🔭 How to Control your Telescope's GoTo Mount in EKOS and K-Stars.
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- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2024
- In this video, we'll be exploring the EKOS astrophotography software, and I'll be showing you how to control your mount from EKOS. If you're new to astrophotography, don't worry - I'll keep things relevant to beginners and show you the basics of navigation. We'll explore how to safely use an automated Meridian Flip in EKOS and also learn some amazing settings that will help make your astrophotos easier than ever before!
I'll show you how to set up your mount with EKOS, navigate it using previous images, and even enable auto park features so that you can be sure your telescope or camera gear is always safe. And all of this without having to leave the comfort of home.
I'll also show you how to set bookmarks so you can easily find your way back to certain coordinates in the sky. Join us as we explore EKOS and uncover all the amazing tools available for astrophotography!
Hi Everyone, Thank you for watching this video.
My name is Remco Hekker. In early 2019 I got interested in Astrophotography. I purchased some equipment and messed around a little bit. But due to circumstances, I didn't start any real project until January 2020. So I really am a beginning Astrophotographer.
In the last year, I've learned a lot of valuable lessons, and I've been getting questions on how I manage my astrophotography sessions.
That's why I started this channel, 52º Night Sky.
Look me up on Astrobin: go.52nightsky.space/Astrobin
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:46 Connect to an INDI Server
02:27 Easiest Method
03:35 Using the Telescope Toolbar
04:42 The Mount-Control Panel
05:18 Using the Find Object Panel
06:35 Bookmarking the Sky with Flags
07:58 Introducing the Mount Module in EKOS
09:15 Automated Meridian Flip
10:24 Limit Your Mount Movement
11:30 Automatically Park Your Mount in the Morning
11:58 Load and Slew Feature
Links for INDI, K-Stars, EKOS, Stellarmate and Astroberry:
🌌 Download K-Stars/EKOS: go.52nightsky.space/Kstars
🔭 What is a Stellarmate: go.52nightsky.space/StellarMate
🖧 Learn about INDI: go.52nightsky.space/INDI
🫐 This is where you get Astroberry: go.52nightsky.space/Astroberry 
Хобби
Thank you for this, very helpful
Excellent, very helpful
great video, useful for newbie like me
Just getting started with Kstars/Ekos and your approach to video tutorials on the topic is the most clear, concise and thorough I have yet discovered. Keep up the good work!
Thank you Michael. Welcome to the club. I've been using it a couple of years now, and still feel like a beginner 😉
Every single time I watch one of these tutorial videos, I learn some new awesomeness in these apps. Good stuff.
Excellent, the best tutorial video on Kstars and Ekos I've seen, no hours of dialog just strait to it. Thank You.
Superbly beginner friendly. Dumped my indi client project to start using EKOS!
Wow Sanjay, you were building an INDI client? That sounds complicated. Hope EKOS works out for you. Clear Skies.
Thank you! I learnt so many new features from this video!
I wish you get back to making some more on this topic, maybe even some live sessions.
This was really useful! Congratulations for the great job! Looking forward for clear skies so I can test it with my OnStep.
I needed this video. Thank you very much
You have a great way of explaining things. It is apparent that you really prepare your tutorial and put a lot of work to be precise and to the point and I appreciate it. I too am a beginner astrophotographer. Now I am starting to play with Ekos (using astroberry). Along my edgeHD 8'' and dslr on my flimsy balcony, figuring things out when I have the opportunity. For me the Astrophotography hobby is 10% image capture, 10% image processing, 30% fantasy-shopping and 50% youtubing/cloudynighting, so I welcome a new channel with potential such as yours and encourage you to continue to give us advice and things to think about in between sessions! cheers
😁 I would add some 20% waiting for the skies to clear. Otherwise agree with you 100%
Thank you for your kind words. I would love to turn out more content, but making sure the videos are clear and correct is worth more to me. And comments like yours make it worth the effort.
Another good video. Thank you for producing it.
Thanks. Very helpful as a true beginner I’m looking forward to more of your videos. Especially setting up indi server and kstars from scratch. Wildly confusing to me.
Thank you very much Remco. I like that you speak slowly and clearly. and not rushing the information. that helps Lots. thanks Dave
My pleasure, David. More people are telling me they like the pace. It's ironic really since the experts are telling me to speed it up to improve the videos. O well. Thanks for the kind words.
