Ad Astra Observatory

I had been playing with Raspberry Pi 4 (running INDI/Ekos/KStars) to see if it is a valid replacement for ASCOM. So far, it’s still not quite there, for my motley set of ancient equipment.

If I’d decide to upgrade mount, dome controller, … then it would be plug and play. The Pi really is pretty stable so far, and the 4th gen ones are fast enough to be a nice little VNC remote machine. But, that’s an experiment for when it’s raining.

Tonight, it was clear, for the first time in quite a while. I’m laboring under the New Telescope Curse, of course, and the Pi thing was sheer boredom and hope for a better life 😉 but really, I should have plugged everything back into the Windows box several days ago. You know, shut everything down nice and gracefully, and then re-plug the old gear back in…

Yeah, that didn’t happen. I hard ripped the USB cables from the Pis (there were two, it’s a dev thing, don’t judge me), plugged them back in to the USB-to-CAT5 bridge (it was cute how the CAT5 was already there to turn into Ethernet for the Pi 😀 ), and well that took a moment, and not all the gear came back up right away. I had to power down the mount, unplug the PC, it was a whole ritual.

And the guide camera is still offline *eyeroll* So I’m running unguided tonight, just me and Beauty and 04026 and the sky. And a camera.

So far, as I type, the camera is halfway through its first 20min exposure. All the 5min ones came out really nice, round stars and the whole bit. Fingers crossed. If the first frame doesn’t come out, I get more sleep tonight 🙂

Will post a photo tomorrow. Probably.

Reminder to self: don’t leave wind to find wind. Windows automation is almost done.

And there’s more gear to try out, I’m looking at you, filter wheel and Cygnus…