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Re: New Stellarmate

 

Thanks for the compliment :-) Yeah, no, I believe it has nothing to do with results.
But I totally agree with you, more to do with personal preferences. Besides most of the work I am currently publishing has been shot using Ekos, so... :-D
Also I find it is, in any case, very hard to change acquisition software and routine (in the workflow sense).

Don't get me wrong I love Linux, and I find it more stable, better, faster and cheaper than Windows. As a company owner I have many servers and all are running Linux. Only two "servers" are Windows, my Telescope computer, and my Allskeye computer (I was running allsky on RPI and just switched for Allskeye, still running tests, but is so much better).

The RPI has caused me issues too, with a 6200 the images are 130MB each and the PI is just not able to tackle with this in a fluid way. I switched before those PC sticks started to get good enough. So I went the Intel NUC way, bought an older gen 8/i5 as it runs on 12V. Never regretted it.
I was exactly like you dual booting into Windows solely for PemPro. But I deleted the Linux partition last week as things have been running so smoothly for the past 6 months.

As I run big multi months projects I strongly rely on scheduling them. One thing I was lacking is the ability to schedule an automated flat session at the end of the night, no matter what. Had discussions with Wolfgang, I managed to find a way around it but it was very inconvenient.
One thing I really miss from Ekos is the Analysis module, that one as been brilliantly implemented.

I unfortunately never had it to run without issues. Updating was never done without backing up the entire partition because it broke so many times. If clouds showed up, focusing would fill up the root volume and when that happened, for some reason all the settings in ~/.indi were reset to factory. I had to setup my flat panel brightness per filter for flats so many times.

I 100% understand and agree with the tinkering part. I myself have fully automated my workflow, I launch the session at night go to sleep and wake up to fully calibrated and graded frames. INDI was really cool for being able to write bash scripts controlling the mount or other gear.
Under Windows it is not possible through batch scripts. Though it is as easy through python scripts.


I dream of machining. That opens so much possibilities! I have 3D printed many parts, nothing critical though. And had a friend of mine machine a custom adapter for my OAG.


In the end YMMV and it all comes down to personal preferences.

Personally, I started under Windows with SGP, switched to Linux Ekos/INDI for two years and got back to Windows with NINA. I don't think I will ever look back.
I hate Windows :-D I really didn't expect that to happen :')

Carl


We share this passion for tinkering. Here is the work in progress allskeye live website I am building, also showing where the telescope is aiming at :

On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 06:29 PM, Jamie Amendolagine wrote:
It's hard to argue with fantastic results Carl, so I won't!!!

For me, overall I love and find the ekos system to be quite awesome, even if stellarmate leaves much to be desired.

Once ekos (not stellarmate) is setup it disappears. My normal routine takes about 3 min to setup the system, and I keep the telescope / mount inside. The ekos setup part generally entails plugging it in, starting a VNC client on my desktop or phone, choosing a target, platesolving, starting guiding, and then hit the go button. All of which takes a few min. I haven't found a need to build sequences since my routine is so quick, and I generally stick with one target for the night. I have found that the RPI4 is getting a bit long in the tooth, which means lower overall performance, that's why I've switched to a MeLe with a faster intel chip -- (I am keeping my eyes on risk-v developments as it seems like the future). I haven't timed it, but it seems to take just a couple of seconds between exposures, so it hasn't slowed my acquisition by much, and everything generally just works so I'm quite happy.?

I also have a computer background, but I've worked exclusively on embedded systems, from aerospace to consumer electronics. Mostly embedded Linux, but sometimes some an RTOS, or sometimes just an Ada runtime running directly on a chip:) Linux is where I feel at home, so that's what I use. I own one copy of windows, and that solely for running PEMPro:)

I consider tinkering to be part of the hobby, so I'm quite happy to do bug fixes or add features to the software stacks that I use. I even have tinkered with machining parts for the mount -- mostly unsuccessful machining attempts though...?

I do have my criticisms of the ekos/kstars/indi stack, but don't find anything to be limiting enough to switch. For one I'm not a fan of the kstars portion to tell you the truth. So I use skysafari for all of my planning and for slewing the telescope to a target. I could also use stellarium, but I'm quite happy with skysafari. I've also found that image data passing is slow, I suspect it's because of the very flexible networking architecture ends up copying data around -- it might be an interesting thing to look into fixing at some point, but it's not that big of a deal for me right now.??

Either way I say each to their own, enjoy the hobby how you like!

Jamie
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