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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Lost beginner

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Lost beginner was created by Ron DeBry

I succeeded pretty well at acquiring an rPi4 and installing astroberry.

The only equipment I have to connect is CEM25p mount and Canon 700D. Made a quick dry-run in the living room and the camera connected and I seemed able to "point" the empty mount a couple of places.

Last night I set it up outside, complete with scope, which I entered in some setup screen, so KStars/Ekos should know the focal length. I quickly realized that the interface is not something one can just suss out by clicking on things, so disconnected from the Pi and vowed to watch some more tutorials - except I find videos a terribly inefficient way to learn something as ineffable as the Ekos interface.

I know I need to download Index files to use local platesolving, figured that would be a good place to make some progress.

The astroberry wiki tells me to:
Go to Ekos Align tab
Go to Options (bottom-right)
Go to Index Files
Click Index Files Location drop-down and set location to /home/astroberry/.local/share/kstars/astrometry
Select all required index files. They will be downloaded automatically for you

What Ekos Align tab? Where is that? Tools/Ekos or the Ekos icon in KStars brings up a window with two tabs - Setup and Scheduler.
There is Options in the bottom-right, but that does not lead to anything mentioning Index Files.

Is there a written "total beginner" guide for *after* one successfully installs? Or at least a video tutorial showing this level of detail for a dumb noob like myself?
3 years 4 months ago #62832

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Replied by Andrew on topic Lost beginner

Greetings! I hope I can help.
As with any software there is a Learning curve and some challenges, stick with it a bit, I'm confident you will find it worthwhile.

What those instructions lack is it presumes you have started an equipment profile to run the INDI drivers. So, setting up and running a profile is really the first step. When you do so, more tabs will appear. Including a bullseye icon for the alignment module.

Also, when you specify your telescope and camera details the list of alignment indexes will show which ones are required and recommended.
3 years 4 months ago #62859

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Replied by John Robison on topic Lost beginner

Hello,

The AstroBerry site has a written tutorial. www.astroberry.io AstroBerry, EKOS, and INDI must know where it is first for a session to be fruitful. If establishing AstroBerry where it is, the next step is to tell AstroBerry and EKOS what equipment you are using for your session.

If you live where the developer lives, Warsaw, PL, then you don’t have to do anything location steps. Every where else in the world must tell AstroBerry, EKOS, and KSTARS the session’s location.
3 years 4 months ago #62861

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Replied by Ron DeBry on topic Lost beginner

Thanks for the encouragement!

Figured out that I needed to start the simulator in order to get the alignment tab to appear while the Pi was inside and the scope outside. I already knew my fov, so I believe I downloaded the appropriate index files. We'll see next clear night.

More importantly - I poked around and found the pi wifi settings so I could force it to connect to only 2.4GHz. Now when the pi is outside with the scope it stays connected for more than a minute or two at a time :) Succeeded at pointing at a couple of things this morning after daylight, in the sense that the scope pointed at about where Venus is and then back to Polaris. I find it disconcerting that KStars starts up with the target on some random-seeming point rather than where the mount thinks the scope is pointed, but that does not seem to affect slewing to a target in Ekos.

Maybe I will have my act together enough to keep track of the things that confuse me, so I can someday write a beginner's guide from the beginner's perspective.
3 years 4 months ago #62871

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