Need some help selecting imaging software stack

[vlaiv]

I'll briefly describe my wide field setup and how I envisioned it working.

I have AZGti mount converted to EQ mode. ASI178mcc on top of it with Samyang 85mm F/1.4 lens (actually T1.5 version) and 30mm guide scope with ASI185 in side by side arrangement.

All of that is connected to RPI4 running INDIGO server. It's connected with power over ethernet adapter to my home wired network and I can access all of that from my work computer. Everything is wired connection for stability (USB/serial adapter for AZGti and powerline ethernet adapter for network).

I'm now wondering what to use for imaging stack:

- imaging application

- guiding application

- planetarium / scope pointing app

Or rather - I'm wondering if I should go for native INDI connection or Ascom alpaca.

I'm inclined to go with:

Nina, Phd2 and Stellarium for above, but not sure which is the best way to connect software to indigo server. I've tried ASCOM alpaca connection from SharpCap and it works. I'm getting exposures and can control the camera sufficiently. I can also control all the gear via indigo web control panel if need be.

Any suggestions of what I should try first?

[ONIKKINEN]

Dont know anything about the INDIGO server thing, but from your NINA, PHD2 and Stellarium list i would drop Stellarium competely. I think its another possible point of software failure and not all that needed when NINA is up and running.

NINAs Sky atlas contains practically every target imaginable, and those that it doesnt can be slewed to by input coordinates. If you download the offline image catalogue (couple of GB) you have a very convenient alternative to Stellarium built in to NINA, and can slew to any point from there (and easily create a sequence). Pointing and slewing can all be done with NINA and Astap platesolving, so i think there is no need for an external planetarium software with that.

[vlaiv]

2 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Dont know anything about the INDIGO server thing,

It's just implementation of INDI server.

Can Nina natively connect to INDI server?

[ONIKKINEN]

1 minute ago, vlaiv said:

It's just implementation of INDI server.

Can Nina natively connect to INDI server?

The NINA discord server would have an answer to that in case no-one here does. Would be surprised if someone here doesnt know though.

[Rallemikken]

Don't know what makes your Pi tick, most likely it's Raspbian or RaspberryPiOS. Just install KStars/Ekos/INDI. Most likely, it's in the native repo's.

Ekos has modules for all you need. No need for PHD2 or special software for capture, platesolving, PA, focuser and so on.

Just started my third season with this setup. Never missed a single minute of capture due to software hickups. And the rig is always bang-on target after three platesolves. Done in two minutes. Accurate PA. And KStars has it's own planetarium, like Stellarium. Not fancy, but all targets can be searhed for and with two clicks you are unparked and (close) on target. This is where the platesolving module comes to right.

[vlaiv]

13 minutes ago, Rallemikken said:

Don't know what makes your Pi tick, most likely it's Raspbian or RaspberryPiOS. Just install KStars/Ekos/INDI. Most likely, it's in the native repo's.

I'm trying to avoid having heavy software on the RPI.

It will just serve as "interface" to equipment and network and all the apps will be run on my desktop computer.

If KStars can run on windows (and it looks like it can) - then it would be alternative. I have RPI running INDI effectively (it is actually INDIGO - different implementation of the same specification with some changes) - so connecting to it with software run on Windows is what I'm after.

As far as I can tell - I can use any set of software I'm used on windows if I use ascom alpaca which is "middle man" between ascom and indi and allows for indi devices to be presented to windows software as ascom devices.

[Rallemikken]

2 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I'm trying to avoid having heavy software on the RPI.

It will just serve as "interface" to equipment and network and all the apps will be run on my desktop computer.

Agree on this. But try KStars/Ekos/INDI on bare-metal laptop, and a Pi as an INDI-server only. This is how I manage my StarTracker while my main rig runs on a linux desktop in my obsy. The RPi4 have fast enough wireless to make the whole setup remote if you can feed the rest from 12V. An alternative is OrangePi-Zero2 if all you need to handle is a DSLR. Love mine! Anyway, when you pick a Pi as an INDI-server, be sure to have enough USB-ports of the types needed. Can turn out to be a bottleneck, and a hub is just another cause for trouble.

[StevieDvd]

Just an off the wall idea.  If you have a look at  virtualhere you can use the local Rpi as a USB hub and run all your current PC software. You can see the installation details on github.  I think the free version only supports one usb but alt least you can try it out.

[vlaiv]

3 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Just an off the wall idea.  If you have a look at  virtualhere you can use the local Rpi as a USB hub and run all your current PC software. You can see the installation details on github.  I think the free version only supports one usb but alt least you can try it out.

