Software for running your stuff

[Tom Love]

I guess this is more or less the right place for this question - it's a general topic, I suppose. My apologies if it's an old chestnut.

I am interested in knowing more about the setups that people use for running telescope/plate solving/guiding/camera control. Integrating hardware and software is a 21st century challenge for amateur astronomers, and I need some advice.

Background: I have an observatory in my garden, a bit too far away for a USB cable to work, so I have an ethernet connection between the observatory and my study in the house. I currently have a Stellarmate (raspberry pi) running an INDI server in the observatory, which connects to the router for my wifi via the ethernet. I then use a client kstars/ekos on my usual PC to connect to the observatory gear over the ethernet via the raspberry pi. And it all works. Mostly.

While I quite like this setup in many ways, and a) the Ekos interface is very well designed, and b) it's really good to have a single piece of software that does everything, it's sometimes not as stable as I would like. Also I am soon going to change to a new mount which won't work with the Stellarmate (because there are no INDI drivers for it - I will have to go with something that uses ASCOM). So I find that I have to change my setup. This is important because I am lazy. Realistically, I will do more observing when it's easy, and less when it's difficult, so it's important to have a pretty slick setup which will maximise my data collection and make effective use of the equipment (I am an economist by profession, so the effective utilisation of capital is important to me!).

So, there are all sorts of software options out there. Many of them are intended for automated astrophotography, which isn't quite the same thing as remote spectroscopy. I'm not interested in automation at all, but I am interested in semi-remote control (no problem with nipping out to the observatory from time to time over the evening, and at beginning and end). PRISM looks as if it might be an option, and has some specific functions for spectroscopy, but there loads of other bits of software out there. All with varying degrees of consumer support.

So, what do you use? And what do you find works for you, and what doesn't work/frustrates you? What is the slickest integration of hardware and software for spectroscopy that you have come across?

[Peter Velez]

Tom

I’ll get in first with an outline of what I use.

My set up is in some ways similar to yours – I run my gear remotely but its not automated. That said, I am exploring opportunities to automate as it will give me much more data than I am collecting now. Efficient use of time if not capital.

iTelescope operates at a number of sites around the world – Australia, the US and Spain. It has 2 service offerings – a network of telescopes owned by iTelescope that users can access remotely and a hosting service. I use the latter. My rig is set up in an observatory adjacent to the Siding Springs Observatory at Coonabarabran, NSW. As its onsite at a major research facility it has super fast broadband. The shed contains about 20 telescopes. It has a roll off roof which is controlled by a Boltwood weather station – so I don’t need to worry about opening and shutting the roof.

At the moment I have a Planewave CDK 12.5 mounted on a PMX. My spectroscope is a LISA with an Atik 460EX imaging camera. I control everything from a PC sitting at the foot of the pier. I in turn control it using Teamviewer over the net. There is an internet switch to cycle power to the computer, mount and imagers which gives me some ability to troubleshoot from Sydney. There is an internet controlled relay that I use to operate the LISA calibration unit so I can take flats and ArNe frames easily enough – the Spox wasn’t available when I set this up.

I faced the same challenges as you when I was running a scope in my backyard. I had an internet connection to the mount and just used Teamviewer from the comfort of my home. In some ways my remote set up is the same – albeit with a 6 hour drive if something goes wrong. Thankfully there is an onsite engineer who can solve most problems quickly.

My software is old school and reasonably simple. I control focus with the Planewave utility PWI3 (which is gold) and operate the mount with The SkyX. TSX also does a good job plate solving especially using the All Sky option. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the guider gave me a wide enough field of view to plate solve reliably without needing to use Astrometry.net. Other options for plate solving are Pinpoint (either within or separately from Maxim) and the PWI utility. TSX works better for me as it overlays my image on the sky so I can see precisely what I am pointing at. I am sure I could control the imager and guider with TSX too but I prefer Maxim for that as its what I know. The guiding is not as slick as it could be but its serviceable. There are some options that guide on the target in the slit (AstroArt, PHD) but I’m not sure its any better than simply selecting a guidestar off-axis. The LISA calibration unit is managed through a web interface on the PC.

