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Help please getting EKOS Simulation to show stars from the gsc

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Hi all, please can I seek help getting the simulation tool to show stars from gsc. I have installed gsc, set the two required environment variables (GSCDAT AND GSCBIN) and if I type in a terminal window, for example,

gsc -c 25 +45

I get a list of stars to the terminal screen

So it seems to work.

I’ve installed gsc in /user/bin… which is in $PATH, so can be executed from anywhere, and the data and bin files are located in /usr/gsc (to which the 2 environment variables point).

When I’m running a simulated ekos session I get a message

error: is gsc installed with environment variables set?

… which as far as I can tell, it is…

So I’m at a loss

Any thoughts or advice much appreciated. Thanks very much

I’m running on an rpi4, bullseye. Kstars is 3.6.2beta
1 year 5 months ago #87286

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I seem to remember that there is some setup in Ekos or Kstars to be done for GSC. Worth looking through the config options (sorry not at a computer at the moment or I’d be more helpful).
The following user(s) said Thank You: John Pillar
1 year 5 months ago #87292

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This is the config I was thinking of (Kstars->Settings->Startup Wizard...


The other thing I've just noticed is that if I setup a new profile with simulators and take a frame, I get 1 star. If I swap optical trains and try again I get the usual number of stars. If I then swap back to the primary train it seems to work as expected. So you may want to give this a go.
1 year 5 months ago #87304
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Thank you John - appreciate your thoughts and effort.

I’m guessing that you’re on a MAC…. The directory structure might be different to that on a raspberry pi. Also, when I run the startup wizard I don’t see any reference to GSC, just a geographic setup selection, and then an option to add further date files,… eg.. NGC images for the map or details sections.

I believe the kstars data directory on my system is ‘~/.local/share/kstars

This is where the download ‘extra’ data files appear to be.

Please could you bear with me one more time - if you have the chance, please could you check your kstars data directory and see if you have files:

region.bin
region.ind

Or if you have the gsc data directories anywhere obvious, eg N000

And is the gsc executable called gsc, or GSC

Just long shots… I’m trying to guess how kstars might recognise the presence of gsc on your system….?? How does it know??

Thanks again. Sorry to be a pain. Your help is much appreciated
1 year 5 months ago #87310

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Hi John,
Yes I use a Mac so things might be slightly different. To answer your questions:
I have a directory called "gsc" within my data directory. This contains the N000, etc directories. It also contains a directory called bin which contains regions.bin and regions.ind as well as the executable gsc.
1 year 5 months ago #87311

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Thank John - much appreciated.

I set my directories up to replicate what you’ve described, and set the environment variables as required … so that a command line eg. ./gsc -c 45 +68 yields a list of stars…

But no luck in kstars/ekos I’m afraid. Will continue to think about it….

Thanks again - much appreciate your help
1 year 5 months ago #87313

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Did you try the optical train shuffle I mentioned?

Can you post a picture of the optical train dialog you are using for the simulators?
1 year 5 months ago #87319

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1 year 5 months ago #87320
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I’ve tried the trick you suggested - didn’t seem to work for me

1 year 5 months ago #87321
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Well that looks fine to me.

When you say EKOS "Simulation" I'm not really sure what you mean? I'm assuming you're running everything on the Rpi: Kstars/Ekos, CCD Simulator and GSC? Anyway, CCD Simulator and GSC must be on the same machine.

I had a quick look at the CCD_simulator code...

sprintf(gsccmd, "gsc -c %8.6f %+8.6f -r %4.1f -m 0 %4.2f -n 3000",
range360(rad),
rangeDec(cameradec),
radius,
lookuplimit);

pp = popen(gsccmd, "r");

If popen (which is a linux pipe open command) doesn't work then it logs the error you saw...
LOG_ERROR("Error looking up stars, is gsc installed with appropriate environment variables set ??");

So its just trying to run "gsc" with some parameters. Its hard to say why that's failing but it could be that however you're running indiserver doesn't have the correct path or environment variables to run "gsc"?
1 year 5 months ago #87325

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Hi John, thanks again - actually the error message is

‘Got no stars, is gsc installed with appropriate environment variables set’

So it’s slightly different - I wonder if that is significant.

Thanks again
1 year 5 months ago #87326

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Are OK. Well if you get this error (but not the other one) then it seems that GSC was run. It then attempts to process the output of GSC and draw the stars. If it draws zero stars then it prints the "Got no stars..." message.

So, if GSC appears to be working from the command line then it could be the parameters being passed to GSC from Ekos. Its passing RA/Dec so is the telescope pointing somewhere sensible (i.e. not at the ground)? Radius is calculated from the CCD parameters for the CCD Simulator and the telescope spec and the limitingmag is also setup in the same place...

So worth making sure these all have sensible values.
1 year 5 months ago #87327
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