Any update on this?

Hi! Turned out I had a few distractions - sorry!

So, most of my limited experience has been with SkySafari6 on the Mac running EKOS and communicating to the INDI server I have running on a RPi on by the mount. In this case, using the KSTARS planetarium software is simpler and integrated with EKOS so I've gone back to KSTARS. I do have to say that SkySafari is prettier than KSTARS.

I wanted to see if I could address your specific question and dusted off Stellarmate on my tablet. I added SkySafari in the Aux2 field in the Profile (Aux1 was already taken) and made sure I had started the profile running. I then switched to SkySafari7. In the SkySafari7 Settings, I scrolled down to the TELESCOPE section where there is a further Presets selection. After you select Presets you get another screen and in the bottom right had corner there is an ADD PRESET button. After selecting that button, you are presented with the second screen where you need to indicate the IP address of your INDI server. In my case, this was the IP address of my RPi device by the mount. Then you select the purple bar that says "Check IP and Port for Devices". It found my mount right away (although at first it said it didn't and I just told it to try again). You then select 'Next . . ." in the upper right hand corner and you get another screen. You can name/rename your preset and make some other selections. At this stage, you're done with the configuration.

Once you exit the SkySafari7 Settings, you get back to the main UI. You select "Scope" and then select Connect. I was able to search for objects in the sky using SkySafari's search capabilities and, from the bottom left of information screen for the target, select the 'Slew To' command and off the mount went.

Happy to provide additional information and screenshots if helpful. Good Luck!

Fred,

Right, I got that far too. When I ask skysafari to slew, it slews and even kstars at that time shows that the mount is moving.

The problem is that after the mount is done slewing, ekos does not know this is the new target. If I go to the align module and attempt to plate solve (slew to target), it will try to slew to the last target that I used in kstars, not what I just selected in skysafari.

In other words, skysafari does not seem to communicate the target to ekos. This is weird since kstars does know that the mount is moving, just not where it is headed.

Hi Amit - I'm going to be imaging later tonight and may have a chance to try the plate solving thing out some more. I want to make sure I have your environment right. Are you using Stellarmate from a mobile device or KStars/EKOS from a laptop/desktop or something else?

When I tried it, kstars was running on a Windows computer, and I was operating skysafari from my Android phone.

Thank you for looking into this!

Hi Amit - Just did a test run with M31 as the target. Here was the set up:

- KStars/EKOS running on a Mac with a RPi with StellarmateOS installed outside at the mount. The RPi was only acting the INDI server - I wasn't controlling EKOS on the RPi via screensharing or using StellarMate from a mobile device to control things.

- SkySafari7 running on an iPad under Apple's iPadOS.

- After starting EKOS on the Mac I launched SkySafari7 on the tablet. I connected my mount via SkySafari and had it slew to M31, which it did.

- From the Mac, I used the Align module in EKOS. I selected Capture and Solve with the Solver Action being Slew to Target. I could see in the Solution Results that it was solving for the Andromeda Galaxy. It got hung up at first but a second try nailed it. I had never entered Andromeda as the target in EKOS so the only place it got the target was from SkySafari on the tablet. Also, any mount motion I could see in KStars on my Mac I could also see on my tablet in the SkySafari interface - seemed to work in parallel.

So, I'm not sure what to suggest. It seemed to work as intended in the set up I had. If I have a chance to play with more targets, I will. To be fair, to keep things simple, I will probably just use KStars on the Mac for the planetarium functions and EKOS for all the rest.

Let me know if I try anything else!

Huh! It didn't work like that for me. I will have to give it another try.

And I am not alone. There are others on cloudy nights reporting that it works (or does not work) the way I described. I hope when I try I get it to work or discover what I am doing wrong.

Just to be sure, I set up the mount as an indi mount, *not* the Meade 200 mount thing that is on the instructions here? The indi mount is a new thing in skysafari 7, and it never asked me for a mount model. Not that it should matter, because I tried this for both mounts that I own.

Amit - you are correct, I didn't set it up as the Meade thing. When I went through the process of setting up the INDI mount in SkySafari (once I had the right IP address entered for my INDI server), it just picked up my mount (an iOptron). I assume it got that from the INDI server. So, it didn't ask me for my mount model - it just picked it up correctly (again, I assume from the INDI server).

I feel your pain by the way. The documentation doesn't seem to keep up with all the changes and there are so many possible configurations that all the use cases are hard to anticipate.

I am wondering if it is even necessary to add skysafari as an auxiliary in the device profile.

I think that's the question - what is it adding to your workflow that KStars isn't satisfying?

No, I mean whether it is necessary to add skysafari as an auxiliary for it to work with this setup.

The skysafari app has the observation planner that I seek. Kstars's observation planner is a mess, it's never worked correctly for me. I wanted to view interesting objects in an area of sky that I can see. Kstars wants me to enter the region in ra and dec, instead of alt az that is so much more intuitive to specify.