When I tried it, kstars was running on a Windows computer, and I was operating skysafari from my Android phone.

Thank you for looking into this!

Hi Amit - Just did a test run with M31 as the target. Here was the set up:

- KStars/EKOS running on a Mac with a RPi with StellarmateOS installed outside at the mount. The RPi was only acting the INDI server - I wasn't controlling EKOS on the RPi via screensharing or using StellarMate from a mobile device to control things.

- SkySafari7 running on an iPad under Apple's iPadOS.

- After starting EKOS on the Mac I launched SkySafari7 on the tablet. I connected my mount via SkySafari and had it slew to M31, which it did.

- From the Mac, I used the Align module in EKOS. I selected Capture and Solve with the Solver Action being Slew to Target. I could see in the Solution Results that it was solving for the Andromeda Galaxy. It got hung up at first but a second try nailed it. I had never entered Andromeda as the target in EKOS so the only place it got the target was from SkySafari on the tablet. Also, any mount motion I could see in KStars on my Mac I could also see on my tablet in the SkySafari interface - seemed to work in parallel.

So, I'm not sure what to suggest. It seemed to work as intended in the set up I had. If I have a chance to play with more targets, I will. To be fair, to keep things simple, I will probably just use KStars on the Mac for the planetarium functions and EKOS for all the rest.

Let me know if I try anything else!

Huh! It didn't work like that for me. I will have to give it another try.

And I am not alone. There are others on cloudy nights reporting that it works (or does not work) the way I described. I hope when I try I get it to work or discover what I am doing wrong.

Just to be sure, I set up the mount as an indi mount, *not* the Meade 200 mount thing that is on the instructions here? The indi mount is a new thing in skysafari 7, and it never asked me for a mount model. Not that it should matter, because I tried this for both mounts that I own.

Amit - you are correct, I didn't set it up as the Meade thing. When I went through the process of setting up the INDI mount in SkySafari (once I had the right IP address entered for my INDI server), it just picked up my mount (an iOptron). I assume it got that from the INDI server. So, it didn't ask me for my mount model - it just picked it up correctly (again, I assume from the INDI server).

I feel your pain by the way. The documentation doesn't seem to keep up with all the changes and there are so many possible configurations that all the use cases are hard to anticipate.

I am wondering if it is even necessary to add skysafari as an auxiliary in the device profile.

I think that's the question - what is it adding to your workflow that KStars isn't satisfying?

No, I mean whether it is necessary to add skysafari as an auxiliary for it to work with this setup.

The skysafari app has the observation planner that I seek. Kstars's observation planner is a mess, it's never worked correctly for me. I wanted to view interesting objects in an area of sky that I can see. Kstars wants me to enter the region in ra and dec, instead of alt az that is so much more intuitive to specify.

Amit,

For more than a year I've been using Starry Night Pro Plus 8 to do a lot of my planning - I found it easier to use than KStars. Starry Night, like SkySafari, is from Simulation Curriculum and I've now found that that SkySafari INDI driver also allows EKOS work with Starry Night. To be honest, I'm not sure what the advantages/differences are between Starry Night and SkySafari for planning and telescope control. There are a few CloudyNight threads and others that discuss differences but they aren't terribly specific. Starry Night apparently has its roots in desktop machines and is quite a bit more expensive while SkySafari seem to have its roots more in mobile device platforms (although it runs on desktop machines as well).

All that said, I've been trying to focus more on using KStars and EKOS together (trying to simplify things). While KStars is taking me some getting used to, it has many tools similar to SkySafari and I've recently started my first mosaic and the mosaic planner in EKOS has worked well in setting up each panel. I get the RA/DEC vs ALT/AZ thing - are you using the Wizard or the What's Up Tonight tool?

Didn't know about starry night.

I was trying to use Kstars observation wizard. Basically I do EAA from my backyard, from where I can see only from Polaris on one side to east-se on the other. I got frustrated trying to see what to o serve by trial and error, manually filtering what I could not see. Kstars offers a way to enter portion of the sky, but in ra and dec. I really don't know who they are targeting with that, because anybody who can converse that easily in ra and dec probably doesn't need observation wizards....

Nice set-up. I like it. I have very similar hardware and I am fully Apple-based as well, except for the RPi of course . I have both the ASIAIR Pro and the StellarMate. So far I use mostly the ASIAIR. The mount is an Avalon M-Uno with the new StarGO2 Pro controller (SG2), which is RPi-based and runs its own INDI server and optionally KStars/EKOS. I use the PAA in EKOS on the Mac for polar alignment.

I also interface with SkySafari 6 or 7 Pro from the iPad (or my M1-MacBook), because I like the SS interface and GUI much better than KStars. Easier to read. Finding things quicker. But SS does not offer any camera interface or plate solving.

This is related, because the Avalon SG2 INDI server is basically taking over the function of the SM INDI server.

There are some issues with the communication between SS6 and the ASIAIR. I can either use SS6 or the ASIAIR. Not both at the same time.

As for SS7, I use the INDI-based client in SS7, which had some issues in the beginning but those problems seemed to be resolved. The main issue was, whenever SS7 slewed to a new target, plate solving did not work because the mount was not switching back to the tracking mode. When looking at how the INDI communication works, in some mount drivers you have to re-start the tracking mode after slewing. It is not always automatic. Lately, I do not have this issue anymore.

Since you are Apple based, did you try INDIGO? I would love to try it out, but the Avalon SG2 interface is not compatible with INDIGO.

Polaris is blocked by my house. I use the PAA (aka PAT) in EKOS for polar alignment. As stated in the previous post, my Avalon mount has its integrated INDI server, which is equivalent to a StellarMate-based INDI-server. I access this INDI-server from KStars/EKOS from my M1-MacBook and run the PAA during the mount set-up. Works perfectly now.

Since the M1-based Macs can run (some) iOS- and iPadOS-based apps, I can run SkySafari 7 Pro, the ASIAIR or the StellarMate apps directly from my Mac. This is so cool.

Effectively, depending on what I need to do, I run KStar/EKOS on the Mac for the PAA first and then, for the EAA, I use PHD2 for guiding, ASIAIR for imaging and either the ASIAIR Atlas or SkySafari 6 or 7 for slewing, i.e. GOTO. The Avalon StarGO2 INDI server is basically the hub for the mount to make this all possible. Depending on the mount, the SG2 could easily be replaced with the StellarMate.