What range were you attempting to connect via bluetooth with?

About two feet (60 cm).

This is essentially what I ended up with. I started with a full fat Raspbian install and installed the bits of AstroPi3 that I needed, in particular Indi and indi-web.
Followed the instructions to run it as start up.
Once it was all going I set the Config to CLI.

Was able to configure it using indi-web from any browser and set indi server to start at connect.

Then connect from Ekos using the remote setup - Celestron AVX@192.168.1.10

What I found was that the full fat install took about 50% CPU just idling while booting as CLI took about 6% for everything.

I'm new to this so started with a desktop but it may be better to install a headless version of Raspbian and run through the command line exclusively.

Astroberry requires a Pi 3. I'm using a Pi zero so will have to build from sources. Starting from the Raspbian install and the Astropi3 Raspbian script worked well for me particularly as I've never used AstroBerry.

You need to make sure modemmanager is un Installed before BT will work reliably, mine works flawlessly on later SM version....if you haven’t already done so that is..

Yes of course. AstroPi3 does this as part of it's set up.

It's pretty clear that BT is fragile on the Pi, as part of this I found the Windows 10 IOT build for the Pi3 and this says there are problems with the hardware and they don't support it. I can understand this, it's not possible to do a good job if the underlying system can't support it.

Bluetooth is working very reliably for me on the Pi3, and Pi4. It has worked ever since I found the modemmanager conflict and Jaseem implemented some robustness into the EQmod driver.
My bluetooth adapter is based of an HC-05, and I have a voltage leveler installed on the serial lines for good measure.

No you dont need to compile anything for Astroberry 2.0 to work on Zero - check main thread on Astroberry - you will see that I have already used it Either download Asroberry image write to SD as normal and stick it in the slot and power up. It works ! As I say running raspi-config after you have booted the Zero you can switch off the boot into Desktop and switch to boot into CLI - simple as that - it will run in CLI mode everytime .. Just remember to switch on SSH when you run the raspi-config (which can be called in CLI or DESKTOP mode) . Warning the Wifi is not the most pwerful and I switch off the bluetooth anyway on a Zero(w).

Thanks for the information on AstroBerry. I had gone to its git page and saw that it said
"Support for Raspberry Pi 3 and 4" as the first item and didn't pursue it any further. The Pi zero uses a different ARM

As you say you can switch between CLI and GUI easily.

Incidentally using ssh then changing to a different SD image and using ssh again generates a very alarming message about a man in the middle attack.
Deleting the .ssh\known_hosts file on my PC cleared that.

I'm running on my home broadband Wifi router with everything connect to that. It works over the distances I need. If I'm in the field I will set up my phone as a hot spot, assuming the phone can get a signal that gives me the internet - in particular a source of time.

BTW does AstroBerry start the indi-web server automatically?

Astroberry starts Webindi automatically on boot and you can autostart drivers to use with indiserver and start/restart drivers dynamically. So if one fails you can tell it to restart a particular driver. Just connect to Astroberry via browser - obviously Novnc does not work as there is no Desktop GUI started.

Never tried it BUT the zero(w) in CLI mode may create a Hotspot when your home network Wifi is not found - that way you could use it tin the field - As I say I have never tried it from CLI in that way. Let us know he outcome if you try that ! Not sure how far the signal would go in the "open".

Found indiweb was installed.

Astroberry seems to start a WiFi hotspot almost unconditionally and it was a bit of a struggle to stop it because the display was forced to a size that was bigger than my monitor so couldn't see the toolbar very well. I wouldn't use the Zero as a hotspot because it seems a lot to ask of a slow computer.

I see that it is running ModemManager, possibly three times. That explains why people were fussing so much about that. AIUI AstroPi3 removes it.

There doesn't seem to be any way to update indi to the nightly builds, trying gave me this:

astroberry@astroberry:~ $ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mutlaqja/indinightly
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/apt-add-repository", line 95, in <module>
sp = SoftwareProperties(options=options)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 109, in __init__
self.reload_sourceslist()
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 599, in reload_sourceslist
self.distro.get_sources(self.sourceslist)
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/aptsources/distro.py", line 93, in get_sources
(self.id, self.codename))
aptsources.distro.NoDistroTemplateException: Error: could not find a distribution template for Raspbian/buster
astroberry@astroberry:~ $

You will have to check with Radek but i believe its a stable version only -

HotSpot starts as the last resort, only when no other network connection is available (wire or wireless).
You can click settings on sliding panel and set local resize so everything fits your screen automatically.
Last, but not least - by adding Ubuntu repository to Raspbian system you have just messed everything up. There is no support for such experiments. And no, there is no nightly builds for Raspbian / Astroberry.