Fantastic videos! I started using Astroberry simply because I can never get my autoguiders to work with a virtual machine on my Macbook M1. Thank you for doing these.
Great content. Your channel deserves many more subscribers. Thank you
Very nice video, clear and well keep on the good work :)
Simply excellent tutorial! Remco, you are my new hero. Keep the videos coming please. As a complete beginner with Kstars/Ekos, I was capturing subs in less than an hour. You saved my night! :)
Wow, thank you Jacqueline! I think that's too much credit. But I'm happy the videos are of help to you. Welcome to the club!
This is a truly excellent series of instructional videos, Remco. Thanks!
Thank you Mark! I'm glad you like it.
Excellent video - very helpful - I learned some great tips from this and I've been using this software for over a year! Looking forward to more :)
Thanks Andrew. I really appreciate your support.
Very useful video. Can't wait to see your upcoming videos. Thanks!
Thanks Freddy!
Great video. Concise and to the point. Just getting my EQ6R setup with my MacBook Pro. Still ironing out the physical setup and indi server.
Thanks! That's a nice mount. I've never worked with a direct setup to a Macbook. But I know there are enough people that have it working. Good luck with the ironing.
Just discovered your videos. Such a nice videos! I'm about to get back into astrophotography again.
Thanks Kobi! And great that you are getting back into AP. Let me know if there is anything you are running into.
Clear and helpful video. Thank you
You are welcome, Mario. All the positive feedback makes it my pleasure.
I have been having kstar difficulties and have watched a ton of videos, none have helped me figure out my issue yet. But I commend how well you did this video, way easier to follow and listen to. Maybe you have another video that can help me. Thanks for this video..
Thank you for the kind words, Silentworth. Sorry that I didn't make any new videos for you. Is there any particular topic you run into? Clear Skies.
Nice video tutorial. I would like to see one about the polar alignment procedure and the capture&solve for goto.
Thank you Valter, I'm editing that one right now. It'll come online in the course of next week.
Also, Thank you for being the very first commenter on this channel.
Awsome tutorial for very bad astrophotographers like I am. I recently bought my astroberry and I still didn't try one single time. I have only a (very stupid) question: how does the mount understand where is it pointing before starting with the goto operations? thank you!
A big thanks to your clear tutorial. I'm building an astrophotography setup at this moment. It will contain a 3d-printed astrotracker with stepper drivers and motors, a unmodded DSLR and an astroberry. Most of the hardware is done and I'm figuring out Ekos and K-Stars. Your tutorials are very helpfull.
However I've been trying to connect my canon dslr with the indi drivers. With a little luck and perseverance I succeeded. However the imagecapturing takes ages. And at the moment I'm stuck... do you have an idea what could be wrong?
Specs:
Canon T3i / Astroberry running on a Rasbery Pi 3b+ / all wired connections via Ethernet
Hope your expertise can help me!
Hi Erik, that sounds like a great project! I haven't done anything related to 3D printing, but it getting more interesting by the day.
Regarding the speed of your image capture. Your setup is quite different from my own so I can't be sure. However, when I was still using my DSLR on my Pi3b capturing images took ages. The USB2.0 was one real bottleneck with my 36MP files. And also the quality of my home network. I was controlling the Pi (running stellarmate) from a client PC over my network. I believe downloading and transferring an image took up about a minute. That is why I started using my guidecam for polar-alignment and even my first plate solve ittarations. Upgrading my pi3b to a pi4b with usb3 made a huge difference. So did connecting my pi to a Gb ethernet cable but you did that already. Hope this is of any help to you. Clear Skies!
@@52NightSky Thnx for your tips. I thought it was the pi, since it’s only 1gb ram. I’m thinking of getting a pi 4b with 4gb ram and keep the old pi for planetary observation.
I saw/ heard your Dutch as well! So probably you suffer from a huge amount of light pollution. Do you image in rgb with a filter or narrow band?
I’m quite new in imaging so my apologies for all the questions 😆
Hoping for clear skies, because it’s been terrible last weeks!
No worries, always nice to talk to other astrophotographers. Indeed also Dutch however I'm lucky enough to live under a nice bortle 4 sky. But, in our country that means I have a lot of trees to deal with 😁. So I normally image in RGB using a one-shot color camera. I only use an uv filter. Recently, I've purchased a Ha+OIII filter and I hope to add some that data to the standaard RGB data I collect. I have seen some great examples from astrophotography under light polluted skies though. I think Astrobackyard and Cuiv both have pretty brights skies and they make beautiful images. I'm sure you will get there too. If those clouds ever move on that is.
