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Old 16-05-2022, 07:32 AM
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seeker372011 (Narayan)
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seeker372011 is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Sydney
Posts: 3,651
Hi Petra

If what you are asking is how to control your astroimaging setup from the comfort of your living room, I do the same and have three different ways to achieve this

I don’t have an obs, only one of my imaging systems has an auto focuser and I don’t have a filter wheel. I connect the mount through an EQDirect Cable. No hand controller, and finder scopes are obsolete

Hands down the easiest way to do this is with the ASIAIR. The limitation is that both the guide cam and imaging cam must be ZWO.. also need to make sure the guide cam is supported by ASIAIR some ZWO guidecams are not

It really is plug and play. You will need to download and install ASCOM. You can be imaging on your first night it really is S that straightforward. You need a tablet to control the ASIAIR.

Cable management is much easier- the dew controllers , the imaging camera plug into the ASIAIR, the guidecam plugs into the Main camera

One downside is you cant plan in advance your target without being connected to the ASIAIR. However you can plan- frame, or design a mosaic in the free software Telescopius and import it into ASIAIR. Seamlessly

Best astro investment I have ever made.

For my second system I use a mini PC - a Mele Quiter 2 . I have NINA a installed on this PC and remote into it using Windows Remote Desktop

I can use a QHY imaging camera and a ZWO guide cam and a deep sky dad auto focuser

NINI if you haven’t being using already—- is IMHO superb. You can control all devices, plan using a superb framing assistant, allows for manual rotator if you don’t have a automatic rotator so you can frame a target

You will need to down load ASTAP and indices that suit your imaging system , pretty simple to do.

I still use SharpCap for polaraligning though with this system - though NINA has a polar aligning tool. NINA talks to PHD2.. another seperate download, and to my autofocuser( in my case DeepSky Dad) . Obviously provides for automatic filter wheel changes.
Meridian flips work fine, just as they do with ASIAIR.

Pros: not limited to ZWO ecosystem
NINA is constantly being developed and improved

Cons: none really other than just cable management and multiple power supplies- for mount, imaging camera, dew heaters, auto focuser

My last system- and really I am just tinkering with this is Stellarmate on a Raspberry Pi( note ASIAIR is also Raspberry Pi based). You can do almost everything you can do with ASIAIR NINA, it has its own internal autoguide or you can use PHD2; today a mosaic planning feature was announced as an addition to the latest version of Kstars.

In principle Stellarmate- or the free version Astroberry- should work just as well as the ASIAIR or NINA, though I find the app buggy and it is easier to connect wirelessly to a laptop rather than a tablet.

However I am still playing with this system haven’t really got it going.main advantage is cost- you buy a Pi and download the software for $49US- or for free if it’s Astroberry. Cable management similar to minipc.

Just my experience so far has been that it is a bit harder to get everything working , but that could be my incompetence. Also I am trying to get it work with a StarAdventurer not an EQ5 or 6. I think it would actually work seamlessly with an EQ5 or 6 but haven’t tried.

Hope this helps

pardon typos- sausage fingers on a tablet

Last edited by seeker372011; 16-05-2022 at 08:32 AM.
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