto the sd card .

[bottletopburly]

So followed astroexplorings video to install astroberry https://youtu.be/4liqOzZyfxo all good inserted sd card to pi4 ,chose astroberry on the wireless  list press connect inserted password astroberry but its 10 digits and password only accepts 8 digits  am i missing something @RadekK @Avocette

 

[bottletopburly]

ok seemed to be connected via ethernet cable  downloaded astroberry 2.04 cant see firecapture though do i need to download seperateley.

 

edit found it under Education tab , now to get the zwo585 to work on astroberry do I need to install a driver onto astoberry on the pi 

Edited October 15, 2022 by bottletopburly

[Elp]

If you're using a web browser to access the RPI there should be a pull out tab on the LHS of the screen with a few buttons on it, the telescope one is the one you want. You need to specify what equipment you'll be using and then save the profile. Then every time you start astroberry you select which profile you are using and press the start button, this then loads all the required drivers for astroberry to use.

[bottletopburly]

6 minutes ago, Elp said:

If you're using a web browser to access the RPI there should be a pull out tab on the LHS of the screen with a few buttons on it, the telescope one is the one you want. You need to specify what equipment you'll be using and then save the profile. Then every time you start astroberry you select which profile you are using and press the start button, this then loads all the required drivers for astroberry to use.

Thanks yes just fathomed that out , chose zwo driver and telescope simulator , connected zwo585 started firecature but camera not found , could it be that my camera is not covered by this current driver in astroberry .

[Elp]

Telescope simulator profile is just a dummy profile so you can test out astroberry. You have to actually make a new profile, make sure to save it also. If you don't save the profile it won't remember it, you'll know if it's saved if you change between profiles and it lists all the equipment you specified under each profile. Then you can start the profile you choose.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Elp

[bottletopburly]

26 minutes ago, Elp said:

Telescope simulator profile is just a dummy profile so you can test out astroberry. You have to actually make a new profile, make sure to save it also. If you don't save the profile it won't remember it, you'll know if it's saved if you change between profiles and it lists all the equipment you specified under each profile. Then you can start the profile you choose.

Thanks I will have a look this evening and get my head around everything, then see if I can fathom out connecting via WiFi .

[Elp]

56 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

Thanks I will have a look this evening and get my head around everything, then see if I can fathom out connecting via WiFi .

Maybe it's a setting under (windows) WiFi settings? The correct security type will need to be selected, maybe why it's limiting you to 8 characters.

[bottletopburly]

Update ,i can access astroberry via ethernet cable , zwo 120 mini recognised in fire capture ,zwo 585mc and qhy290mm cant start in firecapture ,Oalive recognizes the zwo120mini and the qhy290, i cant access via wifi using windows10  password asking for 8 digits and the only 8 digit code on back of router(virgin) doesnt work .

[Elp]

WiFi:

Follow this under subheading "how to connect with settings", typically the security should be wpa2 aes which doesn't have an 8 character restriction, the default password for astroberry is the word astroberry.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-connect-wi-fi-network-windows-10#section-how-to-connect-to-wi-fi-network-using-settings

There's a chance the 585mc might be too new to work with astroberry, I was going to suggest if you can use the latest pc version of Firecapture to test you can see if that supports it.

[bottletopburly]

13 hours ago, Elp said:

WiFi:

Follow this under subheading "how to connect with settings", typically the security should be wpa2 aes which doesn't have an 8 character restriction, the default password for astroberry is the word astroberry.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-connect-wi-fi-network-windows-10#section-how-to-connect-to-wi-fi-network-using-settings

There's a chance the 585mc might be too new to work with astroberry, I was going to suggest if you can use the latest pc version of Firecapture to test you can see if that supports it.

zwo 585mc and qhy290mm  recognised by firecapture 2.7 on pc , tried redoing wifi settings as in your link (running windows 10 pro  )  makes no difference still only asking 8 digits max  may be my virgin media router , can access via my iphone 6 S so maybe not a router issue and a windows issue .

[AstroKeith]

13 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

zwo 585mc and qhy290mm  recognised by firecapture 2.7 on pc , tried redoing wifi settings as in your link (running windows 10 pro  )  makes no difference still only asking 8 digits max  may be my virgin media router , can access via my iphone 6 S so maybe not a router issue and a windows issue .

Astroberry on start up will look for a wifi network it knows. If it cant find one or connect, then it will generate its own wifi hotspot. This is obviously useful in the field when away from your network.

So you can either connect your laptop to this hotspot directly (not via your home virgin network). The SSID and the password will be 'astroberry'.

Or, connect via ethernet and change the astroberry wifi settings to match your home network..... on the pi, not your laptop.

[bottletopburly]

1 hour ago, AstroKeith said:

Astroberry on start up will look for a wifi network it knows. If it cant find one or connect, then it will generate its own wifi hotspot. This is obviously useful in the field when away from your network.

So you can either connect your laptop to this hotspot directly (not via your home virgin network). The SSID and the password will be 'astroberry'.

Or, connect via ethernet and change the astroberry wifi settings to match your home network..... on the pi, not your laptop.

Thanks Keith I will look into this later , it must be a astroberry issue regarding 8 digits as my router password is longer than 8 digits.

