Hi everyone! I am new to using Kstars/INDI and to this forum as well.

So at my uni, we have an observatory which we want to use to track satellites according to a schedule using "Ekos scheduler" in kstars. I know that kstars cannot track satellites, but INDI does have the capability to send commands to track satellites to an LX 10 micron mount. I want to develop this functionality in the ekos scheduler.

As a first step, I wanted to check the existing capabilities of the scheduler. When I add a satellite to the Schedule, the start and end times displayed in the respective columns do not correspond to the actual rise and and set times of the satellite at my location.

I have verified my location in kstars and it is correct. Has anyone tried to use this functionality before? Is there something I am doing wrong here? Any inputs are greatly appreciated.

Apologies in advance if this post does not belong here.

Hello Sandeep and welcome to INDI forums!

I don't think adding them to scheduler is sufficient either. What information is required to send to the 10Micron mount? who will send this information exactly? Ekos needs to do this, but currently, the scheduler does not handle satellites in any fashion. So this needs to be implemented.

Interesting project. I have not attempted to use the scheduler for satellites, however I can say that the start and end times should correspond to the constraints set up for imaging. It likely is using a fixed RA/DEC coordinate, and tracking that across the sky. It is looking at other constraints you may have configured such as altitude and twilight. It is considering the imaging sequence you have chosen, eg how many exposures you requested and at what duration. The start time is sampled every minute or two and the end time is an estimate of how long the imaging might take, including focus times, download times, etc.

Hi Jasem! Thanks for your reply!

Yes, kstars does not handle satellites currently. My plan is to implement it similar to how it was done with the context menu: invent.kde.org/education/kstars/-/merge_requests/169
In fact the context menu option was also implemented by a former student at our observatory quite some time ago. The information to be sent to the mount are TLE_TEXT properties from kstars via INDI.

I just wanted to verify if what is shown when I select a satellite is accurate in the scheduler GUI. So should I safely assume that with satellites selected, the values shown for start/end time in the scheduler are random/inaccurate?

Also could you please guide me to a forum, if any, where I could ask queries regarding the code and its development?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks a lot for the insight! I will verify these settings again!

Currently indimount slews by sending the RA & DE of the target. There is a reverse lookup for the SkyObject associated with these coordinates (line 780) but it could be inaccurate. At any rate, assuming we have a valid Satellite object, then you can perhaps call setSatelliteTLEandTrack afterwards.