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Great! Thanks! I will definitely check it out. Appreciate it!

You're welcome! Although there is a lot being added by others. I'm probably going to do a live stream Thursday evening, and I'll have even more to show.

These days I'm usually using the open source Seestar Alp software to control it (github.com/smart-underworld/seestar_alp). I also sometimes use the iPad version of the Seestar app running on my M1 Mac. That works fine. For the live stream, I actually use a hardware encoder, but I've also used ECamm Live and OBS.

It was to the east. It should be low towards the east right after sunset, but it hadn't risen behind the buildings in my backyard. Saturn is actually next to the lower part of the constellation.

Well, just from personal experience: planes are a big problem where I live. But then I also miscalculate how long I should leave the exposure going, and I'll get a neighbor's roof or tree. Sometimes clouds roll through too. In both cases, if there are still some stars visible, the Seestar will include it in the stack and really start messing up the image quality.

The disk image? I used the Pi Lite image. That was probably the biggest thing. I also compressed it using "xz" which takes longer but results in a smaller file than "gz". But the biggest thing was that I used the Lite image. (With no desktop environment.)

@@erewhon42 Thanks.After you install alpyca and seestar_alp, how you create the image, you used like win32diskimager and then zip with "xz"?Or you used some software like PiBakery, rpi-clone,PiShrink or pi-safe or DD command?

@@ticoq179 To actually create the image? I use a tool call SDM (github.com/gitbls/sdm) which lets me script building the image and make it reproducible. It also lets you start up the image via an emulator. After the image is built, I use xz to compress the image. I need to update the repository I created with scripts to build the image.

Sorry about that, and thanks for pointing that out! It looks ok to me, but it might be a problem with some of my CSS and dark mode. I need to look over it. Thanks!

That was the prediction. But it struck me as the kind of thing where it could be plus or minus a few weeks. Of course, if it doesn't end up going nova... that would be disappointing.

The fastest way to transfer files is to plug your Seestar into your computer. It will show up as a drive, and then you can copy the files. (It works this was on Mac or Windows.). Alternatively, if your Seestar is on your home Wifi network (station mode), it will show up as a network device "SEESTAR". You can connect to it in Finder / Explorer and copy files that way. It's a lot slower over Wifi, but it works.

great!

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

It's pretty low to the south right after sunset. At least after sunset here. It's in southern sky, so it would probably be hard to see in northern US or Europe.

You can still have mishaps, but yes, on the whole things will probably be better all around. I've seen some photos from the Seestar from Bortle 3 or 4 even and in some cases the results seem better than what I get in just a fraction of the time. Of course, when you have a lot of good data, you'll probably want to spend just as much time really making it pop.

@@erewhon42 Moonlight and or planet glare?

@@hmuphilly9129 Well, it depends on the target. The moon will definitely wash things out, but people get good results even when the moon is up. So long as what you're imaging isn't too close to the moon in the sky.

@@erewhon42 I head planet glare is a form of light pollution in dark sky locations thanks for the replies.

Dinner with a friend sounds like a good way to spend an evening! And yes good progress on the web app. I hope to clean up some of the rough edges today and live stream again tomorrow.

@@erewhon42 I look forward to seeing it!!!

Right now you have to ssh into the box to update it. It should be a checked out version of the code, so if you go the seestar_alp directory, you should be able to run "git pull". I think that will work. I don't have mine running at the moment. I need to check that out. Also, I do want to eventually make sure everything can be done via a web interface. I'll make a note about supporting auto update via the web interface.

What target were you imaging? How many subframes? I have had some registration issues with some targets because it can't match enough stars.

Hi there! Glad you got it working! That's great. And glad you found the videos useful. SSC doesn't make the mosaic. Seestar Alp should have caused the Seestar to save the frames in a bunch of panel-specific directories. <target>_11-sub, <target>_12-sub, <target>_21-sub, etc. The method most people have been using is to take each panel and do the beginning of a process with each one: stack, crop, and gradient removal and noise reduction I think. But do _not_ stretch at this point. Then once you have each panel prepped, use ASTAP. (www.hnsky.org/astap.htm). You can load the panels in there and it will generate the mosaic. Then you can do the remaining processing. (I really need to do a video on this!) When you export the schedule, it _should_ go into your browser downloads directory. (It's a small file and it happens quickly.)

@@erewhon42 I made a mosaic from last night's photos with Microsoft ICE. I just used JPGs for this test, it doesn't work with FITS files. I have another question. I assume that one must do a mosaic all in one session. Is that correct? Or is there a way to do a row per night or something like that? Thanks

@@darwintea Microsoft ICE is another tool I've heard people use. Even if you were just using JPGs, at least it allows you to see if your overlap settings are good. You could potentially do a mosaic over multiple nights, but you'd have to adjust the central coordinates of the mosaic each night. (i.e. center of row one on night one, center of row two on night two.). Now, with field rotation I'm not sure how it would work. What I've been doing is the entire mosaic each night. I export the schedule and just reload it on subsequent nights. It won't be exactly the same, since I manually kick it off. But if I had the schedule kick off at a fixed time it would be very similar from night-to-night.

