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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

What's next for EKOS?

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Replied by Gonzothegreat on topic What's next for EKOS?


ben oui...
I did like that video of live stacking, pretty cool.


ps.
as I'm French, quite easy to understand the video...
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5 years 6 months ago #29045
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5 years 6 months ago #29048
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Replied by djibb on topic What's next for EKOS?

About new feature in Ekos, in could be interesting to
1) give some "pixel instructions" to autoguidage :
can tell to Ekos : put the star here, at coordinates X; Y
(I'm doing spectrocopy... so putting a star in a 23µm slit manually is an pain... if it can be done automagically... it's better ;) )

2) add some measuring feature to fitsviewer, in order to see if parts of image are burned.
(important to big stars on astrophotography, and a little more in spectroscopy, where "burned pictures" means "no picture"

Beaucoup de francophone icitte dis donc
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Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by djibb.
5 years 6 months ago #29058
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Replied by Greg on topic What's next for EKOS?


I strongly recommend you get yourself a fresh laptop and go through the installation procedure that you have just re-written, then take that and a stellarmate that has just come in the mail, go out with your portable mount and scope to a remote site and try it. Even though he works from his backyard, he sets up before the night like you would at a dark site. He does not have an observatory.

Also, you should verify what guide cam he's using - I think its and Altair or possibly a QHY but he could probably get a ZWO from OntarioTelescope to try. (He has an HEQ5 Pro and iOptron CEM(60?) mount and uses windows software. He recently added a pegasus focus controller to his HEQ5 setup.)

If you have glitches, he will not say anything horrible but will say something like "meh" and put it back in the box or that its simply not ready.

The software HAS to be "plug and play". There's enough learning curve just to use EKOS that no-one has time for any other issues. And you will be asking him to spend considerable time to learn and use Stellarmate.

PS: This is very timely because to date he has not used plate solving, so this could be his introduction and make many converts. (He does standard polar scope alignment and 3 star alignment with the mounts hand controller.)
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Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by Greg.
5 years 6 months ago #29059
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Replied by Jose Corazon on topic What's next for EKOS?


I agree with Greg. This is very timely. As of now, Trevor is using Astrophotography Tool to control his camera and focuser, but that's pretty much it as far as I can see. I have to give him a lot of credit for getting me into astrophotography in the first place, it was his blogs and YouTube videos in which he documented his progression step by step and how he overcame obstacles along the way that primarily motivated me. Then a friend at our club here just mentioned that there was something called Indi and that he had not been able to get it to work (a year ago) that piqued my interest. Because, whenever someone can't get something to work, I somehow have to prove them wrong. I know, that's a major character flaw and I am taking injections for it....:sick:

It took me several months to navigate the (steep) learning curve, but now Indi/Ekos is working (almost) flawlessly for me. At some point, though, someone has to write a manual (in book form) about this system to help new users get the most out of it faster. The key individual modules are all robust, and with a few minor tweaks the internal guide module will be flawless too (about that elsewhere). Same with the scheduler, the crown piece which ties all the other modules together.

I think it is going to be the scheduler and its ability to integrate all the other modules, including, as Greg has pointed out, the solver, and then run autonomously throughout the night that would get Trevor sold. He has a daytime job and the more time he can leave the rig alone and sleep, the more priceless the control unit (hopefully Stellarmate) will become.

And I agree with Greg, now is the time to break into that market. If Trevor takes it up and starts using it as his primary tool, Stellarmate will become the standard.
One more thing: As much as I like my Pi3, it is slow as molasses when it has to run the entire package on its own. Especially the solver struggles with long focal lengths. I would suggest adding a miniPC with 4 GB RAM as an upgrade alternative for the Pi3 and provide the image for it. Yes, it uses more power and in the field therefore, the Pi3 would still be the preferred hardware if running on batteries only, but if someone has access to more power, the miniPC makes the setup just so much zippier and more impressive. One word of caution: Not all miniPCs have full functionality with Ubuntu. My Zotac pico332 runs flawlessly with Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and Indi/Ekos, but in another one I tested the driver for the internal WiFi module is missing in Ubuntu and as a result I have to use an external WiFI module. That's a turnoff for a new user. As Greg writes, the whole system should work straight out of the box with minimal problems.

One more thing: When you work with Trevor to use StellarMate for the first time, perhaps you might want to think about chronicling that experience also here on this forum? There are two reasons for it: First, I (probably many of us) would be dying to follow how it is going in real time, and two, it would create Google links between Astrobackyard and this Forum. And once other users then search for Astrobackyard, they would also be directed to Indi and to StellarMate. In other words, think about effective advertising.

And since French seems to be on the verge of becoming the dominant language on this forum:

Viel Erfolg!

:P
Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by Jose Corazon.
5 years 6 months ago #29060
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Heel veel succes!
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5 years 6 months ago #29061
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Replied by Jose Corazon on topic What's next for EKOS?