My usual imaging run is as follows:

1. Connect all the devices and focus.

2. Identify and slew to reference star. Calibrate guider manually with Maxim.

3. Take ArNe and flat frames.

4. Plate solve and adjust pointing for the reference star to get it onto the slit. Then image reference star.

5. Slew to target, plate solve and correct pointing then image.

6. Take some more ArNe frames and repeat.

As you can see, this is all manual – I need to be staring at the screen at least until the imaging run is underway. The weather here has been dreadful of late – so the roof might open and shut half a dozen times in 2 hours. It’s a pain!

I adjust the pointing by jogging the scope in TSX and taking repeat guide images. This can be done by Maxim – however, Maxim seeks to line up a target on the centre of the imager. The LISA slit is about 30 pixels off-centre so this is a challenge.

When I did astrophotography, I used ACP and ACP Scheduler which worked a treat. It integrates very well with the other programs (TSX, Maxim, PWI3). It was easy to automate the system to start up when the roof opened, slew to a target, focus, plate solve and adjust the pointing, calibrate the guider and start imaging. If the roof closed, the system would shut down and then restart when the roof reopened. It can also schedule calibration frames. Scheduler also does a great job in optimising imaging for multiple targets – eg deferring Ha images till the moon is up etc. The team at iTelescope use this for their non-hosted offering so they have plenty of experience getting this humming.

If you are a competent coder, I am sure you could make this all work with a spectroscope. The biggest challenge is getting the pointing right. In theory if you know the slit offset from centre, you can arrange for the pointing to be adjusted by that offset once the plate solve and slew routine is complete – whether the necessary degree of accuracy can be achieved in practice is an interesting question. I hope to work on that later this year.

The other challenge is really hardware driven – some things just need human intervention eg adjusting the internal focus, changing the slit. I’m looking forward to seeing how this is managed by Shelyak with the new motorised UVEX unit its developing.

Hope that all helps.

Pete

[Tom Love]

Thanks Peter - that's really interesting. The SkyX may be a good option, although I'm moving to a SciTech driven mount (the new Mesu 200 MkII), so I will need an ascom setup to run it.

Remote is interesting. My current INDI setup has my local computer connecting client software directly to the server on the Stellarmate in the observatory, so there's no remoting with Teamviewer or similar things - the locally running software talks to the remotely connected kit. Which makes it easy to have a decently powerful PC with two screens running software with lots of windows to control the rapidly multiplying pieces of equipment. It looks as if Ascom can now support a similar client/server arrangement for remote operation, though I haven't yet explored how to set it up in detail.

[Peter Velez]

Tom

TSX accepts an ASCOM connection to the mount so it would work.

Your skills sound far superior to mine - once you use words like "server" my brain goes foggy.

That said, if you want to see my set up in action, just let me know. I can log in you in as a guest any time I am up and running. Mind you the weather has been so crap I can't see myself doing anything meaningful for a bit yet

Pete

[Tom Love]

I'd certainly be interested in that sometimes, thanks, Peter. It's always interesting to see how other people set things up. I believe I'm two hours ahead of you.

What about other set ups out there? Is anybody using Prism? It seems to have some specific features for spectroscopy, such as a routine optimised for guiding on a slit, which sounds interesting.

[Ken Harrison]

Tom,
I’m using Win8/10. I have an NEQ6PRO/ C11 in the observatory, running CdC/ EQMod. Then Astroart for imagining the Spectra- L200 with the ATiK 314L. Astroart also does the guiding and plate solving with the eFinder.
The local laptop is connected to the home office via TeamViewer.
Works well for me.

[Tom Love]

Very interesting. Astroart is a new one for me, so I will have a look. And, by the way, thankyou for your most useful book.

This is turning into a bit of a Southern Hemisphere thread.