Setting up a PC for Astrophotography
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2024
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Here is a video showing me uploading all the software I need to run astrophotography from a new PC I bought.
Mele Quieter 3 Mini PC amzn.to/3W21prG
00:00 Introduction
01:02 Why the MeLE is good for Astro
04:58 Connecting the PC
06:16 Turn on and initial set up
08:07 Ascom Platform
09:01 NINA
11:50 Google Remote Desktop
12:26 ZWO Drivers
14:38 EQASCOM
18:13 PHD2 guiding software
19:05 ASTAP platesolver
24:51 Stellarium
27:37 Plugins for NINA
32:06 Why I chose the mini PC over ASIAIR
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Equipment I use, these links cost you no more to use but will earn my channel a small commission. It all helps support the channel.
Links to Losmandy Plate sandwich from Altair Astro
Risers - www.altairastro.com/altair-ke...
Losmandy Plates - www.altairastro.com/altair-tm...
Lindy 5m USB 3.1 active ext cable amzn.to/38FdDSQ
Mele Quieter 2 PC -
UK - amzn.to/3MPDANY
US - amzn.to/3wFs5Cd
Minii Travel Router
UK - amzn.to/3QkppCr
US - amzn.to/3BYsML3
Wolfwise Shower Canopy
UK - amzn.to/3JYoSDi
US - amzn.to/3PNjbvc
Alex Tech split 10ft cord wrap
UK - amzn.to/3etzgow
US - amzn.to/3GoZeXn
100 reusable velcro cable ties
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US - amzn.to/3PCpjpL
Short USB C Cable
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US - amzn.to/3G9EIcU
RCA Male Plug
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US - amzn.to/3wD4Vxq
OPT links to equipment. Even if you click this link and then purchase something I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Really helps my channel out, Thank you
Mounts
Sky Watcher EQ8R PRO bit.ly/39HVTpR
Sky Watcher EQ6R Pro bit.ly/3i1afU0
Sky Watcher HEQ5 bit.ly/2Ty7BeZ
Sky Watcher AZ GTI bit.ly/3iGmIvC
Cameras
ZWO ASI 294MM Pro bit.ly/2VbxNN6
ZWO ASI 183MM Pro bit.ly/3kSLPOs
ZWO ASI 290mm mini bit.ly/2UO71u6
ZWO ASI 120mm mini bit.ly/2Twjceu
Filters
Antlia 3nm bit.ly/3GhuaZl
Antlia LRGB bit.ly/3MDdca8
Chroma Oiii 3nm 1.25" bit.ly/3rviomS
Chroma Ha 3nm 1.25" bit.ly/2Wcsnlj
Optolong LRGB 1.25" set bit.ly/36ZtXJq
ZWO EFW Electronic filter wheel bit.ly/3fbmKe3
Telescopes
RC8 bit.ly/3x5AexT
Sky Watcher 130PDS
Zenithstar 61 bit.ly/2UEgFjc
William Optics 50mm guidescope bit.ly/36ZLYHK
Correctors
Sky Watcher 0.9Coma Corrector
Baader MPCC bit.ly/2V76LpZ
Astro Essential 0.75Reducer
William Optics Flat61A bit.ly/3zw9sAf
William Optics Flat 61R bit.ly/3BEvaEj
Accessories
Pegasus Astro pocket powerbox advance bit.ly/3iMFeSO
ZWO OAG Off Axis Guider bit.ly/3i1RIqD
ProLogik balance meter and tuning tool
www.prologik-astro.com/
The meter is of a high quality and works really well. Not only is it great for helping to find perfect balance in stiff mounts but it is a fantastic aid to fine tuning your mount for the best guiding. It will assist you in adjusting your worm drive/gear mesh to the optimum setting and giving you great smooth tracking and excellent guiding numbers. 
Развлечения
Great presentation, thanks Glenn! I also like your new (?) shorter intro - very cool.
Oh - I nearly forgot - Come On You Irons!!!
Thank you very much, really appreciate that. Well spotted. My son is a massive Hammer fan and even has a season ticket, not just a duvet lol
Great video glenn, very helpful
Thank you Astroman
I advise you to install a monitoring tool to check CPU temperature. There's a range of temperature that looks harmless in the short term, but can lead to a burnt CPU. With such a tool you may easily check the temperature dropping but just removing the stickers on the case. I strongly suggest using a heath sink: is worth the money and rather safer than sorry.
Hi Carlos and thank you for the advice. I will download HWMonitor to keep an eye on temps. I have had a Mele Quieter 2 on a rig now for over a year and had no issues at all but then in the UK hot nights are not really anything we ever get. Our main enemy is dew and the Mele cooling design helps with that so well but as you say adding a larger heatsink to the outside is an easy option.