[AstroKeith]

8 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

Thanks Keith I will look into this later , it must be a astroberry issue regarding 8 digits as my router password is longer than 8 digits.

I've just booted up one of my Astroberry's and it will take a 12 digit password. 

[Elp]

Just a thought, have you tried "password" or "12345678"?

I've just tried setting up a new wireless device connection on windows and none of the security options (WPA etc) have an 8 character restriction, I can type as many as I want. Suspect there's something else happening here. If you're connecting directly to the astroberry RPI there should not be a character restriction, and the password will be the same as the one you used with your iPhone if your iPhone did indeed connect directly to the RPI and not your router.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Elp

[Elp]

In astroberry if you right click the 4 bars (wifi signal strength) icon at the top (check that enable networking and enable wifi is on), go to edit connections, Network Connections > Astroberry Hotspot under "wifi" click the gear (settings) icon at the bottom, under "wifi security" in the window which shows up you can set the password to whatever you want.

 

[bottletopburly]

Is setting up astroberry really so frustrating ,so i got the astroberry hot spot to work eventually after re installing this time choosing to enter astroberry not in the password field as that only accepted 8 digits but below it said enter code or something this time it connected when astroberry entered  ,even though i tried this numerous times before , ive created a wifi network on astroberry with home wifi settings password etc ,but now i cant access the astroberry via the browser which i could at first via my ipad ,iphone , i filled in localisation fields ,wifi, country timezone  etc and saved but time clock still shows wrong time and year , and despite setting the screen to fit on my ipad i only get half a screen and the hand symbol is greyed out so i can't see the right hand side of screen ,so i can access by choosing astroberry in my wifi network on my devices ie ipad and pc  and via ethernt cable on pc but cant access on any device via the browser over the internet ,enabled wifi and networking  and i cant access net via astroberry browser either ,and running the update commands in the terminal doesn't work either so obviously because astroberry can't access the net.

Edited October 30, 2022 by bottletopburly

[Elp]

If you've managed to connect astroberry to your home router, and that is the no 1 network setting for astroberry, it will use that as the default and you will no longer be able to connect to it directly via WiFi because it's network information is now dictated by your router, whatever IP address has been provided to it via your router is the address you put into your web browser (eg 192.168.182.48 or whatever it may be) AS LONG AS YOU ARE CONNECTED VIA WIFI TO YOUR ROUTER AT THE TIME. If you go into your router settings it will tell you somewhere what devices are connected to it and their IP addresses.

Another option is to connect your PC to the astroberry/RPI directly with an ethernet cable (I also made this same mistake as you have and changed the WiFi settings, then couldn't connect via WiFi until I did this). It's a bit complicated to explain simply what was done, but briefly in windows command prompt I did an "ipconfig /all" command and it told me the IP address of the astroberry/RPI.

Networking seems complicated if you don't know what you're doing, but it's structured such for a reason.

The simpler option is to reflash the SD card with astroberry again, and it will reset back to default.

If you're viewing astroberry on a web browser with a small resolution screen it will not fit the whole screen in, you have to move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen and it will scroll if I recall. It's not user friendly in this regard on small screen or low resolution devices.

I suggest you watch this tutorial for installation and initial startup:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgn3KioAAJ0

The RPI doesn't have an in built battery so if you're going to be powering it on and off it will lose its date and time. You have to open the terminal within astroberry and type in:

sudo date -s "year-month-date hour:mins:sec"

Replace year month and date with two digits each respectively, hour in 24 hour time. When you press enter it will ask you to enter the astroberry password, once you do this and press enter again it will display the new date and time you input on the next line. You can then exit or close the terminal window.

It's worth persevering with. But, for the reason alone that I wanted to do away with the PC at the scope or even near it looking through a window and control it via my phone, I changed to an Asiair. It's user interface suits small screens much better and is easy to use though some element of learning does apply (it's straightforward). You do however have to use zwo equipment with it, some Canon and Nikon cameras are supported. I still use astroberry for solar and planetary imaging though.

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Elp

[bottletopburly]

Thanks @Elp I will look into that again at some point when I get a minute.

[bottletopburly]

Hallelujah @Elp finally the raspberry talking to the internet and updated my zwo585mc is recognised 👍 though don’t think it will be beefy enough for high frame rates but I will have a tinker now just a matter of getting it configured for everything else .

[Elp]

That's good news, hope you get some good results soon.

[AstroMuni]

On 02/11/2022 at 13:25, bottletopburly said:

though don’t think it will be beefy enough for high frame rates but I will have a tinker now j

The RPi cant provide high frame rates for planetary imaging capturing videos. I tried with Firecapture and its pathetic in low 40s. The laptop goes much higher. But for regular DSO imaging RPi works a treat. I use Kstars/Ekos for that.

[Elp]

Is that more to do with the storage tech within though? Modern laptop SSD drives have much faster read/write rates, even good HDD do.

I usually run RPI at around 15fps or so, it's okay and I operate for around 10-15 mins, usually in 2000 frame batches. If you're doing video it's most likely saving the video at 25 FPS (PAL) or 30fps (NTSC) (not like 60/120fps video recording like a lot of phones are capable of recording so you can see slow motion footage). Higher frame rate increases the chances of freezing seeing, but doing it for longer achieves the same thing.