Hello,

Partial success last night. Two big gotchas configuration issues lacking documentation popped out like sore thumb.

1. Polar Alignment: turning Scale off in options allowed Solver to solve. Thank you for Talking about the error code this option generates. “Field 1 did not solve” means Scale is turned on. Two actions occurred when this was turned off.
A. FOV changed. It went from 1500.1’ x 1200.1’ to 660.3’ x 450.2’. This was with the PoleMaster.
B. The Solver was able to solve very fast.

2. Time, date, and location of the OS differed from the GPS. The OS was one day behind. The OS claimed it was in the Southern Hemisphere. I have a log entry saying Solving for the Southern Hemisphere. Ouch. Why isn’t GPSD telling the OS where it was and setting the time? The Raspbian OS and VNC doesn’t have a clock function to set date and time. Raspbian does have an option under Preferences called Geophysical Location. The default longitude and latitude were in the Southern Hemisphere. I copied the coordinates and elevation from INDI GPSD and saved. Northern Hemisphere talk began. Solver and GOTO were happy again.

Date of the OS was different from UTC by 24 hours. The logs show this discrepancy. AstroBerry didn’t care what the OS thought the Date was most of the time. The time it didn’t was looking at the Whirlpool Galaxy. GOTO took the scope to the horizon and not close to the meridian. I stopped the GOTO as it wasn’t going to make it when DEC stopped and RA was still turning. The Big Dipper is nearly overhead and in the North West direction and Not low on the horizon.

Given this performance I am suggesting some extra tools for cameras be added for live feed without writing to a file. Both cameras are in OTA mounts. They need to be focused. I took pictures from each to see where they were. I will research CCD area for focusing options while in session. INDI seems fixated on stills and movies.

This would be true for polar alignment. Getting to the yellow screen for the first time was thrilling. Seeing the purple line as static leaves me wondering which direction I must go. I can use the PoleMaster software to align with the Celestial Pole. Then use Solver to polar align. My yellow screen should have a very short line. PoleMaster uses live feed to setup aligning with the Celestial Pole. I will also position my mount better to geographical positions. Picking up and rotating a mounted scope a few degrees is not good.

I will look for an iOS software to assist with tripod placement. Being off a bunch when Polaris is in the upper right corner of the inverted window and no more Altitude and Azimuth to give is a sickening feeling. I have some tools. They are all either informational or looking thru an eyepiece. I may have to consider building such software. I already have PoleMaster.

I thought my geophysical position was good enough. In reality, it should be GPS and direction. That is easy to fix. Altitude is easier to move than Azimuth.

What is the purpose of Solver’s Scale feature?

Is live polar alignment possible within the current INDI?

The Raspbian OS with Buster seems to not like GPSD. Is there a fix for the OS to be GPSD and network aware?

Hello,

Last night was clear and cool. I kept my RPI3B+ tethered to the network until setup time. I used my iPhone with two different apps to see if these give me better reference during sunshine. When it gets dark, Polaris comes out about 10:30 EST. I used the bubble level app to level and direct the pier and tripod. Hmm... Something isn’t right. The clump of trees on the horizon where Polaris was right overhead is now 3 degrees north-north-east to a new clump of trees. Daylight is different than night.

With twilight past and Polaris with its ring of stars visible, the OTA was visually off by that 3 degrees. I picked up the assembly and rotated the 3 degrees visually. I used PoleMaster to align the OTA to the Celestial Pole. Then I used EKOS. I was very close visually. That was good to know. But visually only occurs after twilight is over.

In EKOS, the purple line was very small. Small is well within the range of Azimuth controls on the OTA. Using EKOS as a guide, I stayed within EKOS to live guide to the Celestial Pole. Success at last.

My first test was the M86. My RA belt was not seated properly. Most of the time to M86 was stuck with DEC moving but RA was chattering. My fault for not setting up properly when in the light. Being remote with the RPI, hearing is all that is left in the dark.

With the M86 quest busted and very late, I tore down for the night. Before disassembling, I pulled out my Analog compass and checked north. Analog points to the specific tree gap under Polaris. I have a 1” Analog level given to me on Father’s Day at my church. From now on, Analog is it.

In my previous post, I used my iPhone app to level but visually aligned to the special gap. I was off a country mile. Last night, I used blue tape and my Sterret multi-square to align the post with the back of the plate. I guessed before. The tape and mark worked better but the iPhone was off.

As for GPSD and NTPD, I went back to some of my old posts. A compatible NTPD Raspbian version does not exist. Adding a physical clock to the RPI is it. If I did, Raspbian still does not have a time and date management GUI. Command line is it. Visual is good when EKOS is claiming the OTA is in a different Hemisphere.

I have to say that I am using Astroberry very successfully, these days on a RPi4, but doing polar alignment quickly and within a few tens of seconds of arc using my guide-scope and camera combination. Last autumn I was happily doing polar alignment with my primary scope and my Canon DSLR before I bought the guide-scope. I don’t have a permanent fixed set up and so have to carry out an eyeball alignment and levelling of the mount each evening (and my mount doesn’t have a Polarscope and I don’t own a Polemaster). Using iPhone compasses or old-school analogue ones is really not particularly accurate when you’re carrying your tripod and mount, perhaps like my case loaded with your scopes. Don’t forget you’ve got to allow for magnetic deviation in your locality ( See: www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/data/mag_maps/pdf/D_map_mf_2020.pdf )
So these days I use my finderscope to make sure Polaris is somewhere in sight, and then when it’s getting darker trying a first polar alignment. I would be disappointed if the PA routine measures my pointing error at more than half a degree.
However the thing I do use my iPhone for is setting the RPi clock time. I struggled with a GPS dongle, initially clashing with VirtualGPS and subsequently taking so long to locate sufficient satellites for a good fix. I found it was much easier to use my iPhone and particularly the App ScopeTool to give me precise location and time and also show me where Polaris is with reference to the north celestial pole at that moment. So when I turn on the power, I log into the RPi from my laptop using VNC Viewer, open a console terminal window in Raspbian OS and set the precise date and time by the command sudo date -s '15 Jun 2020 15:30:00'. If I can’t remember the details of this command, I just modify the old command from my last session, found in my terminal command history by the up arrow cursor key.
Then when I open KStars/Ekos/Indi it wakes up in the correct time, and if necessary I add the location geographical coordinates spelled out from ScopeTool.

Hello,

This good news that you have a good solution. I use the analog to point to a familiar landmark directly under Polaris from my vantange point. This is purpose of the analog. The iPhone app is supposed to take into account magnetic changes. Claims are just that when you find yourself beyond to limits of your scope and Poiaris is a long ways away. I started familiarizing myself to shapes in the dark for reference points. My compass includes a direction pointer.

My altitude should not change if I am at the same spot. If I move then, I have to start over. Adding RTC is not that expensive. My goal is to be fast during June, the longest month of the year.