Hoe zet ik de beginpositie van m'n telescoop? ik heb een skywatcher az-gti mount, als ik die horizontaal zet richting noord als beginpositie en ik kies om bv naar polaris te gaan, dan gaat dat met de app stellarmate perfect. Maar met Kstars gaat hij naar een heel andere richting... ? Waar zit het verschil?
Hey 52, this was helpful but is this in the use of a go-to mount? I'm using a iOptron Sky guider pro and just trying to work out a better way of finding my night time target but still trying to understand the software. Cheers
Hi Howie, I've looked into the Skyguider Pro a little bit, and it looks like it only supports tracking/slewing on the R.A. axis, not the DEC axis. That will limit you in the functions you can use in EKOS. I'm sorry my tutorial didn't communicate that more clearly, I'll add the word GoTo in the title so others will know what to expect.
Fortunately, there are still a lot of useful functions for you in EKOS. For example, I think the polar-alignment feature will work. And of course, all the features that control your camera. I think you can even look into plate-solving (to tell you where you are, but not command your mount). But I think a good sky-atlas and a red-dot finder will be the best way for you to get up and running.
@@52NightSky That's ok, it was a great tutorial none the less! I'm looking to use it to mainly plate solve more than anything else at the moment and almost figured out how to do it I think. I'll definitely be going through the rest of your videos again for more tips as they are very well presented.
Hi. Does this video show you how to actually control a real mount? Or is it just a simulator?
telescope is not moving when I go to to something why would that be parking works. and control mount not working.
Hi Oliver, Sorry that I missed your comment. Did you ever get it to work?
Hi, brilliant video Remco. Do you use KStars on desktop or is it on RPi? I have downloaded Astroberry on my RPi4 (4GB). Do you recommend that I use KStars on my desktop and do a remote server connection or do i simply use VNC and leave everything on the Pi4? How confident are you using this software when compared to something like APT which I use extensively for my sessions? Thanks.
Hi Astrosathya, In short, it depends. I've done both. Currently I'm running KStars on Windows and I connect to my Pi. I have a fast and reliable home network so I'm not experiencing any problems. I've also worked with KStars on the Pi. I don't use VNC, I don't like the limited resolution. I've installed XRDP on my Pi and connect to it over RDP (Remote Desktop). This gives me more resolution and even supports 2 monitors. The main limitation is that, when I overlay the Deepsky survey images in KStars, the Pi can't handle the load. This might be better using VNC. I will be doing videos on these topics, but It will take a while. So let me know if you have any questions.
@@52NightSky thanks for the quick reply. You are connecting to the Pi via the home network, but what would you suggest when I am at a location without wifi? I only have the wifi network of the Pi. Also, do you use PHD2 or Ekos guider? sorry i keep asking so many questions. I am so used to APT, i am still not having enough confidence for using the Pi during an actual session
So the important thing you need to remember is if you are controling your Pi from the windows client, data needs to travel to your laptop over the network. Think guiding images, focus images etc. Likely, small guiding images are not the problem. Your subs could take a while depending on the network. This will cause delays since kstars cant start a new sub when the old sub is still being send to the laptop. Also, what will happen when your connection fails? If you save your images on the pi, and not on the laptop, the risks are lower but you won't be able to see your images when they come in. So in the field these are your best options:
1. Use VNC/RDP and run Kstars on astroberry.
2. Use an ethernet cable to connect your laptop to your Pi (I dont know if astroberry supports this, I'm still learning about astroberry. Stellarmate does support this.)
3. Sit close to your telescope and use Pi's wifi (if it works, it works)
4. Enhance Pi's wifi with wifi USB-dongle.
Also, I'm using internal guider. Its easier that PHD. There will be a video on it shortly. (Not the next video but the one after that)
Don't worry about the questions, I'm happy to help wherever I can.
@@52NightSky Thank you so much. You know, i too used to live close to 52d Sky, but sadlt it was manchester and terrible light pollution :)
@@52NightSky i just came back from a session where I had Timeout error on EQMOD. I am seriously going to use Astroberry this week and chuck everything else altogether