Using two of these myself, 3Q and 3C. Thanks for pushing me in this direction Mate 😊👍
Hi and thank you for commenting. You are welcome and glad they are working out for you. Clear skies
Great explanation mate, when I finally get one I’ll follow this 👍
Thanks Mark, if you need help when you do let me know
Excellent Glenn. I have the Q3 on my newtonian rig and set it up just about identically. Great to see this sort of content being put out to help newcomers 👍
Hi Mark and its a really nice little PC isn't it? Thanks for the comment and support mate and hope to see you again soon for a catch up. clear skies
Just what we all need Glenn, clear concise instructions mate👍 I’ve got most of it uploaded thanks to your guidance! I’ve still got to do the Nina plugins, then we’re good to go😀 Thanks mate, great vid! Clear skies!
Hi mate, no worries and glad it helped. We will get that all up and running your rig in no time.
Hi Glenn, Really strange I’ve just been setting up a quieter 2 with my freshly tuned (by me ) AVX and Evolux 62 ED, splashed out for a ZWO EAF yesterday very excited my wife says whatever floats your boat..what a faff making drive adapter fit, ground it down and spun cleaned it with emery cloth, not many vids on setting this up so went for 0 to 12000, haven’t a clue how to calibrate backlash. So yeah it was all over our back room table, but now coming together for a trial tonight..as ever vids are such a help ATB Tom…
HI Tom. Sounds like you have lots going on and wish you luck and clear skies. The Mele works really well. As for backlash don't overly stress as PHD2 can allow for that, its binding you have to watch for
Great video once again! I really enjoy viewing your channel. I setup a mini PC a couple years ago in my observatory with Windows 10 Pro and started with the Google Remote Desktop from my laptop running Windows 10 Home. I found it a bit slow and the video was resolution was not very good. I then found out that you can run Windows Remote Desktop from a Windows Home PC to a Windows 10 Pro PC and that works so well. My observatory is about 50 feet from my home and my WiFi router has good signal strength into the mini PC even with the roof closed. I setup a shortcut to the Windows Remote Desktop on my laptop's task bar and it connects quickly to the observatory mini PC. I have held off upgrading both mini PC and laptop to Windows 11 fearing it may change the good thing I have going with Windows 10. Thanks again for all the great videos.
Hi Steven and thank you for your kind comments. I totally agree with the better resolution and speeds using windows remote desktop. I know I can use that away from home but it requires some port forwarding settings. I find google quick and easy and if away I normally just log in with my phone and get a session set up and going and it all works great. As its just on a phone the lower resolution doesn't show. I can confirm that windows 11 works exactly the same but unless you have a reason to upgrade I would just stick with 10. All my PC's communicate with each other with no conflicts and one had win 10 and the others 11.
Great little PC’s and great video. Clear skies Glenn
Thank you , I agree
Thank you so much to help us astro-roookies! it super complete and helpful
You are very welcome. Did you get the Mele Q3? Very nice mini PC , thanks for watching and taking the time to comment
Thanks for the vid! Using ASIair Plus right now but... clear skies!
Thank you for watching and commenting. Not ever used the ASIAIR but I know its a good piece of kit but limiting factor of only working with ZWO products stops me from using it. The mini PC is great and so flexible. Any questions pls ask, clear skies
Awesome video Glenn, I was just watching some setup videos today for my new PC as well :) If you didn't know already, you can get even better info from Stellarium by doing this. Open Stellarium, press F4 to bring up the Sky and Viewing options window. Click Surveys tab, scroll down until you see two options called DSS colored, put a check in that box. Next click the DSO tab, check the C, SH2 and LBN options. (Sometimes you have to enable these again. I'm not sure why this setting will not stay) Press D to annotate the deep sky objects, Ctrl-Alt-D. You will see objects you would never see before.
Hi Walterhaase and thank you. I was aware of this and will definitely be going back in and changing the settings. Thank you for reminding me as I had forgotten to do that.
As always, you are making good videos. My next pc will be an Mele.
Thank you Arnstein. They are really good for our hobby and work great
Great information you've given me thankyou.
I am very glad it is helpful and thank you for taking the time to comment. Clear skies
Hi Glenn , great video on setting up a mini pc for astro photography. If I ever go down the observatory route then I'll definitely control everything via NINA. Currently I use a asi air plus because I have all ZWO gear having changed from a laptop with APT. NINA does look amazing software and being able to control everything from my desktop computer does seem very appealing !! You've got me thinking 🤔 now !
HI Paul and thank you for watching. The ASIAIR is a nice unit and I keep thinking of getting one for my rig that I take away to dark sites. So far I have had great results with the mini PC's and because I have used NINA for over 2 years now I stick with it and find it hard to change.
