TLDR: Connection to Mount (Nexus DSC / ServoCat) seems to be working. Camera recommendations for plate solving? Resources for triggering plate solving after each “GOTO”?

Long version: Thank you all for your gracious help. I took the plunge and bought an RPI4, a cheap SVBONY camera and a copy of Stellarmate OS. Not having used a single board computer before, the learning curve has been steep. I now have the Nexus DSC / ServoCat scope responding to “Goto” commands from either Kstars or Sky Safari. The setup was a bit different than I originally planned, but it is also simpler. It turns out that I didn’t need to use the Sky Safari driver within Stellarmate (although I did get it to work.) Sky Safari (through an Android tablet WIFI) connects directly to Nexus DSC / ServoCat (exactly as before).By connecting Stellarmate to the Nexus DSC hotspot and using “LX200 Basic” mount in the profile, I’m able to control the mount from Kstars. This arrangement updates the telescope position in Kstars when Sky Safari does a GOTO and likewise updates the telescope position in Sky Safari when Kstars does a GOTO.

I’ve spent a bit of time playing with the camera. I’ve been able to run a sequence of captures. The “Auto Detect” was great, being that SVBONY doesn’t show up in the dropdown list. It is “detected” as another brand. Probably pretty common for inexpensive Chinese made cameras. I did notice that the lightness of the images seem to vary greatly from one exposure to the next. Bad camera? Any recommendations for a camera that works well for plate solving within Stellarmate?

I guess my next goal is to try doing some plate solves. Eventually I would like to arrive at automatically triggering a plate solve and realignment whenever a goto is completed. I would imagine this would involve some scripting? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

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