So what solving method do you suggest for me? My rpi4 at the scope running astroberry with kstars 3.4.x does it all currently with only an external computer (or iPad) necessary to setup the schedule and polar align. The Indi platesolve works well in this scenario. I assumed the updated solver would also behave well in this use case, but from the last post it sounds like a laptop/ external computer is recommended. - or did I miss something?

I can only relate my experience as I am not involved in any of the development. I went to a laptop to run Kstars, because I felt I was over burdening the Rpi4. But the plate solving was not the problem, it was later on in the imaging sessions that I had problems with server disconnects. Tonight, I ran Kstars from the laptop and things went well (solves were very fast), but later on while guiding (with Phd2 running on the Rpi) and imaging from the Laptop, the whole system got very sluggish, and I don't know the cause of this yet (have to look at the logs and see if they tell me something). Eventually, the response got so bad, on the laptop (several seconds to respond to a mouse click) that I just stopped everything and restarted. But then clouds moved in and I just ended the session. I think you have to find out what works best for your setup and stay with that. The Rpi seems capable to handle all the task individually, but at sometime later it just seems to run out of gas.

At this point it has become a very complicated system that has wonderful capabilities (like Polar alignment assist, plate solving, guiding, etc), but there is a price to pay in system performance, especially as we try to move to smaller computers (like the RPi) at the equipment. But my experience tonight says even that may not be the limitation.

Ron

I use a Pi4 with 8 Gb and have no such problems with it except fir the occasional loss of WiFi connection.
I think I have overcome that by using an external WiFi dongle.

I am also using an external SSD for image saving, astrometry files and a Swap partition.

And I am running Ubuntu 20.04, not Raspbian OS. Looks to me the Pi has a lot of power to spare with that configuration.

Jo

So if you are running everything on the Pi, that is perfectly fine with the new solver and with KStars 3.5.0. StellarSolver is running very very well on a Pi right now. It sounds like you are using the external computer or iPad to access the Pi with VNC or something similar to access KStars on the Pi, that use case works just fine. You don't need to add the Astrometry driver in INDI to your profile if you are doing it this way because KStars can just solve the image directly using StellarSolver.

The use case that was being discussed earlier was using an external computer such as a Mac or a PC to run KStars and connect remotely to the PI to get the devices, and then NOT having Astrometry running on the laptop and sending the images to the PI to solve using the INDI astrometry driver. That doesn't sound like what you described.

we are always working to improve the system and performance. If you find out something that is slowing it down, please let us know.

Since you asked. It does appear that my problem of Kstars (running on a Win 10 64 bit laptop) slowing down seems to be related to using the internal guider. When I run Phd2 on the Rpi (which is just running the server connection to the equipment) there is some lag, but not much on the laptop screen. Both last night and tonight I tried running the internal solver and both time, while it was running, Kstars slowed down. I can see the lag in the countdown timer of images, they skip about 3-5 seconds between display. that seems to how long I have to wait for a button to be clicked with the mouse (and naturally by then I have clicked several other buttons). It does not appear that the laptop slowed down, when I leave Kstars, other windows respond as usual, it is just Kstars slowing down due to what ever is going on in the internal guide routine. I am using a sub-window for the guider, so it only updates a small star window on the screen.

The other issue that seems related to this is that I end up with several Fits Viewer windows open and closing them with the lag becomes a problem.

I realize that this may have nothing to do with the solver, for which this thread was about, but since you asked about it I responded here. I may start another thread as I collect more information about this issue.

I did have a couple of failures tonight with the solver, StellaSolver running on the laptop. The failures are all when I use the main scope with the main imaging camera (SCT9.25F6.3 and a ZWOASI533), the FOV is only about 26 arcmin square and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The failures are mostly around the pole as I polar align first using the Efinder (which has a 70 x 90 arcmin FOV) and once I get that close I do it again using the main scope and the main camera. It may just be a matter of changing some parameters, as I have downloaded all of the required and suggested indices. Solving elsewhere in the sky with the main scope does seem to work, so it may just be and issue around the pole.

thanks again for all the effort .
Ron

Hello,

I am a complete novice at astronomy but I am pretty computer literate and have contributed to the Celestron INDI Driver.

I am having scant success with Plate Solving, I have been using the CCD simulator to try to work out how to use it but have only had a couple of successful solves from hundreds to tries.

I am using a Mac and I have loaded all the indexes.

Hopefully someone can see from the screenshot my fatal mistake.

Ken K
Rpi4b 4gb on Scope
Celestron Nexstar 6SE
DIY Moonlite focuser
Raspberry Pi HQ camera

kenkelso:
The align module takes information about your equipment from the camera driver and mount driver for focal length configurations. Focal lengths can be set in the Mount Tab, you must click Save Telescope Info. You should make sure to save the INDI Mount driver to preserve the settings. The align module uses this information to calculate the displayed field of view, which guides the solver to use appropriate indexes.
First make sure your equipment is properly specified and the correct camera and optics combination selected in the align module. Then make sure you have installed the necessary indexes found in the align module's options.

I would also suggest starting a new topic for troubleshooting such issues after searching the forum for answers; as this topic is for discussions on development, not tutorials. Thanks.

I see a couple of things. First, If you aren’t sure why it failed, try turning on Alignment logging in the Ekos log options to get feedback. I did add a notice about this to the Kstars Solver failed message the other day, but it’s not in the Mac or the released Linux version yet. I would say that I see very few stars in your image as well. I would either increase the exposure time to get more stars or Increase the field of view (you did say you are using the simulator). You need to give plate solving something to work with. Also, when you said “all the indexes”, surely you don’t mean you downloaded every single index file?? That is a lot of data, many many gigabytes. And you really don’t need them all, just the ones for the field sizes you tend to use.

What version of Kstars 3.5.0 with StellarSolver is running very will on Pi right now? I cannot get it installed on a Raspbian Buster (armv71) system. The "building Kstars from source" link on this page leads nowhere,
edu.kde.org/kstars/install.php

I have loaded the latest Astroberry server image (2.0.3), it comes with Kstars 3.4.3. I tried the procedure to update to Kstars-bleeding, but it says I already have the latest Kstars. Is there anyway currently to get Kstars 3.5.0 (with StellarSover) running on the 32 bit version of Raspbian?

thanks,
Ron

Ron, use this, it's what I use works perfectly.
Download the new Raspberry Pi Imager, onto your PC or MAC, use it to burn an image of the Raspberry Pi OS 32 onto the sd card. Connect a LAN cable, HDMI monitor, keyboard & mouse to the Raspberry Pi insert the sd card & power it up. Let it set up, after that follow the instructions here github.com/rlancaste/AstroPi3 to install the AstroPi3 script. Then you'll have a working system with the new StellarSolver already installed. Then use the script in the utility folder to install the solver index files to suit your imaging set up & don't forget to change the telescope details in the simulators to match those of your own telescope after you've installed the indexes. You'll then have a working system.
Set a bit of time aside as the build using the script takes a while but it's well worth it.

good luck

Alan

Please add information about missing index files, and maybe a little hint how to download/add them. Now there is only message about solving fail. Without this forum it would be hard to even find out that something like "index files" are needed for newbies like me