Using Astroberry for Astrophotography (Ekos Overview)

I am going to show you a detailed overview of using Astroberry for astrophotography in EKOS. EKOS is the image acquisition software that sits within KStars. This video will guide you through the initial setup required for connecting your astrophotography equipment, as well as a detailed explanation of EKOS.
*Subscribe here* www.youtube.com...
Visit my website: www.astroexplo...
Support me on Patreon and gain access to my data: / astroexploring
*The equipment I use*
Sky-Watcher Evostar 72ED: bit.ly/3gBOKVO
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer: bit.ly/2QvQZ2f
HEQ5 Mount: bit.ly/31zmW08
Field flattener for 72ED: bit.ly/32wiP48
Canon camera adapter: bit.ly/3joCh9P
Dew strap & controller: bit.ly/2QwHuAb
US based viewers. Buy your gear at HighPoint Scientific here: bit.ly/3rvTvqU
US based viewers. Buy your gear at OPT here: bit.ly/3gAcee8
Disclosures: All opinions are my own. Some links in the description are affiliate links that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

[@Kdwolf]

Dude, THANK YOU, why do people always just assume beginners in this hobby know everything. This video was straightforward and to the point. Thank you so much.

[@AstroExploring]

Thanks for the kind words, it’s my pleasure!

[@thefugel]

Thanks for the video, just wanted to point out one of the things I use with astroberry is the save sequence buttons top right above the sequence window. You can save your common settings and reload them before each session. Once loaded you can double click and edit the sequence for a specific target, saves a bit of time and reduces my fat finger error. Also I've been closing the INDI Control panel and I've not noticed anything bad going on =) Keep up the content

[@AstroExploring]

Thanks Tom, some great extra info there!

[@Deliverator80]

Good walkthrough! Thanks for taking the time. Astroberry and Stellarmate are both lacking in this kind of content on KZbin.

[@AstroExploring]

No problem!

[@Afterburner]

Just getting started with Astroberry and will be following your examples as a guide - Many thanks!

[@bigfec]

Nick. Excellent stuff - you have helped correct a couple of schoolboy errors - my fault for diving right in blind I guess!! Absolutely love Astroberry and it (and you) have paved the way to a 100% wifi solution

[@AstroExploring]

Glad you found it useful! It’s a great way to control your rig from the comfort of your sofa 😃

[@NikonJax]

Thanks so much for these videos. I like how you go into detail without getting too far into the weeds....lol

[@AstroberryServer]

Great video! Keep going with other tutorials. They're very useful

[@bigjimny]

Can you show plate solving? I am particularly interested in plate solving the preview picture so I can locate the target better?

[@S12Astro]

Excellent video. I’m currently using Ekos internal guide software so looking forward to your video on phd2 as I haven’t figured that out yet.

[@Saxonpod]

Love these Astroberry vids!

[@MONTY-YTNOM]

Well. I guess the 'next' video didn't get made :) Be interesting to see how you link this to the camera.

[@What_I_Make]

Well presented video. Just a bit of extra info. Locally, means that it is saved primarily local to the Raspberry Pi pictures folder shown above. Saving to the SD Card is set within the Camera manager. You can select to save either on the SD Card or the drive or both (check this as I am re-building my mount and cannot confirm this). I set my to the local drive and then download them remotely via the viewer to my local PC, once the imaging session is finished.

[@AstroExploring]

Brilliant, thanks for the extra info!

[@abulka]

Actually very confused by what's local and what's remote and what is running where - perhaps I need to watch part one.

[@FPVsimon]

Perfect, Just what I wanted, Thanks Nick

[@AstroExploring]

No problem!

[@emyb3945]

Hey Nick, my understanding is that you are using a Canon connected to the Astroberry. I'm trying to do the same with a Eos M50 and i managed to get connected and have live view but for some reason I can't work with RAW images and so no sequence starts. did you have the same issue? wonderful tutorial by the way. CHeers

[@TheNorthDevonOrganist]

I just tried to update my astroberry install. Sadly it became an infuriating trial... no matter what i did the astroberry just would not 'connect' to the internet even when i had set up the link to my home wifi. This is an honest heartfelt request: please, please can the developers of astroberry make it a LOT more usuer friendly especially regarding the wifi and network setting up? That would make the whole thing far more attractive to use; currently you need to be an expert in linux to get it to work it seems. 8( I sit by the metaphorical internet roadside hopefully waiting for a more user friendly and automated version! But i still thank the devs for it all to this point.

[@richardsauerbrun2412]

Wonderful series ... you have made the use of the RPi platform very reachable for us "Non-Linux" folks ... thank you. I do have a question if you can help. I use a Celestron C8 SCT with their SCT focus motor. They have released a new combined Windows driver that allows connection of the focuser to the AUX port of my AVX mount rather than with its own USB cable. How may I add the Linux version of this new driver to my INDI stack? All of my other equipment has connected fine, except the focuser. The current Celestron SCT focus motor driver is looking for its own USB connection.