I second that 100%! I would also suggest focusing on making the platform as it is now bug free. It has all the functionality required to acquire image data galore. I can't help but stress again the importance of the scheduler running reliably for that. Maximizing the yield of the night hours is paramount for getting low noise astrophotos, especially when one is stuck in the middle of a metropolitan area spread out over 60 miles with 8 million people living in it. Having to drive for hours to get to dark sites is what prevents many people from taking up astrophotography (as we all know, it is not a cheap pastime) and the scheduler in Indi/Ekos is going a LONG way towards making this feasible from within a city.

We have one member in our local club who is getting outstanding images - but he has to expose for 60 hours to get rid of the noise from the light pollution. He is still doing this manually, but for me, that is just not in the cards. Like most other people, I have to function and work the next day.

Don't underestimate that huge selling point.
Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by Jose Corazon.
5 years 6 months ago #29063
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Replied by Eric on topic Re:RE: What's next for EKOS?


Perhaps running an astrometry alignment with a tight tolerance and a finely adjusted parallel or off-/on-axis guider could be a solution?

-Eric
5 years 6 months ago #29082
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Replied by djibb on topic Re:RE: What's next for EKOS?

The slit is not centered... and my axes are very well adjust... but at 2 meter... it's boring.


Audela does this autmaticaaly as we can adjust a "consigne" (a coordinate) then Audela bring star selected automatically at theses corrdnates then guides
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Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by djibb.
5 years 6 months ago #29085
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This is already implemented in guide module (manual dithering). But you can't do large jumps, you have to do smaller jumps until you reach the target.
5 years 6 months ago #29086
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Replied by John Scherer on topic What's next for EKOS?

I actually reached out to Trevor from Astrobackyard a while back, asking if he would take look at kstars/ekos for a future video but I never got a reply. I'm sure he gets a lot of emails. That being said, even for someone like Trevor I think, kstars/ekos would have a pretty steep learning curve. The Installation and configuration are involved and learning the ins/outs of scheduling observations, and working through any issues that come up (to the point where you feel like you can trust it) can take many weeks, especially if the weather is not cooperating.

From what I’ve read on the forums, I feel that bug fixes & stability issues are critical. Closely behind that would be more/better documentation.

For me, my first point of confusion was where to get information. We have three significant applications, the main one in my mind being kStars and yet most of the information on configuration information for all of those applications is found on the indilib.org forums. This is nothing broken per sa, but from a new user, this can be confusing. I’d love to see one Kstars website, with indi and ekos sections.. but I digress.

There is also a tutorial section on the indilib.org website, however, most of the guides available are on more advanced topics. Nothing for someone just starting out, trying to get things functional. This would be a good place to have a step-by-step guide on getting kstars/ekos installed and configured, and on how to actually schedule a basic observation using ekos. The basic stuff that someone new to this suite of applications might want to know.

More recent, up-to-date videos would be a big help as well. Jasem, I know that you have done these in the past and they are helpful, but they become out of date after a bit of time and many of yours are years old. Please note, I'm not complaining, nor am I suggesting that you do more. You have many hats to wear, and doing the videos has a huge time component to them. It's just the way things are for now.

From what I have seen, the end result of not having these things is that the forums here become full of people asking the same questions, over and over. And without good documentation that someone can follow – step by step, everyone just answers the same questions over and over. Not time wasted if it's getting more people using it, but it could be optimized I think. Maybe this community could pull together and do some of this?
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Last edit: 5 years 6 months ago by John Scherer. Reason: Added Trevors youtube page name
5 years 6 months ago #29787
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Replied by Jose Corazon on topic What's next for EKOS?

I totally second that, jrsphoto! As a community, we should work on a manual for Indi/Ekos. Many of us made videos, but I completely agree with you, what I was missing at the beginning was a detailed manual on how to proceed to get my first images. After that, it got progressively easier and now I only need to keep up with the occasional changes and additions.
I also agree that in the absence of such a manual it would be difficult for Trevor to find the time to familiarize himself with the application. What might be helpful in this case is to provide a script, tailored to his equipment, where he only needs to polar align, focus, then turn on the equipment, start the script, enter the target, and exposure parameters and everything else happens automatically, including plate solving. That would surely be impressive. Since he only uses one-shot-color, that would be relatively easy, too.

The breakthrough for this software suite depends on advertising and usability. So better to provide an older version with less functionality, but one that is reliable, than a more recent one with bugs that still need to be resolved. He does not need much at his current stage, a scheduler that reliably flips and realigns on a single target would be enough to start with for now. Multiple targets can come later.

Also, remember that much of Trevor's time is taken up by equipment testing, blogging and YouTubing. That is a lot already next to his daytime job. So whatever he tries out better works the first time or we risk that he might lose interest.

Best
Jo
5 years 6 months ago #29823
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