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

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

KStars-Ekos-INDI upgrade on a 0.5 meter scope

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Jasem,

I have been watching your YouTube KStars-Ekos-INDI demonstration and nice 4-09-2016 presentation videos. In the last few days I have been preparing a proposal for the steering committee of the local astronomy club which I joined recently (after my professional workload declined). The meeting is tomorrow evening. We have a half meter PlaneWave scope plus a 150 mm APO “guide-scope” on a Knopf GEM rated to 200 kg payload . Some of the members are very accomplished astro-photographers. In recent years the facility has become under-utilised. This can be understood as the observatory is in a relatively remote dark sky location in Germany. The users have had to camp in the building as remote operations are not supported. The proposal is a program to upgrade the dome automation and acquisition to systematically acquire data on exoplanets for AM to PRO support plus the public outreach which is quite well supported by the club.

Obviously, I will be advocating Linux-KStars-Ekos-INDI on RPI3s as an upgrade architecture.

Question: What is the potential for an INDI driver and EKOS support of a spectrograph such as the Shelyak spectrograph Lhires III ? The manufacturer’s web site says that it now supports remote operation.

We may develop some functional requirements for automation with regard to spectroscopy and photometry acquisition in an automated and remotely supervised and observed by members observatory.

Of course there is the Windose – Ascom barrier. I have no idea how much reluctance for change there may be when Linux-INDI is advocated.

– John
7 years 5 months ago #11098

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John,

That's a very interesting project! It would be certainly possible to use INDI/Ekos in some aspects of your operations. To what extend this is doable and what kind of limitations or requirements must be met in order for it to become a viable solution, I do not exactly know. Ekos is quite modular but it is tailored to the optical astrophotography workflow, and it can be probably adapted to different workflows, but this requires input and contributions from users of such workflows.

We already have one driver for Shelyak Calibration Unit in the repo. I would perhaps advise to utilize a dedicated desktop/server instead of RPI3 as the Pi can have quite a bit of limitations, and with a permanent observatory setup, it makes more sense to use a more powerful machine. This also depends if you have veteran software developers in your members, which would things a lot easier to get going in case they are willing to develop drivers for equipment that have none now or patches for Ekos/KStars to support any features required by your workflow. Let me know if you have any further questions and best of luck!!
7 years 5 months ago #11102

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The upgrade of the half meter telescope is a growing conversation within the club. Here is some text from a very experienced user of that instrument.
"I am happy to hear about the upcoming project, the future plans and the new job for our 20" Planewave instrument :)
Maybe I can help on questions concerning the normalisation/processing of exoplanet-photo(n)s ...
...and some programming techniques under Linux-Systems.

My idea (not sure if it could help): Have a look at the lazarus cross-compiler-technique, which is able to produce code for Android/Linux/Windows/Mac/Raspberry-Systems without having trouble with the different GUI low-level-interfaces, as they offer a huge object oriented library of already available GUI Interfaces, that can be used by "drag and drop" in a modern IDE.

www.pilotlogic.com/sitejoom/
You can call/bind/implement libraries of other languages too (i.e. your computing algorithms in C).

So you can focus on the algorithms and do not waste your time for GUI.
Example: The popular "cartes du ciel" planetarium software is completely written in lazarus and runs on different platforms and OS's."


So the point of my post here is to invite comment. Clearly there are people within the club with more software experience than myself. Clearly I like Linux-KStars-Ekos-INDI. It would be helpful to have more experienced comment from users of the various potential observatory control solutions.
Oleg's INDI Forum Thread "What can you say about Linux astro software forum? " is appreciated.
As I have been following Jasem's recent announcements and demonstrations including
knro.blogspot.de/2016/10/kstars-270-is-released.html Jasem's Ekosphere , ( and 2.7.1 demo) it appears that the team is catching up on many features and functionality.
7 years 4 months ago #12032

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I want to select the indi_lx200fs2 driver for the Astro-Electronics FS2 but it is not listed in the INDI profile editor. The indi_lx200fs2 does exist in the /usr/bin folder.
There is an "Astro Physics" driver listed. Is it wrongly named or is Astro Electronics just not in the list?
7 years 4 months ago #12718

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I see it as the second telescope driver in the list just after Argo Navis
7 years 4 months ago #12727

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Now I am looking at the control of the PlaneWave focuser.
Here is a link: planewave.com/products-page/general-acce...ocuser/#.WEqqbWeVtaU
Is there an INDI driver for this focuser?
7 years 3 months ago #13010

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