Hi Glen Great video, glad to see windows 11 hasn't caused any problems, I am still using 10 (if it,s not broken don,t fix it) love Stellarium use it to pick a target then jump into NINA and use the get info from stellarium to set every thing up for the sequence, its great.😃
Thank you Graham. I agree that if you don’t need to update to stay with what works. I still have win 10 on a laptop and it works great and communicates with win 11 pc’s also with no issues. I work very similarly to you and enjoy finding targets that way a lot. Clear skies
Nice job. Now to learn nina and figure out how to add WiFi I usually have a portable setup
Nina is quite easy to get to grips with you just have to start using it. Any help or advice I can give please let me know
Glen
Something you may want to consider Platesolve 3 is now an all in one package and is downloadable for NINA. It does Plate solving as well as blind solve.
Hi Robin and thank you for the tip. I used platesolve 2 way back when using APT. I will check that out and see how it works compared to ASTAP. Clear skies
Excellent setup tutorial Glenn, you must have your son really well trained mate nice tidy bedroom and he lets you use his PC lol 😂
Thank you Tony. He is quite good regarding that but like all he has moments lol. His PC was a big project some time back where I made the desk and built the PC inside of it. Not very portable but he wows all his mates with it as its a one off.
Very useful Glenn. I bought that PC and a 1TB M2 SSD and have just followed the installs. Ages since I used a windoze solution as I grew disappointed with the (then) goto windows program APT and stopped using it a few years ago. I normally use Raspberry Pi4 with EKOS/Kstars on my rigs to do my imaging but want to try out NINA on Win11. Thanks very much for your work and loving your observatory build.
Hi Terry and thank you for watching and taking the time to comment so kindly. Glad you are enjoying the build, I am almost there.
I have never tried EKOS and Kstars but had it suggested by another person and may take a look. I have used NINA for a few years now and its so hard to move away what works for you and is familiar. I moved to NINA from APT and found it a far more comprehensive and reliable and it works really well within the mini pc. Hope all works well for you.
Great stuff Glenn I bought mine a couple of weeks ago now & I still haven't booted the thing up yet lol, I have fitted an M.2 NVME drive to it so hoping to clone the operating system onto that as apparently they run a lot quicker than the inbuilt one, then put all what I need NINA Greenswamp server etc onto that when I find some time to do it, still can't believe you aint tried Greenswamp yet lol.
Great video as always clear skies!!!
Very nice Pc's mate and I did that mod with my quieter 2. I am going to try this without at first but if it seems too slow may upgrade later. GSS.....I know, I know. I will get to it I promise. I will soon have the obsy done and working and then I can get some good time to try it out. Clears skies mate
The quieter 3 is great! I've got two of them. That said I have yet to test them in a hot Texas summer. Will be interesting to see how they do this summer. I think they will be fine as long as I shut them down before 11am.
Hi James, Thanks for dropping in. I will be interested in how you get on with the temps in your part of the world.
👍
Thank you
Well explained Glenn, I also have a Quieter3Q working on the rig, great little computers but they tend to get really hot, well mine certainly does.
I've had some serious problems to get the QHY Polemaster to work under Win11, I had to change some setting in the BIOS for making Polemaster to work
That is interesting re the polemaster Siegfried. I have the ipolar on a pc running Windows 11 and that had no issues. The case does get very warm on my 2 and this 3 version but I have tested them with cpu temp software and they rarely get above 75C so well withing normal working temps. Here is the UK it really helps with the humidity we sometimes get.
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Good video and advice on setup .
Do you have any problem with Stellarium being you won’t be using a monitor . Mine doesn’t work with my mini pc a different make to your one ?
Hi Stephen, Stellarium works fine with no screen attached. I connect via Chrome remote desktop.
Interesting stuff. So do you have a mini PC for each of your cameras and one big PC?
Hi Basil. I have one big PC that runs one of the rigs in my Obsy (EQ8 and CT10) but for the 2nd rig I have the mini PC that I can remote into from any PC or even a phone and work that way. My mobile rig (CEM26) has the older Mele quieter 2 on it that I use to control that. I prefer the mini PC to using a laptop.
Hi Glen greetings from AUS. Have you used raspberry pi ,I bought a complete set up scope Mount guide how scope etc s/h complete with zwo cameras filter wheel etc. How do I interrogate the pi to see what I have on it.I took out the card and read that on my iPad but didn’t seem to have program to open the files every thing was black .I’m not up on all the latest programming as I’m retired for some time now and my my experience was teletype m/c and punch tape before the pc era.
Thankyou John
Hi John. I have not used a pi to date only an Arduino uno. I think a lot of people load K stars and indi drivers to run their rigs from them. Its basically what an ASIAIR is. If it does not autorun when switch on I am sorry that I am not going to be much help. Have you asked the seller what it was loaded up with?
