Move away from ASIAIR? Where next....

[Stuart1971]

1 minute ago, Backyardscope said:

I am sorry if I have caused confusion nor was to cause offence. Nor do you need to justify your profession, who cares! @powerlord

But I do stick to my opinion INDI was very much there before ZWO decided to somewhat replicate the idea and make it proprietary to only their devices, nice idea if you want lock people into buying your devices.

Some people prefer Open Source you know!  and not just locked into one brand and nor is it about being Anti-ASI. Some of my previous cameras were ASI Pro's.

Nor did I claim that ASIAIR was inferior or better then Stellarmate. I gave my 2p's worth. 

If your happy with the ASI and it floats your boat stick with it. Why bother looking at something else!

N.

 

It was me who said that SM was better than the ASIair, and I do believe that, but it’s my opinion, and the fact it caters for all cameras is part of that opinion, and yes SM was around using indi long long before ZWO “borrowed” the idea….but I think part of the license for them to be able to use the open source software was to lock it to there kit only.

If they could allow it to work on all cameras, they surely would as it would make them a fortune….shame they could not build there own from scratch…

[Backyardscope]

I wonder if any or at all any credit was giving to the original open source community for their efforts and work from ASI.

Give credit where its due, it goes a long way.

I so was so impressed with Stellarmate OS and simplicity I went and bought the Stellamate X OS for the mini PC.

Don't get me wrong I like N.I.N.A as well everything under one hood and importantly is free!

Edited October 27, 2023 by Backyardscope

[mistuk]

This has turned into a really interesting discussion - thank you for all your contributions

[Backyardscope]

Oh! I forgot to mention, IMHO I also found running Linux was much more less cpu intensive then running Windows.

[StevieDvd]

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

 Joey's kernel is required for the usb and power board to work on the asiair - is that correct ?

I'd quite like to try it and give it a work out you see, but don't really want to faff around with rebuilding kernels to get it working. And running it on a pi is no use to me, as I'd lose the 12v power connectors I need and would need to faff around with new pi case, bla bla.

 

 

You don't need a new kernel from Joey for either Astroberry or Stellarmate to use the power ports. There is now an indi driver  indi-asipower that supports them as standard thanks to Ken Self, if you search SGL you'll see how it was added and used like here for example.

The virtualUSB  is a licensed product that runs only on the licensed computer (server) but the usb connects can be shared over a network - it's about $50 for a single license from the author in Australia. I've tested it with usb drives and asi cameras, the server software is on my Astroberry & Stellarmate sd-cards but licensed to my AsiAir Pro.  You'd need root access to the AsiAir sd-card to use it with the ZWO app but I've not done that myself.

 

[Ouroboros]

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

but I think part of the license for them to be able to use the open source software was to lock it to there kit only.

That’s an interesting thought. I had assumed it was solely a commercial decision to tie people in to the ZWO stable of cameras. In fact I thought they were being quite clever in enabling a lot of different types of DSLR cameras to work with the ASIair because they know that a lot of people transition from a DSLR to a dedicated camera.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Ouroboros

[Ouroboros]

40 minutes ago, mistuk said:

This has turned into a really interesting discussion - thank you for all your contributions

It is very interesting.  At one time I was 100% in favour of recommending the ASIair, but my experience of late since recent software updates is that it has become flakier as a platform.   All this has been debated at length elsewhere. I don’t know why this has happened. Whether ZWO have overstretched themselves in adding too many knobs and whistles to the air.  I’ve no idea. Anyway, it’s worth knowing about alternatives in case jumping ship becomes necessary. 

[Elp]

I suspect ZWO might not even be writing the software themselves, it would explain why they take so long to address bugs and not address other bugs at all.

[AstroMuni]

4 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Yes SM does rely on ekos, PhD2 plate solving etc, you are correct there…

The app is much further down the line that that statement makes out, I think that has been there a long time, as I saw that 2 years ago….

The website doesnt do justice to the Stellarmate app and I have mentioned this to Jasem. Having seen the ASIAir in action and as a user of Stellarmate I have to say that ASIAir UI is more user friendly but under the core I think Ekos is stronger.  And the similarities in the two apps makes you wonder what is the true relationship between the 2 organisations!

The Stellarmate app is using the same labeling as Ekos for their parameters (which makes it easier for power users to switch between App & Ekos itself) but on the flip side some of those labels are not the most intuitive. Thats my 2 bits 🙂

Edited October 27, 2023 by AstroMuni

[AstroMuni]

Double post 😞 hence deleted content

Edited October 27, 2023 by AstroMuni