I'm attempting to take a long spectral image using PHD2 as a guide. Every so often you'll get the message that PHD2 has lost contact with the camera. Why I don't know. Sometimes, not all the times, the camera will abort its capture; I've been trying to get a 10 minute capture for over an hour with no luck.

When taking a spectrum, I don't care if the guiding goes away for a few moments. PHD2 always seems to re-connect to the camera and continue guiding. What I don't want is to lose all the data in the camera buffer.

What I'm searching for in Ekos is the parameter that basically says "Don't abort camera if tracking gets lost for a few moments."

Thanks,
Bob

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Thank you. Like, duh, all I had to do was move the mouse a little to the left and there was key.

Bob

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Wolfgang,

Is there some documentation as to the meaning of the placeholders? I've deciphered many of them; was able to deduce that %B represents binning.

Thanks,
Bob

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I'll give VNC a shot.

My observatory is 6 hours from my house. By air. Would solve some serious issues if I could operate remotely for part of the year.

Cheers.

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Did Remote Desktop work for you "out of the box" or did you have to make tweeks?

Thanks.

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Bryan,

Could you please share your insights about how you got Remote Dekstop to work?

I'm running Kubuntu on my control computer. I can setup Remote Desktop with no problem. If I go to my laptop, I "see" the control computer via the Remote Desktop software, connect to it using the password, observe KDE spinning its wheel, then a blank, black screen. I've tried all kinds of fixes suggested on the internet that involve changing internal files but none of them work.

Thanks,
Bob

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Having been away for a while I could not connect to my CGX via INDI/Ekos and discovered that, in the pull-down menus, there are now several CGX connection choices. When I selected the "HC" choice all worked as before.
I am interested in using the PC port on the CGX so I connected a USB-B cable to the PC port with the other end connected to my USB distribution box. When I tried to connect via Ekos the program said something like can't make contact with the Az/El motors and finally gave-up. I noticed on SM there are two devices created in the /dev directory: ttyAMA0 and ttyACM0. When I tried explicitly putting those values in the connect box for the CGX there was still no joy.
Thanks,
Bob

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Astro,

Do you know where on your Mac the two-line elements are stored? Trying to determine if the TLEs are there and the software isn't finding them, or the TLEs are totally absent.

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When I tried to update satellites, KStars stopped at Gorizont (said it could not find the server) then crashed.
When I do a Pointing search and select Satellites, the expected list appears and the GoTo is successful.

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When you go to Settings -> Configure KStars -> Satellites -> Geostationary ... do you see a bunch of satellites listed?

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Working OK KStars 3.6.6 on Kubuntu Linux.

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The focal length always appears in my FITS headers. Of course, if we change focal lengths while keeping the same mount, it's up to us to make the change in the train specifications. Another option is to have a unique Ekos name for each focal length that uses the same mount.

This obviously doesn't solve the file name problem. However, if you have a bunch of files and you're not sure of the FL for each one,
grep -l 1.55 *.fits > 155files
will put the name of every FITS file that has 155 as its focal length into a file named 155files. Note that the internal FL storage in a FITS file is in exponential format, e.g., 1.55E+02

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Dan,

I ran Fedora for many years and liked it. A couple of years ago I was faced with the choice of staying with Fedora or moving to Ubuntu (kubunto to be more precise). I moved to kubuntu and have not regretted the decision. Almost all the astronomy packages are in the kubuntu library so I don't have to interface with git.

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Dave,

Thanks. It seems the key to getting all the headers is to do a plate solve.

CS,
Bob

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Magnus,

Thanks. I'll send a message to their Yahoo account.

I know what you mean about config files although the one I'm using is an exact copy of the one that works in Christian's example except for changes in directory and dispersion numbers.

By playing with config files, modes, etc, I did manage to "trick" the software into processing my data and was just agog at the quality of the output. They must have something that automatically removes hot pixels because the spikes I see in other software are gone! That one can specify the temp of the incandescent bulbs which gives the spectrum of your flat light also makes a big difference. So I'm hooked.

I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

Bob

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