Stellarium MESA???

[bosun21]

I just downloaded Stellarium onto my new laptop as my old was on its way out. The old laptop had the older version of Stellarium on it and worked just fine. However on installing the new version I saw this MESA shortcut. It slowed things down so badly and the application completely froze. What is this MESA? 

[Cornelius Varley]

29 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I just downloaded Stellarium onto my new laptop as my old was on its way out. The old laptop had the older version of Stellarium on it and worked just fine. However on installing the new version I saw this MESA shortcut. It slowed things down so badly and the application completely froze. What is this MESA? 

MESA or MESA3d https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_(computer_graphics)

[PeterC65]

Stellarium is a very useful piece of software for EAA, but also one of the more troublesome. It can use a variety of different graphics libraries of which Mesa is one. In my experience there can be issues with these different versions and you need to find the one that works reliably with your setup.

For example, there is a known bug in the telescope mount control code which you will need to use for EAA. This bug appeared with the Qt6 graphical user interface library, but is not present with the previous version, Qt5. If you download the Windows 64-bit version from the Stellarium home page you will get Qt6 by default. It appears to work fine, but as soon as you slew the mount with another piece of software (like SharpCap), Stellarium will crash. The v23.3 release notes say that some progress has been made towards fixing this fault, but it is still there.

It is possible to download Stellarium v23.3 for Windows 64-bit with the Qt5 library (from here). All of the current and previous releases are listed on this page, including variants of the current release not listed on the Stellarium home page, and this is what I use (Stellarium 23.3 for Windows (64-bit; Windows 7+) based on Qt 5.12.6 (Visual Studio 2017 Community) with media support).

I've been using v23.1 64-bit Qt5, but prompted by this post I've just upgraded to v23.3 64-bit Qt5 and all seems to be well.

It's worth saying that whenever I upgrade any of the software I use for EAA I always test it thoroughly in daylight before risking a night time observing session. By thoroughly I mean:

• After installing the upgrade I will reboot the laptop a few times and test again after each reboot.
• I will go through the routines I use during an observing session, setting up the software to, say, control the mount, slewing to several different objects using Stellarium, and nudging the mount using the SharpCap slewing keys in between each one.
• Leave the software running for 15 minutes and try slewing again (I am doing this right now as I type).

This might seem like quite a faff, but I've found that just trying everything once, and assuming that after a reboot, or after another 5 minutes, it will all still work, tends to lead to disappointment and frustration!

Having said all this, once it is all working, and provided that you leave it alone, all will be well.

 

[bosun21]

2 hours ago, PeterC65 said:

Stellarium is a very useful piece of software for EAA, but also one of the more troublesome. It can use a variety of different graphics libraries of which Mesa is one. In my experience there can be issues with these different versions and you need to find the one that works reliably with your setup.

For example, there is a known bug in the telescope mount control code which you will need to use for EAA. This bug appeared with the Qt6 graphical user interface library, but is not present with the previous version, Qt5. If you download the Windows 64-bit version from the Stellarium home page you will get Qt6 by default. It appears to work fine, but as soon as you slew the mount with another piece of software (like SharpCap), Stellarium will crash. The v23.3 release notes say that some progress has been made towards fixing this fault, but it is still there.

It is possible to download Stellarium v23.3 for Windows 64-bit with the Qt5 library (from here). All of the current and previous releases are listed on this page, including variants of the current release not listed on the Stellarium home page, and this is what I use (Stellarium 23.3 for Windows (64-bit; Windows 7+) based on Qt 5.12.6 (Visual Studio 2017 Community) with media support).

I've been using v23.1 64-bit Qt5, but prompted by this post I've just upgraded to v23.3 64-bit Qt5 and all seems to be well.

It's worth saying that whenever I upgrade any of the software I use for EAA I always test it thoroughly in daylight before risking a night time observing session. By thoroughly I mean:

• After installing the upgrade I will reboot the laptop a few times and test again after each reboot.
• I will go through the routines I use during an observing session, setting up the software to, say, control the mount, slewing to several different objects using Stellarium, and nudging the mount using the SharpCap slewing keys in between each one.
• Leave the software running for 15 minutes and try slewing again (I am doing this right now as I type).

This might seem like quite a faff, but I've found that just trying everything once, and assuming that after a reboot, or after another 5 minutes, it will all still work, tends to lead to disappointment and frustration!

Having said all this, once it is all working, and provided that you leave it alone, all will be well.

 

Great advice. Thanks Peter 👍. I'm almost there now and just waiting for a clear night to give it a try. ( after checking everything indoors of course)🙂.