Thanks, Ken. This is more or less what I thought about the settings.
I have been using CCDCiel, in that application the Video tab has a few settings, but has a "More Settings" button that I believe delegates to the Indi Client settings page - it looks identical and changes made in one populate to the other.
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Is thre any good User Interface documentation for INDI? As a new user, I find that many of the screens in the INDI Client are bewildering and unclear.
For example, in the attached screenshot of the Svbony-305 INDI settings in INDIClient, I find these questions:
I am supposing that Video Stream/Stream On or Stream Off are playback functions where Video Record/Record On/Off recording functions, but this is not explained. And then Video Record/Record(Duration) and how it might differ from Record On is nowhere explained, nor is Record(Frames).
I can only assume from the lack of edit controls that FPS is a read/only readout while recording (and/or streaming?) is occurring, but this is not explained. It seems you would not look here to change the number of frames per second.
Similar questions occur on every page. For example, on the WCS tab, well, my apologies for being a noob, but what IS WCS?
Also, the placement of "Set" buttons can be confusing. Sometimes a "Set" button refers to the setting immediately to its left, other times it refers to a group of settings to its left and below, and it is not always clear what is being set. Some narrow box lines around groups of settings would be a good thing.
But thanks for INDI, please don't let my complaints seem like gripes. I'm very glad that INDI exists. I might even want to a contribute to it once I advance beyond my noob stage.
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It seems to be stuck on a value of 30 frames per second.
Is this a limitation of the camera or the driver?
Also, the exposure cannot be set to less than 0.1 seconds.
The documentation of the settings on this camera are incomplete. Some of the menu tabs have no documentation.
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Never mind! I'm such a dope.
1) Open Astroberry NoVNC server in a separate browser window
2) Go full screen on that window.
Problem solved.
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So, I finally got all my sh*t together (or so I thought) with suitable cables to control my Celestron 4se and Svbony-305 into the field with Astroberry. Have to take it in the field, no suitable viewing spot at my home. Got everything hooked up, connected to my Raspberry Pi running Astroberry and found that many application windows were too large for the screen with no scrolling facility available, hence no ability to move, resize, minimize, maximize windows and limited ability to even close applications (only if a file-close menu option was visible).
Very frustrating. I like the view I get with Astroberry/noVNC on my laptop, and its convenient, don't want to shrink my video size, but this was just too frustrating. What is the right path for me? Are there config files to be edited? Would things be better if I installed a VNC on the Pi (no overhead for the web browser headings, etc.) I'm linux-fluent and can do any sorts of manipulations that would help here. But getting all this setup outside on the fly is difficult.
This system is too good to be spoiled in such a silly way. What am I missing?
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Well, we’ll soon have a test. My Celestron 93922 cable supposedly designed for connections through AUX arrives today. I don’t see why whatever baud rate is necessary wouldn’t be supported by INDI. 9600 works through the handset.
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I finally achieved connectivity - by plugging my cable NOT into either of the jacks on the mount, but into the handset itself. In all honesty, I didn't even know this jack existed until I watched a clip showing how to upgrade the mount.
I'm not sure why this is (shouldn't they be identical?), and it's a bit inconvenient. But it works!
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Updating location is not necessary since mount is already aligned.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Updating time is not necessary since mount is already aligned.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Device configuration saved.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Saving device configuration...
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Device configuration applied.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Dome Policy set to: Dome ignored. Mount can park or unpark regardless of dome parking state.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Auto search is enabled. When connecting, the driver shall attempt to communicate with all available system ports until a connection is established.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Loading device configuration...
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Mount UTC offset: -6.00. UTC time: 2018-10-31T06:01:51. DST: Off
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Mount does not support guiding. Tracking mode must be set in handset to either EQ-North or EQ-South.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Mount is unparked.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] Mount is unparked.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [INFO] InitPark: No Park data in file /home/astroberry/.indi/ParkData.xml: No such file or directory
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [WARNING] Mount firmware does not support track mode.
2022-05-20T20:05:41: [WARNING] Mount firmware does not support getting pier side.
2022-05-20T20:05:39: [INFO] Mount model: 4/5 SE
2022-05-20T20:05:39: [INFO] Controller version: 5.34___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Can someone explain what the difference is between plugging into the handset vs. plugging into the aux port on the mount or removing the handset and plugging into that port?
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Have now upgraded to the latest firmware:
HC:NXS 5.34.2065
MC:5.20 5.20I turned on debug logging:
INFO 526.955078 sec : Session log file /home/astroberry/.indi/logs/2022-05-20/indi_celestron_gps/indi_celestron_gps_19:35:29.log
DEBUG 551.499438 sec : Connecting to /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Prolific_Technology_Inc._USB-Serial_Controller_COBIe108Y20-if00-port0 @ 9600
DEBUG 551.503902 sec : Port FD 4
DEBUG 551.504011 sec : Connection successful, attempting handshake...
