StellarMate OS & Raspberry Pi 3?

[MikeWest]

Does anyone use StellarMate OS on a Raspberry Pi to control their mount, etc.? This is my latest project and I was wondering how it worked out for anyone else.

thx

Mike

[Aidi]

I did some pre production beta testing on a Rp loaded with StellarMate. It’s not bad, takes a bit to figure out and get indi working compared to Ascom.

Kstars is pretty good. One thing I would recommend is that you run Kstars remotely from the StellarMate. It certainly makes things much easier and faster.

[TCampbell]

I use the StellarMate (I also use the ZWO ASIair). I actually just updated my StellarMate to version 1.4.1 today. The thing is amazingly powerful. It does far more than I ever would have guessed.

I should mention that my main reasons for getting interested in the device is that I live in a neighborhood with very tall trees (not possible to do astronomy from home) and this means I have to pack the car and head out to a park to do any imaging. But in the park I don't have power (except for any batteries I bring). I already have to bring enough batteries for the scope & dew heaters... but laptops can be power hogs and I didn't want to bring yet more batteries. I realized that many smartphones and tablets are actually more powerful than many laptops and with that in mind... I considered that there *must* be a way to control telescopes for purposes of automating the imaging runs without needing a laptop. THAT is when I found the ZWO ASIair ... and then subsequently found the StellarMate. The Raspberry Pi is small, light, inexpensive, and consumes *very* little power.



One you have everything working... you can pick your targets for the night and configure your image sequences. It can automate everything (and I pretty much mean *everything*.) I did a presentation at a conference on how it works and what it can do and I used the line "you'll feel those professional astronomers who never actually need to visit the observatory to do their work" because the level of automation is that good.

You can configure it in the middle of the day and 'start' it's capture sequence running. It knows how to calculate the correct sunset time and then wait for the sun to reach 18° below the horizon (end of astronomical twilight) before it gets to work.

It will open the dome, unpark the mount, it can perform the polar alignment (although that part does require that a human is present in case the mount requires any adjustments for polar alignment). It can slew to the first target, automatically focus, calibrate and start the auto-guider, start the cooler running on the camera (and wait for it to achieve the desired temperature) and then get to work capturing the image sequence.

While this is happening it monitors the guide-star quality and if the guide star disappears it presume a cloud is probably blocking the view. So it automatically stops the image capture sequence while continuing to track to see if it can re-acquire the guide star. If it does and the quality is good, then it tells the main camera to start capturing images again.

While this is happening it also has the ability to monitor the weather (it has API interfaces for things like Weather Underground, etc.) Suppose the winds pickup... you can configure it to automatically suspend capture if this happens and/or if rain approaches it will automatically close the dome.

It will also monitor things like moonrise to avoid imaging if the moon is out ... or avoid imaging if any object is too close to the moon.

When all the image data is captured (and/or if it had to abort due to weather) it will park the mount, close the dome and shut everything down.

The list of devices it supports is impressive.




It took me a bit to understand it's concepts but once I understood those the rest was easy.

One of the things that isn't explained ... you'll see instructions or information about using 'Ekos' to run the telescope and equipment. I quickly got the impression that Ekos is a piece of software I needed to launch. It turns out Ekos is actually a module inside KStars. So it's actually KStars that you run ... then find the Ekos module (from the Ekos main menu you can pick 'Tools' -> 'Ekos' ... or you can click the Ekos icon which looks like an observatory dome on the icon bar.)

A couple other areas where I was confused until I realized how things work together...

Everything is really controlled using INDI. INDI is similar to ASCOM (for those familiar with ASCOM) except ASCOM was developed using Microsoft .Net -- which means it isn't portable to any other operating system. INDI was developed using POSIX-complaint code (POSIX is the standard for Portable Operating System Interface) which means it is more easily ported to lots of operating systems... which is why you an find it for mac, Linux, and it even runs on the Raspberry Pi.)

Another significant difference to remember with INDI is that unlike ASCOM... INDI was designed to support networking. ASCOM lacks network support. All applications which use ASCOM must be running on the same physical computer where ASCOM is running. With INDI, control software can be on a remote computer and it can communicate with INDI across the network. This means you could run KStars/Ekos on say... a mac in side the house ... while INDI runs on a Raspberry Pi outside with the telescope ... and they all work together across the network.

Keep this in mind because the first time you run the StellarMate you will likely get a setup wizard (for KStars/Ekos) which will ask if INDI is running on the same computer ... or on a different computer.



Once you get that far, you can configure Ekos. There are three main steps (numbered in the Ekos control panel).

1. You need to select a profile (except the first time you use it there wont be any profiles so you will need to create one).

the profile is used to tell the Ekos (really INDI) which devices will be used (this is where you specify the mount, the cameras, telescope, filter wheels, focusers, etc. etc.)

The main purpose of doing this is because it tells INDI which device drivers need to be loaded when you start INDI.

2. You need start Ekos (really you are starting the INDI server)

The INDI server is technically a separate process that will start running on the Raspberry Pi. But keep in mind that KStars/Ekos and INDI are available on lots of operating systems *and* the INDI server doesn't technically have to run on the same computer that is used to run KStars/Ekos. I also sometimes use my Mac and use applications such as AstroDSLR, AstroImager and AstroGuider ... all of which support INDI. This means I can launch INDI on the Pi ... and then launch AstroImager & AstroGuider on my mac ... and tell the server name & port for the INDI server running on the Raspberry PI. (there is an INDI variant called INDIGO ... a key difference is that INDIGO supports Bonjour network and that means the INDIGO server is automatically discovered and configured as long as the client & server are both on the same LAN). The main take-away points here are (a) INDI is an independent process and it can run on a remote computer and (b) other programs can also take advantage of INDI ... it's not just KStars/Ekos that uses it.

