Hi,

I am new to this forum. I recently bought a used Star Adventurer (without Wifi) to do astrophotography with my Canon EOS RP. I have been looking at software(s) which will help my workflow and Ekos caught my attention.

I have a few quick questions which I'm sure might have been addressed before. I have been reading some of the forum topics but I do not have a clear picture. So I thought I'd ask here.

Q1) Can I connect the Star Adventurer to Ekos using a mini USB to USB cable? Will this allow me to do rotate in RA? If yes, then can someone provide details? What other things can I do using this connection?

Q2) Can I control my Canon RP in Ekos? Do I need to install supporting softwares?

Q3) Can I do a polar alignment in Ekos when Polaris is not visible? If yes, then how do I do it? I will be using a Canon EOS RP as the imaging device.

Thanks for your time and apologies if my questions have been already answered.

Regards
Suman

Re polar alignment, you can polar align from most places in the sky. I'd try the pole if it is visible, but if not, just start by pointing your scope, say just west of the meridian in a part of the sky where the sky is visible from there down another 40º-60º. Set the polar alignment direction West (if you are west of the meridian, or east if you are east of the meridian) and set the angle to slew say 20º if you have 45º of open sky west of there. I'd recommend using the plate-solve scheme. See instructions in the KStars handbook: docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/kstars/kstars/kstars.pdf

I'm not familiar with your mount of camera so will let others hopefully address Q1 and Q2.

Hy

Hi. I'll have a go at this since I am a happy SA and Kstars user.

it seems from this page

www.indilib.org/individuals/devices/telescopes/skywatcher.html

that the non-2i SA does not support goto. Just try if the driver labelled wifi works, if not go for the one which is actually a simulator (last item in table in the link above). In that case you just have to rotate by hand. At the very least you can supply the mount with power via usb.

Wherher or not you can get Ekos to rotate the RA, polar alignment is a dream with this setup. I never use the polar scope. i first do a rough PA around polaris, then a second one (or 2,3,4 attempts until I am happy) once I am in focus and on target. It works well to polar align other parts of the sky. I rotate in the direction that is most convenient and never think about the meridian with this mount. Just make sure that scope and cables are in a reasonable place so I can image for hours after without snagging or crashing

Camera: try the canon dslr driver. hopefully works without installing anything else than Kstars.

you can also use plate solving with this setup(actually required for PA to work) This works very well and convenient for example if you need to be accurate when combining images from multiple sessions. but it takes some setting up. Get the right astrometry files downloaded, correct sensor size and focal length etc. It is pretty well documented and there are many 'mouse-over' tips within Ekos. Sometimes the mount reports dec of 0 which can trip up the plate solving, most common fix for me when it fails is to Right click in the Kstars planetarium roughly where scope is pointing and click sync.

Hope you can get this to work.
Cheers
Hnastro

A big thanks to you for your tips and for sharing your experience.

"Wherher or not you can get Ekos to rotate the RA, polar alignment is a dream with this setup. I never use the polar scope. i first do a rough PA around polaris, then a second one (or 2,3,4 attempts until I am happy) once I am in focus and on target. It works well to polar align other parts of the sky. I rotate in the direction that is most convenient and never think about the meridian with this mount. Just make sure that scope and cables are in a reasonable place so I can image for hours after without snagging or crashing"

I did not understand this. I assume that the first rough polar alignment is to point the mount approximately North and to use the correct latitude for the wedge. What is the second attempt? Is this based on the polar alignment using plate solve? If not then can you please elaborate how you fine tune the polar alignment after the initial rough attempt? I have polar aligned roughly using the compass app (set to true North) and the altitude (based on my latitude). I get no trails till about 30-60 s at 105 mm. When I go to 2 mins or 3 mins I see trailing.

Thanks for the tip regarding dec syncing. I will do that.

There is however a big question to ask. I just have a laptop with kstars installed. Can I use it in the field to do PA with platesolve? When I launched Ekos, it said that I have to connect to a remote linux device. Is this true?

Regards
Suman

Thank you so much for sharing the manual. I have to familiarize myself with kstars first as I am new to it. If you know of any resources for a beginner like me then can you please share them?

I want to know if I can use it on a Windows laptop directly because when I launched Ekos it said that I need to run it on a remote device and then connect to it.

Regards
Suman

hello Suman.

Windows is supported so you can bring your laptop next to the scope and run everything from there.

indilib.org/forum/general/12853-why-is-i...over-to-windows.html

this is a good resource to get set up.

www.indilib.org/about/ekos/setup.html

I do like you, first a very rough PA with phone compass app. Then when I have the pc connected and everything running I do a PA with Ekos. If I really want to nail it down I also do some final PA, again with the Ekos routine, on the target for the night. I feel that final step ensures the best possible PA needed with a smaller pixel scale and slow optics (I image unguided these days). with your setup is sounds like you are good to go already. With a very good PA perhaps you can go to 2-3 or more minutes exposure if you desire.

Happy imaging

Hi, thanks for the clarification.

Could you please elaborate how you do PA with Ekos? Do you plate solve first and manually move the mount by a few degrees twice? By how much do you move mount during PA? After you plate solve at three different RAs how do you know whether your adjustments are taking you closer to NCP? Do you get a live update of the current position and how much to move? Sorry, if I am asking a lot of questions.

Thank you. Actually, I am practicing to get a decent PA so that I can make the most out of the Star adventurer.

Regards
Suman