DEBUG 551.504071 sec : Initializing Celestron using Kx CMD...
DEBUG 551.504123 sec : CMD <Kx>
ERROR 556.509289 sec : Serial read error: Timeout error
DEBUG 556.559558 sec : CMD <Kx>
ERROR 561.564823 sec : Serial read error: Timeout error
ERROR 561.615042 sec : Failed to communicate with the mount, check the logs for details.
DEBUG 561.615170 sec : Handshake failed.So, latest firmware, followed the instructions to align the mount first with the handset, disconnected the handset, plugged the connection to pi into the handset's port (not AUX), and still no connection. Help!
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I've been tearing my hair out to make this connection, without success.
My Celestron 4SE is the older type with the "serial" handset connector, not USB.
I'm trying to make the connection using the following connectors
a) this
USB-DB9 adapter
b) Celestron's
93920 adapter
I have also seen the advice on
INDI's Celestron Page
which informs me that
"You must power and align your mount using the handset using any supported alignment method (e.g. SkyAlign). Without aligning your mount first, the driver will not connect to the handset."
I am following this procedure.
I infer that the USB-DB9 connector is good because I can see that connecting it creates a /dev/ttyUSB0 device in the file system that is not there prior to connecting it:
Prior to connection:
astroberry@astroberry:~ $ ls -al /dev/ttyUSB0
ls: cannot access '/dev/ttyUSB0': No such file or directoryAfter connection:
astroberry@astroberry:~ $ ls -al /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root dialout 188, 0 May 19 14:04 /dev/ttyUSB0My settings are as in the attached screenshots. Perhaps you can spot something wrong there.
[
Yet, when I try to connect, it always fails:
2022-05-19T20:19:31: [ERROR] Failed to communicate with the mount, check the logs for details.
2022-05-19T20:19:31: [ERROR] Serial read error: Timeout error
2022-05-19T20:19:26: [ERROR] Serial read error: Timeout errorAnother symptom which may or may not be significant is that if I keep the handset connected and connect the 93920 to the AUX port, the handset says "No Response 17 Press BACK to continue". I don't know if it's possible to connect both at the same time or if this message is significant, assuming I could have made a connection.
I am left with the suspicion that the most likely possibility is that the mount's firmware is not up-to-date as is mentioned on your Celestron page.
My firmware versions are as follows.
HC: NXS 5.25.4320
MC: 5.20 5.20However, I am reluctant to change this merely on general principles, as it poses some risk of unrecoverable damage, without some assurance that it's likely to help.
Can INDI or any readers of this message provide any information on what firmware versions this driver has been tested with using this mount, or with any assurance that updating the firmware will help resolve this problem?
One further question I have, assuming I can ever get connection to work, is why only EQ-N Mount setting is enabled and the others are greyed out. I would prefer Alt-Az, at least initally, as the 4SE's mount is notoriously poor at EQ mounting. Is Alt-Az mounting not supported in this INDI driver?
Thanks for your attention to this long post.
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What does this mean:
“The PNG and TIFF picture will be saved as 16 bit linear images.”
What is a 16-bit linear image? Does this explain why a PNG file created by CCDCiel cannot be viewed by common graphic-viewer apps, while the 8-bit JPG created by CCDCiel is visible? CCDCiel seems to have been designed that way. Why?
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Does the INDI driver for Celestron NexStar presume any particular sort of USB cabling? My setup going from Raspberry Pi4 to Celestron Nextstar 4se requires a USD-DB9 connector and a DB9-Celestron handset cable. The USB-DB9 connector comes with a mini-cd of drivers, which I can't build on my Raspberry Pi. I presume this is why the combination doesn't work. Can someone tell me what sort of cabling the driver was tested with? And if some sort of cable driver is required., what is its relation to the INDI driver?
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What is the deal with .fits conversion? It seems much shakier than it needs to be. I took a couple of not very good, newbie level captures of the lunar eclipse last night using CCDCiel, which saves them as .fits files. CCDCiel displays them decently. They don't seem to be displayable by any other program. My thought was to convert them to .jpeg or .png for sharing purposes, but none of the several tools I Googled for .fits to .png conversion worked. A couple were online, they produced a black rectangle instead of the image that CCDCiel was showing them. Can soimeone explain to me what's up with that? If I can't solve this issue, I'm reduced to taking screenshots for sharing, not ideal.
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Extreme newbie here - just installed astroberry on raspberry pi 4. Many things in Astroberry are working but OACapture is not. The button for it on the UI doesn't work. attempting to launch from the command line fails as well:
$ oacapture
libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to authenticate
qt5ct: using qt5ct plugin
qt5ct: D-Bus global menu: no
Segmentation faultHow can I get this working?
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