KStars/Ekos on Raspberry Pi 4 mod B

[Rallemikken]

KStars and Ekos on a 8gb RPi4 with the "correct" accessories. It's replacing  a HP Deskpro 800 minicomputer. The HP  has served me well, but it has a mechanical harddrive that don't like to be fired up in sub-zero temperatures. My obsy has a heated computer room but I usually turn on the heat a few hours before I start. With the RPi4 I can turn on the power even if it's zero or colder. In the cold room I have an HEQ5 with a couple of reflectors and a bag of Canon DSLR's.  Guiding is done with a 120 mini on a SW finderscope.

The switch has not been painless, but in the end it seems to have paid off. Waiting for clear skies to give it first light. Besides running the rig I wanted a setup where I could browse the web and use Stellarium while capturing. The RPi4 is of the fattest, 8gb RAM, and it's "safely" overclocked to 2200. It runs 64-bit Debian Bookworm with Xfce from a 128gb SD-card with a 240gb external SSD for backup and file transfer. Stellarium is very fluid and Ekos hooks up perfectly, but there has been a couple of bumps on the road. First the lack of USB-ports. My rig only need three, and with my mouse/keyboard I thought I was good to go. Not. The EqMod-cable was so big it blocked one of the other ports. A USB3-hub solved the problem, but I'd rather do without. In the end I would need one nonetheless. It turned out the inbuilt wifi was to weak, and I had to hang on a dongle on a cable. Which I had to compile drivers for myself. With wifi sorted out it was time to test the SSD backup solution. The desktop randomly froze, and Stellarium became sluggish. This is something I've seen before.  I started out with a Logitech mouse/keyboard wireless combo, and once it was unplugged things straightened out. I could probably solved the issue with a long USB extension cable, but reached for my little red combo (with norwegian layout) instead. The Logitech wireless dongles have interfered with my computers on many occasions. If you have problems that cant be solved otherwise, try to unplug them, or get them out of the way (that is; as far away from anything else as possible). This time the problem didn't occur untill I connected the SSD. I also touched upon another issue; when I plugged the SSD into the hub, the wifi-dongle, which was also connected via the hub,  disconnected, but connected again after a few seconds. No big deal, but don't touch the hub while capturing if you have cameras and such plugged into it.

My initial plan was to use a RPi3 B+ as a standalone INDI-server on the rig, and link up over ethernet. Less cables, and no need for a hub. In the end I went for the direct connection. My three 5m long USB-cables has served me well for three seasons, and I like the simplicety.  

Nowadays it's all RPi5, but the four is pretty neat if you have a bit RAM and tinker with the config.txt in /boot. My testing so far has been limited to some random slewing, but everything seems smooth as silk. My initial plan was to replace the HP with an OrangePi5, I love them and have a spare, but I decided to give the RPi4 a try. So far, it looks good!

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I've got KStars and EKOS running an 8GB Pi4 (on Astroberry) as well, which is strapped to my tripod and feeds into an AZ-GTi.  It all works pretty seamlessly with remote access via another laptop and had no problems with the EQMod cable I'm using.

The main problem is setting the time and having the patience to get it all set up.  At the moment I'm mainly doing visual astronomy.  I do want to get this all going though, looks really impressive going from you there.

[Rallemikken]

7 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

Astroberry

Never gone the Astroberry route, always Debian or Ubuntu. I also do some remote, partly the reason I need wifi. When session is up and running I go inside, about 50m from my obsy. There I fire up X2go on my living room computer and hooks up to the obsy. A little sluggish over wifi, mostly to keep an eye on things and delete the odd bad sub. As for setting time; see if ntp is installed, or another service that uses the ntp (network time protocol) servers. On THIS machine, it's the "systemd-timesyncd" package. Internet connection requiered. If locale and timezone is set correct it should all work seemlessly.

Never considered a Pi3 B+ as a headless INDI-server on your rig, and a ethernet cable trough the living room window? There you can run KStars/Ekos on a decent linux laptop, and rule the world from your couch. The INDI-server is plain stupid, doesn't bother with time and such. Uses almost no menory and CPU.

