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Old 12-05-2019, 07:00 AM
phomer (Paul)
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phomer is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Maribyrnong
Posts: 158
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy01 View Post
Hi team,
Anyone tried one of these yet? https://stellarmate.com/
Looks like a viable alternative to SGP for Mac & Linux users.

Auto focussing, plate solving, camera control, filter wheel control, pointing, meridian flips, guiding & polar alignment all pre-loaded via Indi, Ekos & Kstars on a Raspberry pi for under $200 US.

Keen to hear from anyone who’s tried one out.

Andy,


Stellarmate is the easiest way for a non technical user to run INDI on a Raspberry Pi.



It can be controlled wirelessly from a Mac using VNC which is already installed on your Mac as "Screen Sharing".



It is probably set up to run under Ubuntu Mate, which is a particular flavour of Linux. I prefer Raspbian but you would need to set this up yourself and although doable it is not a straightforward exercise and well outside your area of expertise, unless you have recently taken up programming.
You can also run INDI on a Mac but I have not tried this.


There are a number of advantages running this on a Raspberry Pi and controlling it remotely.
  • $50 computer exposed to the weather
  • much lower power requirement
  • small footprint that can sit on the mount
  • wireless access
For a Mac or Windows user this is unfamiliar territory so there is a learning curve associated with setting it up but the Stellarmate option makes this a lot simpler.


INDI itself is fantastic, it has progressed rapidly over the last few years as support for most astronomy gear has been added and the interface has been improved.



Paul
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