[@dedskin1]

Can you do dithering with that setup ? I found Dithering to be most important part of Astrophotography , in 2 ways , first way , if you dither images come better , 2nd way if you dithering works , that means your setup is correct and aligned and works good , and then you get good images . Usable data . So that is why im asking about dithering ?

[@christophergreendyk5620]

Thanks for this video man! I just got a guide scope along with a ZWO ASI 120mm camera to begin guiding with my Astroberry setup. So videos 2 & 3 of this series are giving me a good head start on figuring this all out. One question though, in the video you mentioned that you are saving the images to the SDCard in the DSLR camera.. I haven't been able to figure this out. Selecting local saves them to the directory provided in the input field. Were you able to overcome this? Anyways, thanks a bunch for making this tutorial, it is EXTREMELY helpful.

[@AstroExploring]

Thank you! I think I incorrectly stated about the saves in the video. I think local is actually a local directory that you state in the folder field next to it. You can always save on both if that helps! Otherwise if you’ve got a USB HDD then you can connect that to pull the images off the Pi after an imaging session

[@tristsaveukrain5854]

Same love it

[@astrofisching]

Hi Nick, Excellent video! I have one question and hope you can help. If I use an external intervalometer I for example set 2 minute exposure and add another 2 minutes interval (added noise reduction setting on my canon) I notice you mentioned just a 5 second delay. Can I just ignore the interval with this software and it takes the next exposure when the camera is ready? Thanks

[@crm114.]

Great run through, many thanks. I assume somewhere there are settings to control camera cooling (apologies if I missed it)? I had a brief play with Astroberry but I have to confess I found the interface a lot less intuitive than APT. For example, it wasn’t obvious to me how you saved your settings. I also found it slow and unresponsive on my RPi3, I think you need Pi4 for this application. I may revisit AB in the future.

[@AstroExploring]

Yeah there is a setting for cooling the camera, I skipped over it as it’s greyed out for me because I’m using a DSLR. I totally agree about it being less intuitive, I had to sit and learn AB and it took a few imaging sessions before I had it nailed. Yeah you definitely need a Pi4, it says it works on a 3 but like you, I found it too slow. Works very well on my Pi4 with 4GB RAM

[@stevehauser7486]

Great content, thanks for your effort and time. Have you tried the polar alignment tool. I can't get it to work right. Also I can plate solve if the mount is close but it won't blind solve at all. Any thoughts or maybe a future video. TKS. again

[@AstroExploring]

Thanks Steve! I haven’t used it myself so I couldn’t comment. Plate solving is going to be the next thing I look at so I’ll absolutely do a video on it at some point 🙂

[@ryanbeckett6044]

Thank you for the great video. It helped me set up my Canon 6D. My inside pictures looked OK but of course out of focus. But when I try it tonight, the image was green and very noisy. I could slightly see the start I was using to focus. Using BackYard EOS works fine. Any suggestions?

[@AstroExploring]

Hi Ryan. I haven’t tried it this way myself. I use the live view on the camera to focus rather than using Astroberry at that point. Which button were you using to do this?

[@astroazores]

I'm quite curious about why aren't you using astroberry to control your mount. Any specific reason? I'm currently using Stellarmate to control my mount, Canon 450d and asi 120mm. You can also use the internal guiding in Ekos for guiding. It will use PHD2 in the background. You can even have PHD2 open and see it work as the same time as the Ekos internal guider.

[@AstroExploring]

No specific reason, I just haven’t gotten round to it yet 🙂 yeah I use PHD2 and show it running in Ekos as well in the auto guiding video I’ve got coming up

[@dafyddwyncharles7521]

Great video! I have a similar setup to you, and have just invested in rpi4 and installed astroberry! Yours seems to be running a lot smoother/quicker than mine, how are you connected to the rpi?

[@AstroExploring]

If it appeared quicker on software loading time then I cut out Kstars loading up because it would’ve been 5 very boring seconds in the video! 🙂 I’m connected to it via my home WiFi

[@dafyddwyncharles7521]

@@AstroExploring Haha, it appeared quicker in general to be fair. Might be an issue with my wifi, might try connecting to the rpi with an ethernet to see if that helps.

[@philippeangers69]

Hello, Very interesting video. I'm using Stellarmate, but that's pretty much the same thing as it's based on Kstars /Ekos. I noticed that you use the local connection on the RPI or whatever box, but did you try distant mode with Kstars/Ekos along with PHD2 Guiding from a laptop? I'm struggling to find out proper settings in order to do that. Thanks to INDI web manager, I've created my profiles, and PHD2 mentioned as external guiding solution (using port 4400) shows up the Eqmod window when I click "Connect" in the Alignement tab in Ekos, however, I couldn't figure out how to detect both my imaging and guiding cameras (294 MC Pro & 290 MM on an OAG) ! Yet, locally, PHD2 built-in the Stellarmate distro works properly and PHD2 connects successfully to my cameras and my mount. However I'm not fond of the small window through VNC on top of that, and would prefer to use Kstars and Ekos to manage my sessions. Could you help me !? Philippe

[@AstroExploring]

Hi Philippe. I am guiding using my laptop by using an https connection. I’m controlling the RPi remotely by having the Pi connected to my home WiFi. Does that help?