As for setting up a Pi with KStars: Usually I partition my computers with their own /home, and starts up from a live-USB if the root partition goes sour. In this way I can recover my files, and maybe do a new root install without touching /home. Not so with the Pi's. You need to flash the whole card. And you can't use grub for booting. Don't know if you can boot from live media at all. Along with backing up your files, take a backup of /home/<username>/.local/share/kstars/  Here you find your astrometry index-files and all the settings. On a fresh install you often can dump these files in place and be up and runnning in no time. And transfer the settings between computers. Handy.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

I'm so little into it so far that if my Pi's memory card were to be wiped, it would put me back about five minutes.  It runs the INDI server on Astroberry automatically when it boots and puts out a WiFi hotspot, so provided I'm in WiFi range of the Pi I can control from any laptop by connecting to that hotspot.  If I sorted out my home network properly (ironically, I work in IT...) then I'd just connect the Pi to my main network (I have a second SSID for my outdoor office) and Astroberry lets me log in with the network IP and connect that way.  Sluggish but it works.  If the Astroberry can connect to the Internet directly it will pull down the time from NTP.  However, if I'm hotspotting onto it, it won't pick up the time as there is no time server to reference - unless I set up a standalone time server on the laptop I'm using to connect and point the Astroberry towards that...

[Rallemikken]

2 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

However, if I'm hotspotting onto it, it won't pick up the time as there is no time server to reference

I see. Sounds like an akward setup. If I understand you right, you are VNC'ing into Astroberry while cut away from the rest of internet? And I think you confuse INDI and KStars/Ekos. The first is part of the second, but they are not one, and they are not the same. The INDI-server don't need to know the time, but KStars does. I use an OrangePi Zero 2 as a combined hotspot/INDI-server when I image with my StarTracker. Simple setup, just capture. What if you stick a beefy wifi-dongle into your laptop and connects to the berry with that? You can make a bridge via the inbuilt wifi adapter to a router with internet access. You also may experience dramatically better transfer speeds. Finally, I still means the best option is run KStars/Ekos indoors or on a device with proper storage. That is, something like my OPi-Zero. Wifi-hotspot and INDI-server only. But it requieres sensible transfer speeds. Good wifi. Always nice to get the subs straight on to a proper harddrive while  capturing.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

So the way the Astroberry works is that it fires up its own INDI server and hotspot.   You can then VNC onto it in two different ways:

i) Connect your computer directly to the Astroberry's own hotspot.  This won't pull the time through as nothing is then connected to the Internet.
ii) Connect the Astroberry to your WiFi network.  It then just becomes another network device and gets assigned an IP via DHCP as usual.  You can connect to it using VNC from your other computer and the Astroberry can then connect to the Internet directly and find an NTP server.

You can, of course, just connect an Ethernet cable and plug it into your network directly or plug it into another computer with the Ethernet cable too.

I don't have an issue with KStars running on the Astroberry, after all it's just a dedicated OS for a Raspberry Pi and there's more than enough performance for it to run KStars/Ekos adequately but I entirely see your point about storing image files independently.  I might look into a NAS for that should I get more use out of it.

Ideally what I want to do is set up my home WiFi network so that there's reasonable coverage in the garden and then control it from my office.  That probably needs an externally-rated access point setting up.  Ideally, I'd upgrade my router to a 5GHz-capable one.  I work full-time from home and have Ethernet in my office so WiFi isn't a major priority...

[wimvb]

I have Astroberry on a Pi4 connected with an ethernet cable to my home network. My observatory is just outside the range of my home network. I connect to the Pi over vnc on Google Chrome. This means that if I set up my router designate a port to the Pi, I could connect to it where ever I am.

Before Astroberry, I've used INDI with Ekos/Kstars on a rock 64, a rock pro 64, and a RPi3. So far, astroberry has been the most stable solution. But in all fairness, during the RPi3 days, Ekos/Kstars wasn't as stable as it is now. Although the Rock 64 had a few advantages over a Raspberry Pi (usb3 before RPi, emmc card in stead of sd card), it was never as stable.