The reason you have to 'start' the INDI server is to be able to configure it. In step 1 you just told it which device types to include (which device drivers to use) but you didn't actually configure any of those device.

In this step you can configure each device (e.g. tell it which communication method & port to use and other settings.)

At this point your INDI server is "running" and "configured" ... but you aren't actually "connected" to it yet (you can't tell KStars to control the mount yet and you can't tell Ekos to control the cameras yet).

3. Connect

Once you connect to the INDI server you can finally *do* things. At this point you can test all of your equipment to make sure everything is under your control. ...and of course you can get to work imaging (use the polar alignment assistant, pick your image targets and configure your capture sequences for the night, control your focusers, start and calibrate the guider, and get to work capturing images.



You cannot make any changes to device configurations while "connected" (disconnect before trying to change device options).
You cannot make any profile changes while the INDI server is "running" (stop the server if you need to add/remove/change anything in the profile.)



One other tip... you'll notice something on the desktop called the 'StellarMate Web Manager' and might be wondering what that does. This is a web-based interface that lets you configure INDI profiles and start/stop the INDI server *independent* of KStars/Ekos. If, for example, you do want to run software on a remote computer to control everything and you really just need to have INDI running on the Raspberry Pi ... this is how you'd do that. If you plan to run EVERYTHING on the Raspberry Pi ... then you can ignore the StellarMate Web Manager.

Also, if you build a profile in KStars/Ekos that profile will probably *not* show up in the INDI Web Manager (I think there is an option in Ekos to tell it that when you create a new profile to *also* make the profile available to the Web Manager ... but it's not the default). In other words... think of the Web Manager is being completely indecent ... it is just a different want to configure and start the INDI server if you don't want to use KStars.

[MikeWest]

Great write-up, thanks! So far I managed to get StellarMate loaded on the RPi successfully, and can talk to it with my Android phone and also via VNC on my home network. I bought a 7" monitor that works, which is driving me crazy currently and has pretty much stopped progress. It is supposed to be an 800x480 display panel, which is what Raspbian says it is. However StellarMate insists on running at 1920x1080 which as you can imagine on a 7" monitor that is pretty much unusable. VNC handles it fine though. The panel does not seem to support the resolution advertisement that would let StellarMate know what other resolutions are available. I tried editing the hdmi entries in config.txt to force it into a better resolution, but no success. When the rain stops, I plan to connect the monitor and my ASI 120MC (I already pushed the compatible firmware to it) and start testing the goto and imaging functions.

Clear Skies!

Mike

I use the StellarMate (I also use the ZWO ASIair). I actually just updated my StellarMate to version 1.4.1 today. The thing is amazingly powerful. It does far more than I ever would have guessed.

[TCampbell]

Great write-up, thanks! So far I managed to get StellarMate loaded on the RPi successfully, and can talk to it with my Android phone and also via VNC on my home network. I bought a 7" monitor that works, which is driving me crazy currently and has pretty much stopped progress. It is supposed to be an 800x480 display panel, which is what Raspbian says it is. However StellarMate insists on running at 1920x1080 which as you can imagine on a 7" monitor that is pretty much unusable. VNC handles it fine though. The panel does not seem to support the resolution advertisement that would let StellarMate know what other resolutions are available. I tried editing the hdmi entries in config.txt to force it into a better resolution, but no success. When the rain stops, I plan to connect the monitor and my ASI 120MC (I already pushed the compatible firmware to it) and start testing the goto and imaging functions.

Clear Skies!

Mike

I use the StellarMate (I also use the ZWO ASIair). I actually just updated my StellarMate to version 1.4.1 today. The thing is amazingly powerful. It does far more than I ever would have guessed.

Mike, there are a couple of ways to do this... I'm a bit pressed for time so I'll try to follow-up later with more details. But...

ONE method is to edit /boot/config.txt
ANOTHER method is to run raspi-config (open a Terminal and run 'sudo raspi-config' ... you'll need the root password which defaults to 'smate' if you have haven't changed it. From there you can find an advanced options menu which a choice that lets you edit the screen resolution.

Most people don't actually connect a monitor to the HDMI port... they use a remote device such as a tablet (iPad, or Android tablet) and use a VNC client to connect to the raspberry pi.

I'll try to provide a few more details later when I return home.

[MikeWest]

Thanks for your help, that worked great, I can now read the screen.

ANOTHER method is to run raspi-config (open a Terminal and run 'sudo raspi-config' ... you'll need the root password which defaults to 'smate' if you have haven't changed it. From there you can find an advanced options menu which a choice that lets you edit the screen resolution.

[SkyHiker]

Great writeup TC! I recommend that this thread become a sticky.

I use lin_guider on a Pi2 also to save power. I believe lin_guider is the default guider under Ekos and have been wanting to upgrade to Kstars/Ekos on a Pi3 but haven't got to it yet. I agree fully with your INDI vs Ascom distributed control comments.