Hi there, some more newbie advice needed.

I have indi-server running on a small board computer [Hummingboard] under Arch Linux with the driver for my CCD, and powered from my camera mount, which is all good. Now I have to chose a client that will run on the other end of a Wifi connection from the telescope. My first choice was KStars/Ekos running on a Linux [Ubuntu] laptop, which I have just got working. I wonder, though, if I might be better off with a Windows client as I get the impression that more people do their GUI-based image processing on Windows and I want to use only a single laptop computer to manage my astrophotography (to make it a portable affair) [and the impression I've got from others is that running the Windows image processing apps on Linux under Wine has problems].

So my question is, are there any issues with running an Indi client on Windows with the server on Linux and which Windows client might be suitable in my remote-control situation?

Hi Rob, you are right, that using anything under Wine is a pain, but why not to try native software. PixInsight is probably the best and the most complete image processing software ever and has native ports for Windows, OSX and Linux available in the same time. Peter

Thanks for the very swift response! I'll take a look at PixInsight: does it work well for planetary? Note that I know very little about the whole subject of astrophotography so all advice is welcomed.

Rob

I'm using it for narrowband DSO, but there are tutorials for planetary image processing, so probably it can be used for it as well. Try to look at their forum. Peter

Tutorial on Planetary Image Processing with PixInsight: Jupiter by David Pretorius
Procesamiento de Imágenes Planetarias en PixInsight estándar
Creating seamless lunar mosaics in PixInsight

Will do. Does anyone have any views on the broader question of a Windows Indi client being used to control a Linux Indi server/drivers?

Hi Rob,
afaik the INDI protocol is unknown in the Windows world. To access an INDI server you need an INDI client and this bounds you to a Unix environment. To run KStars/Ekos on Windows you can install a KDE environment from techbase . I never tried this, so can't help you. But for me it seems the only way to go. Good luck.

CS
Klaus

Thanks, that was the conclusion I'd reached. I did try the KDE stuff on Windows but I couldn't find the Indi connection and, from a note on this website, it seems that the Indi part is only available under Linux anyway. Ho hum, looks like Linux has to talk to Linux.

Currently, the INDI clients for Windows are not as developed as on linux with Ekos.

• Sky Chart / Cartes du Ciel: on windows it can't start a server but it can still work as a client for the telescope (goto, sync, ...)
• Device Control Device: similar to the control panel in Ekos, the last version seems to add a support for pictures but I was not able to install it.
• IPARCOS: it is a android application but it can easily be emulated with the ARC Welder Chrome extension ( link )
• INDI4JAVA: it is possible to start a server on windows and a client library is available. I don't know if a client is in development

INDI on windows: TelescopeSimulator driver with INDI4JAVA server, Sky Chart and IPARCOS clients

Hi Rob,
I have a similar setup and the lack of a INDI client on windows let me start to work on a INDI plugin for PixInsight github.com/kkretzschmar/PixInsightINDIclient .
I am running the indiserver + lin_guider on a raspberry pi2 and with the PixInsight INDI plugin I now can connect to the pi from Windows/Linux and MacOS. The INDI protocol is a TCP/IP protocol and of course it is possible to support it on windows as well. What you have to do is to port the indiclient code to windows, so that it compiles with a visual studio compiler.

I am planning to release the INDI PixInsight plugin in the next PixInsight version (third party plugin) as a beta release. In its current version, you are able to get/set all INDI properties which are sent from the indi server via a tree control application very simiar to the INDI4JAVA app. In addition there is a simple CCD image capture module to do image acquisition from CCD/DSLR with INDI. PixInsight uses a SpiderMonkey JAVAscript engine to orchestrate the different processes. That means that you can write simple Javascript programs to orchestrate INDI commands ... but this is not really tested in its current version and only vision.

A module for controlling the mount is not available yet, therefore the plugin is in its current form not so comfortable as EKOS/Kstars ... but work is in progress.

Klaus

Hi Klaus,
I'm the PixInsight 1.8 user.
How can I define all required environment variables PCLDIR, PCLBINDIR and ... on Ubuntu 14.10 (64 bit)?
Sorry for the stupid question.

Hi Oleg,
not at all stupid question... The INDI module depends on the PixInsight Class Library (PCL) which you can download from the PixInsight website pixinsight.com/developer/pcl/#Download (binaries + src)

Please refer to github github.com/PixInsight/PCL/ (src) for the meaning of the PCL* env variables (section environment variables of the readme file)

You can set the env variables in your bash configuration file (e.g. .bashrc), e.g. in my .bashrc

...$ cat ~/.bashrc | grep PCL
export PCLLIBDIR64=/home/klaus/data/C++/PCL/lib
export PCLINCDIR=/home/klaus/data/C++/PCL/include
export PCLBINDIR64=/home/klaus/data/C++/PCL/bin
export PCLSRCDIR=/home/klaus/data/C++/PCL/src
export PCLDIR=/home/klaus/data/C++/PCL/

Of course you have to adapt the pathes to the location where you have installed the PixInsight Class Library (PCL)

Klaus

Ok. Many thanks!