[Dark Raven]

On 30/12/2023 at 02:37, GrumpiusMaximus said:

The main problem is setting the time

Problem solved...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DS3231-Precision-Module-Raspberry-Consumption/dp/B08LDFCV9B/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1LUKV0XA0KBZ&keywords=DS3231+High+Precision+Real+Time+Clock+Module&qid=1704494299&sprefix=ds3231+high+precision+real+time+clock+module%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-3

 

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=161133

DS3231 has native support in INDI.

[JonCarleton]

I have been using PI4's for a couple of years to run all my rigs.  During this time, I have tried all sorts of combinations of VNC, ssh  -Y, and any other option I could find.  What I find that works best is to run ONLY indiserver with the drivers on the pi4 on the mount with the mount pi4 on the local network via WiFi (or ethernet cable).  Then I run the imaging software, EKOS with KStars or CCDciel with CarteDuCiel (I prefer the latter), on a desktop inside or a laptop.  On the same local network, of course. 

The only exception to this setup is that I have found that on a mount with which it is dificult to get excellent guiding, I install PHD2 on the mount pi4 and run PHD2 via ssh -Y on the imaging desktop/laptop.  I speculate that in troublesome mounts, even the slightest networking delay between PHD2 and the guide pulse makes a difference.  Since there is a small delay in transferring the guide image to the software over the network,  removing that delay can tame a troublesome mount.

This setup has the added advantage of removing the need to transfer the files from the mount Pi4, as they are transferred at time of capture.  This also means that having a large amount of storage for the image files on the mount pi is no longer necessary. 

Ekos will happily start and operate a remote indiserver instance.  For CCDciel, you may either SSH into the mount pi and start indiserver or use a free utility called IndiStarter.

I do run remote from time to time.  When away from the home network, I bring along a spare WiFi router configured with the same spec as my home network.  I typically just run a bit of ethernet cable to the wifi router from the laptop. This way, nothing has to change on the mount pi.....almost.  If you do not have a means to connect to the Internet when remote, you =MUST= SSH onto the mount pi and set the correct time/date.  This is, of course, unnecessary if you have a GPS device on your setup that provides time to the mount pi. I do not.  That said, without a GPS device, one has to make sure the imaging software knows the Lat/Lon/Alt of your remote location.  Bad things happen if the time/date is wrong on the mount pi or the location is wrong on the imaging software. 

I always verify the mount pi has the proper date/time and the imaging software has the proper location when operating at a remote site, even if I am using a GPS device as a time and location source.  This is not necessary for most home setups as your location is fixed and presumably setup when you installed the imaging software and the standard setup for most pi operating systems is to go in search of a network time server the moment a network connection is operational.

Edited February 23 by JonCarleton

[engstrom]

I’m just taking my first steps into using an Astroberry pi 4. It’s accessing the home WiFi and I’m connecting to it via a MacBook.

This evening I managed a few hours to figure things out live before the clouds rolled in. Managed to get the indi server running and connecting to the heq5 and asi585. Tried solving to no avail initially. I hadn’t entered the focal length and aperture 🙂 but when I did it complained of too few stars a few times before suddenly working. I solved a few times and got the error down.
Emboldened I tried to Polar Align and it worked first time and I was only a few minutes out. I tried to correct but racing ahead and not thinking I accidentally slewed the mount instead of fiddling with the knobs. Tried to PA again but when it came to the first Image it captured and received but just seemed ti hang there. Stopped it after a few attempts and tried simply plate solving and it did the same thing; captured and received and the activity indicator just spun and spun. I killed the instances and the server but it just did the same thing. By this time the clouds were rolling in so I guess I’ll see what happens next time.

Edited March 6 by engstrom

[wimvb]

29 minutes ago, engstrom said:

I’m just taking my first steps into using an Astroberry pi 4. It’s accessing the home WiFi and I’m connecting to it via a MacBook.