Under linux, there is already free solution available - called USB over IP.  I think that there are still no reliable Windows implementation for the other side, but one can use some hacks like running linux + virtual box and windows in virtual machine with usb pass thru and so on.

There is this repo as well:

https://github.com/cezanne/usbip-win

Btw, ASCOM aplaca deals with this nicely without need for USB connection - but suffers from same issues as USBIP would.

One really needs fast connection for seamless work.

I did some tests yesterday and got very poor throughput on powerline adapters. Although they advertise as 500Mbps, they actually only have 100Mbps ports (not gigabit) so RPI works only in 100Mbps mode. In "lab" conditions, I'm able to get 94Mbps with iperf, but as soon as I include outdoor conditions and 30 meters of extension line and attempt connection over that - it drops to ~35Mbps.

That will surely be better and more reliable than Wifi connection, but it is slow.

That is about 4 megabytes per second of transfer speed - and I'm using camera that has 3000x2000 - with 16bit - single sub has almost 12MB of data - which means sub download of 3 seconds at best. It was actually more like 5-6 between exposures. Rather slow for someone used to USB3.0 speeds (4.8 Gbps - so even around x5 that of gigabit ethernet).

For now, I'll just explore options to see what software works the best and then I'll probably switch to Cat6 cable and direct ethernet connection rather than using powerline adapters.

- I might even consider more powerful machine and use network as Remote desktop connection

- Explore further INDIGO agents and associated ecosystem of apps. It turns out that agents move some of the processing from client back to server (like exposure control, guiding, plate solving and such) and network is used just for control of agents - so basically UI that connects to agents. I'm not overly confident that it will work without issues, but am willing to give it a go.

[StevieDvd]

It's been a while since I last looked at alpaca, back then it seemed to need drivers from the hardware makers written for alpaca. The only reason I investigated virtualhere usb connection was to use an Asiair on a solar scope with moonlite focuser & Asi camera from indoors and a long network lead - all controlled from a Windows 11 machine.

 

[vlaiv]

INDIGO has alpaca agent - which is very handy.

You select what device on your setup you want to expose over to ASCOM / alpaca and it exposes it. No need for special driver - indi driver (or rather indigo one) does the job.

Alpaca functionality is somewhat limited because of some light mismatch between ASCOM and INDI architectures - but overall it works.

[vlaiv]

https://github.com/indigo-astronomy/indigo/tree/master/indigo_drivers/agent_alpaca

 

[skybadger]

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Under linux, there is already free solution available - called USB over IP.  I think that there are still no reliable Windows implementation for the other side, but one can use some hacks like running linux + virtual box and windows in virtual machine with usb pass thru and so on.

There is this repo as well:

https://github.com/cezanne/usbip-win

Btw, ASCOM aplaca deals with this nicely without need for USB connection - but suffers from same issues as USBIP would.

One really needs fast connection for seamless work.

I did some tests yesterday and got very poor throughput on powerline adapters. Although they advertise as 500Mbps, they actually only have 100Mbps ports (not gigabit) so RPI works only in 100Mbps mode. In "lab" conditions, I'm able to get 94Mbps with iperf, but as soon as I include outdoor conditions and 30 meters of extension line and attempt connection over that - it drops to ~35Mbps.

That will surely be better and more reliable than Wifi connection, but it is slow.

That is about 4 megabytes per second of transfer speed - and I'm using camera that has 3000x2000 - with 16bit - single sub has almost 12MB of data - which means sub download of 3 seconds at best. It was actually more like 5-6 between exposures. Rather slow for someone used to USB3.0 speeds (4.8 Gbps - so even around x5 that of gigabit ethernet).

For now, I'll just explore options to see what software works the best and then I'll probably switch to Cat6 cable and direct ethernet connection rather than using powerline adapters.

- I might even consider more powerful machine and use network as Remote desktop connection

- Explore further INDIGO agents and associated ecosystem of apps. It turns out that agents move some of the processing from client back to server (like exposure control, guiding, plate solving and such) and network is used just for control of agents - so basically UI that connects to agents. I'm not overly confident that it will work without issues, but am willing to give it a go.

Power line adapters work well in my situation . I have gigabit ports on mine and they report throughput of 600mbps but if you can't fill the pipe, then you will get less. If you have a noisy segment , you will get less. If you branch into WiFi, you will get much less. So use appropriately.

My connection to the obbo over 30m power line is 10mbps which is plenty for video over esp and reasonable large file transfer but uses a 100mb unit at the obbo. If I replaced it with gb powerline I'm sure it would be much faster.