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« Last post by Altouch on July 04, 2022, 11:17:46 PM »
Almost two months in for using the Atikbase and Stellarmate, some lessons learned.
1) Kstars 3.5.8 worked well. Don't update! If you do update, don't use the 'software updater" provided as an app. The first time I used it (january) it wiped out my WiFi. I got the Atikbase image and used Balena etcher to install the baseline image. Then I followed the instructions in the Kstars web page to update Kstars from 3.4.3 to the latest (which was 3.5.8 at the time). This time I mistakenly used the "software updater" app. The WiFi remained working! However Kstars would not boot. You could double click it, watch the hourglass indicating it was thinking, then it would stop and nothing appears. So, I re-installed the Atikbase image. Manually updated to the latest Kstars 3.5.9. Kstars now runs, but the INDI_ATIK_CCD driver crashes. Still working on a solution for this one.
2) The polar alignment works OK once a problem is solved. The clock on the ATIK Base doesn't work very well. It has a date and time that is way off. The default is to use the internet to set time time. In the field, I have no internet access. One can't use the Linux command to set the date/time because it is slaved to the internet. One can change this with enough time spent. However, if you set Kstars to the correct day and time (and location), then the polar alignment works correctly most of the time. There are still a few mysteries, but it could be do to an inconsistent operator (me).
3) Plate solving has been working really well.
4) Focus has been doing OK. It sometimes has some issues and takes longer than it should, but it basically always gets to the right point eventually. Most of the time is is pretty quick. Collimation of your optics is essential for the focus routine to work well.
5) Guiding is working well. I put a longer focal length guide scope on and this has improved my guiding. I am now using an 80mm f/5 scope.
6) Meridian flip. I have about a 50% success rate on meridian flips. I don't know what the specific solution is for when it works vs. when it doesn't.
7) I use a VNC. This works well. The iOS StellarMate app has so far remained totally useless. VNC works really well. If you are using an iPad, be sure to set the display scale on the local machine correctlly. That way the whole screen is displayed and you don't have to scroll around.
8 ) The histogram is still interesting. Back in Kstars 3.4.3 the histogram goes 0 to 65535. In Kstars 3.5.8 it always goes 0-255. The statistics with the mean, median, maximum, minimum and standard deviation provides more useful information than the 0-255 histogram.
Lastly, once you get a working configuration, don't ever update it!
-Alan.
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