This evening I managed a few hours to figure things out live before the clouds rolled in. Managed to get the indi server running and connecting to the heq5 and asi585. Tried solving to no avail initially. I hadn’t entered the focal length and aperture 🙂 but when I did it complained of too few stars a few times before suddenly working. I solved a few times and got the error down.
Emboldened I tried to Polar Align and it worked first time and I was only a few minutes out. I tried to correct but racing ahead and not thinking I accidentally slewed the mount instead of fiddling with the knobs. Tried to PA again but when it came to the first Image it captured and received but just seemed ti hang there. Stopped it after a few attempts and tried simply plate solving and it did the same thing; captured and received and the activity indicator just spun and spun. I killed the instances and the server but it just did the same thing. By this time the clouds were rolling in so I guess I’ll see what happens next time.

Make sure you have all the essential and optional index files installed. I have ekos on a 64 GB card, and have installed index files down to less than 10% of the fov. Also, there is a smallest fov, below which plate solving for PA becomes unreliable.

[engstrom]

I was literally on my way back here to mention the fact that I have downloaded all the index files to an external USB HDD when I saw your reply 🙂

initially when it was solving it was really quick so I guess I’ve got the FOV right and it knew which indices to use. I guess I have to wait another 3 weeks for clear skies to try again.

[wimvb]

@engstrom try clearing the mount settings. You can do that in the mount/telescope section of ekos. "Clear mount model"

[AstroMuni]

On 30/12/2023 at 01:37, GrumpiusMaximus said:

The main problem is setting the time and having the patience to get it all set up.  At the moment I'm mainly doing visual astronomy.  I do want to get this all going though, looks really impressive going from you there.

Have you set  & saved your coords under the Geographic... option? Once thats done it should grab the right time from your wifi.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

15 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Have you set  & saved your coords under the Geographic... option? Once thats done it should grab the right time from your wifi.

I ended up putting an RTC in the Pi.  I can't always guarantee a WiFi connection to an Internet-connected network so tit was by far the easier solution.

[scarlin]

For those who are interested, there is a new distribution that works very well on raspberry. This is AstroArch. It installs very easily on pi4 or pi5. It is in x64, all software is with the latest version, works in HDMI or VNC, KDE6.
It also contains the astromonitor software. It allows you to save the kstars, indi, phd2 and equipment profile configuration files on a server. You can thus recover your configurations to reinstall them on another device or in the event of a hardware failure.

https://indilib.org/forum/astro-arch/14367-astroarch-1-8-released.html

[JonCarleton]

I notice a lot of folks with issues using the PI4 as a hotspot and not getting NTP.  One can get fairly inexpensive ($10 US) USB GPS devices on eBay and other sources.  You get a rock solid time standard along with LAT/LON.  That is what I  use when I go to remote sites.  Just search "GLONASS GPS RECEIVER USB."  They all say "Windows Support" but there is plenty of software for Linux/Pi that works very well. 

I use a VK-172 (read as: cheap!) and it works fine.  You will have to install some software and write a script to read the location and time, then set it per your needs.  Once that's done, it just works, forever.

---->>>>>>> EDIT:  OK, apparently I did it the hard way a few years ago.  There is now INDI support for a great many of these devices.  https://indilib.org/devices/auxiliary/gps.html   There is also a device compatibility page that is worth a look as some of the USB GPS devices are better than others.

 

 

 

Edited March 18 by JonCarleton

[engstrom]

On 18/03/2024 at 08:40, scarlin said:

For those who are interested, there is a new distribution that works very well on raspberry. This is AstroArch. It installs very easily on pi4 or pi5. It is in x64, all software is with the latest version, works in HDMI or VNC, KDE6.
It also contains the astromonitor software. It allows you to save the kstars, indi, phd2 and equipment profile configuration files on a server. You can thus recover your configurations to reinstall them on another device or in the event of a hardware failure.

https://indilib.org/forum/astro-arch/14367-astroarch-1-8-released.html

Going to give this a go. I've just about had it with Astroberry. Another 5 hours wasted trying to get it to work. Frustrating when the first time I used it, it seemed to work pretty well. Not changed a thing and now it's an exercise is frustration.  PA using plate solving took ages to start showing the updated error...then it didn't show the correct updated error (no ,matter how long I left it to capture images)...and then refused to plate solve 9 times out of 10 no matter if I used online or offline (actually it just seemed to hang if I used my local indices). I even tried it native on my Mac but the plate solving didn't work there either. Online plate solving fails instantly, offline just spins and spins and spins....

