Got StellarMate AG about a week ago. System consists of a D5 Nikon with a 500mm f/5.6 lens mounted on an iOptron CEM25 mount. Computer is a MacBook Pro laptop, dedicated to Astrophotography only. Initially I am using the home wifi, not the hotspot. I am also using Ekos Live as I need Polar Align assistance and Astrometry for plate solving.
The forums have been helpful in solving a few setup issues. There are still a couple remaining, one of which is: When opening KStars (remotely via VNC) a window pops up asking for a password to allow " An application wants access to the keyring "Default keyring", but it is locked". To this prompt I have to click cancel as the "smate" password is incorrect, and I guess I don't know the SU password. Small but annoying problem.
The main issue is the DSLR driver.
Usage/Test 1: Run KStars on the Stellarmate using VNC. I had problems getting the profile setup, so I have tried a few and deleted them after trying different settings. I started over again yesterday with a profile called DSLR_D5. It has all of the proper sensor settings for the D5 - 5568x3712, 6.41x6.41 pixel size. When opening the Capture tab, the frame size is listed as 36x24, and the captured preview is just that36x24 pixels. FOV in the solver is 0'x0'. Also, upon loading the camera, INDI gives "[ERROR] NEF+Fine format is not supported. Please select another format." I very carefully setup the camera this am to RAW only, etc. to be sure it wasn't a camera issue. In checking the INDI panel again, the file format is plank, so I re-selcted RAW. The captured preview size is unchanged. A check of the camera confirms that it has been reset to JPEG, not RAW. I have created a log for the CCD only, for one startup and capture.
Usage/Test 2: Run KStars on the local laptop with the StellarMate profile. Similar warnings in INDI as to file format and SD card as in test 1 .Change settings for DSLR in INDI to RAW, SD Card, etc. In this config, the frame size IS CORRECT, including the FOV at 245'x164' and the frame size in capture. Also. the camera has remained set to RAW. A quick 1 second preview was successful and quick. This is new... lol. Yesterday was all failure all the time when capturing. Just ran a test sequence of 2 images each of lights, darks, bias, and flats, and all were captured and saved properly.
SO, the results seem to be that working remotely the system is ok with the exception of the initial load of the INDI driver for the Nikon DSLR. I have not tested this with the D2 or the Z7 yet.
UPDATE/EDIT: I just checked the CF Card in the camera and the images saved locally on the laptop were not also saved to the camera. As I want RAW files, I changed the setting in the capture window to NATIVE instead of FITS and confirmed that the INDI tab is set to RAW.. The image captured to the local folder is a JPEG, not a RAW file.