[@philippeangers69]

@@AstroExploring Hi Actually... not ! I eventually managed to find out why I coudln't remotely control my cameras connected to my RPI. As said, I didn't want to get control of my RPI and my setup through the usual VNC conection (I guess you've got the same thing with Astroberry) but through Kstars and Ekos, as I consider it more comfortable than a framed winoow in a browser. When I first started to set Kstars and Ekos in order to do that, I couldn't establish a connection to my cameras and my mount with PHD2 installed on my laptop. The PHD2 installed on the Stellarmate platform could connect flawlessly to them by selecting "Zwo camera" entry (remember that I have two Zwo cameras, a 294 MC Pro for imaging and a 290 MM for guiding with a Zwo OAG) and to my mount with the "INDI mount" entry. Doing likewise on my laptop led to an error message from PHD2 mentioning that it couldn't find my cameras even though, , I had previously created a profile with Indi Web Manager and started it as you clearly explain it in one of your videos. I tried many settings but to no avail. I eventually found out that the "Zwo camera" entry I considered as the best fitted, couldn't work in distant mode (I mean with Kstars and Ekos and not VNC), and I checked out with what I considered as the best choice "INDI camera", out of curiosity as I had no more idea ! And after setting it (confirming my RPI IP, the mysterious setting "CCD" with "Primary" and "Secondary", I still don't know what they mean in this window ! I selected "Primary" anyway and pressing "Confirm" or "ok") one camera was finally detected, up and running. I trid with my 294 MC por first, and then with my 290MM and I let it as this is my guiding camera of course. However, I can choose only ONE camera with this entry, I don't know if it's by design or not, I coudln't add my imaging camera. That was the most important. Both my mount and my guidng camera are the basic minimum in order to be able to use PHD2 as external guiding solution with Ekos. I couldn't try out this setting as weather is again bad in France at the moment, but considering the logs I think it's operational, I no longer get error connection from PHD2. Do you know if there's a solution to get both cameras detected in PHD2 the same way with the "twisted lines icon" in the "local" Stellarmate PHD2 meaning that It could detect both of them !? Again, I think trhat my setup is rady for aligning, focusing, guiding and imaging but I would appreciate to know if it's just a limit of the PHD2 distant management or not ! Https is therefore not the problem in my case ! ;-) Congratulations for your videos which are very interesting and more important, very didactic ! Philippe

[@bigdaddywild]

The menu on the left hand side is missing for me? please can you help

[@AstroExploring]

I responded to your other comment yesterday. Have you tried doing the update and upgrade commands in Terminal

[@bigdaddywild]

@@AstroExploring Thanks, yeahthe only thing that appeared missing was the left hand menu, but is this something that onlt appear through the browser client?

[@AstroExploring]

I’m not sure without trying it myself. I would assume the menu should show up on any device if you use a VNC viewer to connect to it

[@djregan9121]

@@AstroExploring Just found out from support folks on the f.b. group/channel: The Indi Web Server panel (on left hand edge) is only visible while using the remote web browser interface. It is not visible if the Raspberry Pi is accessed through VNC or directly via monitor directly attached to the Rpi. All interfaces are still available through the indi/ekos interfaces accessible through the kstars pull down, so lack of access to the web panel is not too big of a deal. Thanks for sharing this video!

[@mikebennett2015]

How are you getting on with Astroberry? I’ve got imaging using Ekos working, but plate solving for polar alignment crashed the program.

[@AstroExploring]

I get on very well with it but I must admit I haven’t tried plate solving yet, that’s my next thing to look into. What spec RPi do you have?

[@mikebennett2015]

@@AstroExploring I’m using a 4GB Pi4. I may have put the solving files in the wrong folder. I’ve corrected that and will try again.

[@mikebennett2015]

@@AstroExploring Tried again last night but not dark enough to get a picture plate solving would work with. Too much moon and clouds arrived at 10pm. Will try again when I get a clear sky around new moon. This more an experiment rather than a necessity for me as I'm only using a star adventurer. I have tried uploading files to astrometry.net, that works but the response can be rather slow.

[@mikebennett2015]

I tried again a few nights ago. The process went through capturing three images, but then crashed kstars. I be interested to know if you manage to get it to work.

[@AndrewTerhorst]

How does one configure a normal camera telephoto lens? I know my focal length. But aperture is another story? For me the lens aperture ranges from f/22 to f/4. Refractors have a fixed aperture measured in mm.