[Vroobel]

3 hours ago, engstrom said:

Going to give this a go. I've just about had it with Astroberry. Another 5 hours wasted trying to get it to work. Frustrating when the first time I used it, it seemed to work pretty well. Not changed a thing and now it's an exercise is frustration.  PA using plate solving took ages to start showing the updated error...then it didn't show the correct updated error (no ,matter how long I left it to capture images)...and then refused to plate solve 9 times out of 10 no matter if I used online or offline (actually it just seemed to hang if I used my local indices). I even tried it native on my Mac but the plate solving didn't work there either. Online plate solving fails instantly, offline just spins and spins and spins....

In 2021-2022 I built a heavy OnStep EQ fork mount from scratch. I tried to believe that the Astroberry can do its job, but gave up due to the same reasons. When I connected an ASIair Plus (v1) to the mount all the above problems disappeared, moreover, a guiding improved 2-3 times. I think, the guys do a good, unpaid job, but nearly everything you can have for free isn't better than the paid ones. Sorry, that's sad but rather true. 

If you need some advanced features like filter offset then think about NINA.

Edited April 10 by Vroobel

[engstrom]

3 hours ago, Vroobel said:

In 2021-2022 I built a heavy OnStep EQ fork mount from scratch. I tried to believe that the Astroberry can do its job, but gave up due to the same reasons. When I connected an ASIair Plus (v1) to the mount all the above problems disappeared, moreover, a guiding improved 2-3 times. I think, the guys do a good, unpaid job, but nearly everything you can have for free isn't better than the paid ones. Sorry, that's sad but rather true. 

If you need some advanced features like filter offset then think about NINA.

Yes, it’s a great achievement by the team but for me it’s ultimately frustrating. I’m probably additionally hindered by the fact I’m Mac-bound as this limits my choice for alternatives.

It’s infuriating as the first time I tried it, it worked pretty well but since then it’s refused to play ball and I’m at a loss as to what to try next to remedy it.

[Vroobel]

I also paid $59 for the StellarMate licence then and I still have the RPi 4 8GB with printed case and 5 x 12V distribution, but I have no patience for the INDI. I found out that they have direct support as it's paid product.

[Dark Raven]

2 hours ago, Vroobel said:

I also paid $59 for the StellarMate licence

 

2 hours ago, Vroobel said:

but I have no patience for the INDI

Same here. With seldom clear nights that I am able to put everything else aside, take my gear and drive to the dark site. I have no patience for troubleshooting.

[engstrom]

3 hours ago, Dark Raven said:

 

Same here. With seldom clear nights that I am able to put everything else aside, take my gear and drive to the dark site. I have no patience for troubleshooting.

I’m getting that way but as funds are limited I just have to hope I can figure out why performance is so spotty/variable.

i tried astroarch today and infuriatingly the platesolving was spotty (online failed every time but I’ve got offline “working” - slew to target doesn’t move the simulation mount…not sure if that’ll happen on the night).

[wimvb]

5 hours ago, engstrom said:

performance is so spotty/variable

Which index files do you have loaded? The recommendation is to go down to 10% of the fov, but if you have the space for it, it doesn't hurt to go lower. For me, that has been one of the causes for poor platesolving. Other causes for general poor performance are low power and poor wifi connection (I now only use my Pi with an ethernet cable).

[engstrom]

4 hours ago, wimvb said:

Which index files do you have loaded? The recommendation is to go down to 10% of the fov, but if you have the space for it, it doesn't hurt to go lower. For me, that has been one of the causes for poor platesolving. Other causes for general poor performance are low power and poor wifi connection (I now only use my Pi with an ethernet cable).

I have all of them downloaded on an external usb hdd attached the pi. I am running all the devices from a powered hub and I’m within a few metres of my router (although I might try a powerline adapter to improve the downloads for online solving)