Thank you from a newbie and not very competent computer man. I have been using ASIAir for a year but thinking on going over to NINA. I built a pier with cover on my back yard and connected with a 40m network cable with RJ45 connectors to my router and desktop indoor. If I set up a mini PC like you recommend close to the pier, do I need to install everything on that one or could I do that on my desktop indoor? Is there any other way to connect with 40m cable from the pier to my desktop with all SW?
You need to load everything to run your rig onto the mini PC as it will be that unit that controls it all replacing the ASIAIR. You just need a way of communicating with the mini PC to control it. I am not sure what your last question is asking, (with all SW?)
I have a long run like yourself from a modem down to the observatory so I have internet connection down there. I then connect to the mini pc over wifi using google remote desktop.
Thank you so much, I understand. I will order a MeLE mini-pc then and install NINA and other SW there. I use cable also indoor from my router to the desktop. I just have to figure out the "remote desktop" thing now😚
@@wallbke Glad to be of help. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need any advice or help. Parts of this hobby can be quite the minefield so happy to help.
Hi Glenn, where do you install Astap? I was told that installation in the "Program" folder can cause conflicts with windows..., also are you fitting a rain sensor to your run off roof?
Hi David. I just type astap into google and click on top result. I have had no issues or conflicts at all. At 19:01 you can see my whole process of downloading it and installing.
A rain or possibly a cloud sensor is on my wish list.
I am not alone , I think, inexperiencing rain fall from a clear sky (honestly)...
@@dettie1948 could be bird wee 🤣
I’ll most probably get both
Just guide me, how do u access ur mini pc in field with your mobile. just like we do with asiair, we switch it on and connect to it and control it. how can we do this with mini pc. assume there is no internet around.
Any internet or phone signal you can connect as per normal using remote desktop or Chrome remote desktop. If you are going somewhere with no signal at all you need to add a mini router which will give off a hotspot that you can connect to and then control the rig. This is the one I use on my mobile rig. it connect to the mini pc via the ethernet port, amzn.to/3Ih0QVd
the problem with windows is it is not able to setup a hotspot just by its own. so first you normaly would have to setup a hotspot on your phone, connect your tablet, laptop to that hotspot. after that the mini PC would connect to the same hotspot and start its own hotspot so you can deactivate the phone hotspot. BUT now there is a solution called WIFI Creator. With that app you simply start your mini PC, connect your phone/tablet/laptop to the WIFI Creator hotspot and that's it.
Got the Mele Quieter 3Q for about a year now. It is ok... its just so slow eventhough I upgraded to a 1TB NVME and did some optimization. Still Stellarium is so slow and you can forget about planetary imaging alltogether with this because the framerate is a joke. So not sure I would buy it again but at the moment I don't see a faster alternative that is running on 12V/USB-C.
Hi. wonder if you have one with an issue as I really find the performance more than good enough. I am running Stellarium without any issues at all. I also have a Mele 2 which does struggle with Staellarium not being instant or very smooth but the 3 if runs fine.
I am planning to do some planetary soon so will see if it causes any problems.
@@Astrobloke its easy to see if there is a difference. I have between 9 and 12fps in fullscreen stellarium and thats very choppy for me.
@@realmcerono i just checked mine and its showing the lowest at 14.7 and highest 24.5 (when zoomed in)
I don’t have a screen this was remoting in using google remote desktop.
what is that topright temp widget?
Hi Oxize. Its part of a free software package called, Advanced system care by iobit. there is a free version
Plugged a mouse in and it doesn’t recognize it. Keyboard works fine but no mouse I try to use gets recognized. SMH
That's very strange. I use a keyboard with a touchpad built into it. Not had any issues connect mice though. Is it a wireless one or hardwired?
@@Astrobloke I tried both.
You forgot something. Sky Atlas map!
Don’t use one as Stellarium covers what I need.
Where is the backup?
What do you mean? Backup of the system or files that are taken?
@@Astrobloke The whole system which has to be restored when the disk was completly wiped.
Years ago I bought a laptop with Windows XP pre-installed. Just right at the first start of the machine there was a backup option. So I made backup. Then whiped the whole HD and installed Linux for testing.
Later I deleted Linux and wanted to restore the 'backup'. But it did not work because there was a hidden partion with a software to start the restore. Very funny...
If your PC gets a virus you have to delete and format everything to get rid of it.
Then you need a backup which can really restore the system.
@@Room-qy6md this is an issue that could happen but I have never encountered myself.
Windows has a reset PC feature built in which I have used with a friends PC that had corrupted windows files and another who needed a new motherboard, both times it did a perfect install.
Apart from the software downloads this PC will not be used on the internet so the chances of a virus are extremely low and ai always back up my data captures to a main PC where I edit.