@@erewhon42 What I have done is load the panels into Siril and save them as TIF files. That lets me make the mocais with ICE. Then I load that back into Siril. It seems to work. As for the multiple night mosaics, I thought I could use the same one. Use the first panel on the first nigh. On the second night, let it start and stop it and SeeStar ALP should start the second one, right? And just keep doing that every night. Do you think that would work? I did a 2x2 mosaic of M31 last night and was pretty happy with it. One hour for each panel. I use an equatorial wedge and spoof my location to the north pole, so there is no rotation. I really appreciate you teaching me how to get SeeStar ALP running. It really is a game changer

@@darwintea Oh, I see what you're saying. Hm. It might work for skipping the panels. Basically. Glad you're getting good results. Equatorial really makes things better, especially when it comes to longer sessions and field rotation. And glad I could help get you started with Seestar Alp!

Elephant's Trunk Nebula is in Cepheus. Right now for me it's pretty high in the sky to the Northwest.

Oh, hm. The Raspberry Pi console? If you set a custom password when you use the Raspberry Pi imager, you should be able to login to the console. But really theoretically if the Pi was configured to be on the same network as your computer, you should be able to just connect to the URL of Seestar Alp software on the Pi.

@@erewhon42 I had the same results. I had to log in and got a command prompt. Not knowing how toy get the GUI going, I gave up and worked on getting SSC going on the OS I already had set up. Did you copy the files from your memory card or did you use an image maker to do it? I thin you need the latter.

@@darwintea I used an image maker. One thing I've seen is if you change the Pi user from "pi" it will break the image. If not, did you do any other customization of the image in the Pi imager? If there's a specific way it's failing I want to make changes to make it more resilient.

@erewhon42 i used darwin and my own password. Is that what you mean? I have it running on my own installation thiugh, so no worries from me. What dis you use to make the image? I'd like to do that with mine

@@darwintea I just used a relatively recent version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite.

That's frustrating. We had a few weeks of rainy conditions where I am. I heard things had been a mess in the UK. Hopefully things will be clear for you next week!

It's definitely one of my favorites, too. Hopefully the weather will cooperate tomorrow or Friday evening and I'll get a chance to image it!

I guess "complete control" in the sense of things that the Seestar can do that the native app doesn't expose. A few things I find interesting that you can do in Seestar Alp: - being able to save _failed_ subframes (in addition to successful subframes which the app supports) - more flexible exposure durations. you can specify the number of milliseconds, so you could have a 3 second exposure. I know some people are taking 1 minute exposures - being able to adjust the dither interval and number of pixels it moves

You should! It isn't bad. I burned the Seestar Alp software into the disk image, so there should be not command-line. The main thing is making sure you have the network configured via Edit Settings. The Seestar Alp software I run at home right now is from that image. I just did the instructions I showed, and then copied my config.toml file over. (I have 2 Seestars and static IPs.). Actually, as of right now, the version I'm running is the one I wrote to the SD card in the video. And re the coda: lol. Yeah. Actually I recorded two takes and then realized the mic was off. So it was a genuine concern at that point. lol

@@erewhon42 Thank goodness it want an hour long tutorial. 🤣

I know how that is. I've seen a few total solar eclipses, and I think this was the first one where I actually used some binoculars during totality to look at the corona.

Hi there. Sorry I hadn't replied earlier. Here's the top level URL: d2gclkfbcjvh9t.cloudfront.net/rpi/index.html. I'll put it under a better URL and link it in the description, but it will be running on the same server, so the content won't change. The image is currently only 64 bit, so it should run on Pi4, Pi5, and I think Pi3s. Let me know if you run into any issues!

The Eagle Nebula is towards the South in the evening. The North American Nebula is towards the North East in the evening.

It rises between east and north east.

It rises after 1:30 am towards the north east. By 4 in the morning it'll be a bit higher in the sky (but not yet high) towards the east.

You are so welcome!

That's awesome! Glad you were able to find it helpful. I think the phone hotspot can be problematic for some devices. Or maybe it was a 2.4 ghz vs 5 ghz issue? In any case, I usually end up using a little travel router when I'm away from home. (I've thought about setting up a Raspberry Pi as a hotspot too.)

We're getting there with the web app. I really like the radio button change you made. It just keeps getting better and better. And once I have it in better shape, I might some of the website code to a public Github repo.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

I should have talked about that more, but the source code is publicly available. I just downloaded it and built it myself. I tried on Mac and Linux and ended up building it on Linux. gitlab.com/free-astro/siril

Yes, I had used the old drizzle in Siril 1.2 a couple of times. I didn't spend much time on it, though. The current development version, which will become Siril 1.4, has a new, "proper" drizzle built-in. I've been experimenting with that a bit recently. Once I've been able to get some better results, I plan on doing a video about it.