Atik Horizon and Atik Air - data transfer speed?

[Noah4x4]

Forgive me if I have this wrong... USB3 is up to 640 MBps; which is 10 x USB2 speed. However, my understanding is that typical home network wireless data transfer speeds are much slower than both? Whilst telecom's providers avoid publishing any data, under 30 MBps is perhaps typical?

I doubt if a drop of 50% with a  USB2 camera is significant. However, I have an Atik Horizon (USB3) on order and intend to use that with Hyperstar (hence my F10 scope becomes F2).  So how does the Horizon perform with Atik Air? Will any drop from USB3 speed be really noticeable when used with Infinity for EEA? Are bandwith problems likely given its large chip/pixel count?

I want to invest in a 10M 'active' USB3 cable or Raspberry Pi (but not both). The former is inevitably the safe bet, but with all my other stuff wireless the latter has great appeal. Can somebody please guide me?

[Noah4x4]

Had a reply from Atik Support....

".......The image size and therefore amount of data will likely overwhelm the USB2 connection on the Pi and you will probably end up stuttering..."

So it looks as if the Atik Air + Raspberry Pi WiFi connectivity won't work with the Atik Horizon until the  Pi gets upgraded to USB3 (and/or 802.11ac wireless).  If anybody has a solution, answers on a postcard please (or here). Shame, because the rest of my set up is wireless, but it demonstrates the chip size/pixel power of the camera. Will have to use USB3 cable.

[psjshep]

Hiya...

TBH, any high speed camera will NEVER work properly over wireless... & untill they bring out a Gb port, then the LAN won't help...

I have used a Pi with INDI and also tried with Windows Ascom & Air with both the SXVR-H16 and the Atik 16200... works well...

Is there a way to get the images buffered/stored onto the Pi?  What will you be doing with all the data you produce? Planetary stacking?  I know that's an option with the INDI project....

Phil

[Noah4x4]

Cheers Phil.

I had never even heard of INDI until your mention. But I am not too computer savvy and need a simpler solution. I think I will just use a 10M active USB3 cable until Raspberry Pi and Atik Air catch up with the Horizon's data requirements.  After all, I already have WiFi control over scope and focuser which is suffice to permit me to sit in the warm. Those bits are easy with Celestron Evolution WiFi and a Starlight MKIT20 WL wireless motorised focuser.

However, I did nearly waste £50 on a Raspberry Pi, SD card etc as the Atik videos do suggest that Atik Air will work with "ALL" Atik cameras. As this appears to be a hardware barrier (the Pi) an interim idea might be for Atik to rewrite Atik Air to run in Windows 10 and hence run on Intel Compute Stick which I believe does offer 802.11ac wireless speeds. Maybe there is an existing Windows equivalent?

It doesn't look as if the Pi can ever adopt USB3 speeds without changing processor.  I also know of folk struggling with the ZWO AS1600 and the Pi. With Hyperstar, (no polar align; no guiding etc) all the potential solutions I have been offered look like a sledgehammer to crack a nut. No doubt somebody has a simple "for Dummies" answer?

[psjshep]

I hear what you are saying.....

but... to use a Pi, you need to be a techy.. or at least a computer enthusiast at least.... unless you are doing stuff which is completely configured already....

As it seems your primary goal is to be totally wireless with the Horizon, then I think you're going to struggle with ANY solution due to the physics of wireless... it just doesn't have the same throughput as USB3. But the biggest problem is, you need *something* to transmit the data from the camera to your main computer (the Cameras are not "servers").... that's where the Pi solution came in..

Also, not sure what you mean about Atik rewriting Atik Air?  Air is already a 2-tier setup; one piece runs on the Windows (the client, which talks to whatever you use to run the camera - Artemis capture, Sharpcap, etc) & the other runs as a "server" (on the Pi where the camera is physically connected). What would they re-write? The Pi is acting as a forwarding platform for the camera.... you would still need some sort of computer at the camera end in order to transmit the data.

For a lot of people, the wireless solution is fine as so long as you don't need to stream large amounts of data real-time.. that means *most* astro cameras are catered for.

Sorry... but I have not heard of anyone with a reasonably cheap & easy method of transmitting large amounts of data from a camera to a computer.... AFAIK, any USB->Wifi adapter needs a computer... can't plug directly into a camera...

Phil

[Noah4x4]

What I meant was perhaps  rewrite just the bit of code that runs on the Raspberry Pi to also run in Windows 10 (maybe use JAVA code?). Then perhaps the Pi might be replaced by an Intel Compute Stick that I believe does offer 802.11ac wireless transfer rates.

My perception of  the Pi + Atik Air solution is that the video suggests it is really simple (e.g. as if packaged for a computer dummy).  ALL the other solutions that I have read demand a degree in computer science. I have opted for Hyperstar to avoid the need for guiding and polar alignment and long exposures. Whatever happened to 'plug & play'?

[psjshep]

Now that makes more sense to me... & I think worth suggesting to Chris @ Atik.... (although, I see Atik have just advertised for a software engineer  )

IMHO, their solution for the Pi & a non-realtime camera is quite ingenius and, for a Pi, IS actually quite simple.... I tried it & the instructions are very good.... but I suppose it does depend on what people's perception of "simple" is.

Phil

[psjshep]

Interestingly, I was just reading a few posts on the INDI forum regarding the possibility of compressing the raw stream of ASI USB3 cameras on the Pi side to video, so the bandwidth limitation could be addressed slightly..... nothing usable yet, but it does seem people are trying to think of ways round the limitation.

Phil

[Noah4x4]

This is what I achieved today with my 24 megapixel large chip DLSR which is also quite data hungry. What I had discovered (much to  my surprise)  since my original post is that my home network is super fast 802.11ac. It's much faster than the more normal 802.11n. However, 802.11n is the potential  bottleneck if using a Raspberry Pi 3.

1. I could already control my scope alignment and GoTo by Celestron WiFi to SkySafari/Tablet.
2. Control Microfocuser by Starlight MKIT20 WL wireless motor (that has its own remote controller).
3. Plugged camera directly into USB port of laptop A (adjacent to scope).
4. Installed Teamviewer software (free)  on both laptop A and laptop B
5. Both laptops are connected to my wireless 802.11ac home network.
6. The camera software Digicamcontrol.com was running on laptop A (near scope)
7. I was then controlling laptop A from laptop B (hence camera) using Teamviewer from inside my warm office.
Basically I was using laptop B as merely a remote desktop in my warm office.
8. The same 'live view'  images were appearing on the replica desktop on Laptop B with no quality degradation or lag.
9. But all the intensive processing was being done on laptop A fed directly  by USB cable.

I can't wait to try this with my Atik Horizon when delivered. My laptop A is more powerful than Raspberry Pi, but to be fair, Pi is only £36, and not everybody has access to two laptops to run as master and slave via Teamview. But as this was all running in Windows 10 I suspect a Compute Stick might suffice at the Scope end (not cheap, but compact). I guess that this is similar to the 'video' route mentioned. The highest quality images for AP processing would remain on laptop A, and B is only for EEA (if that makes sense?).

I am sure there are variants to this (like control the scope with Stellarium) and additional software to hook up focuser to the camera control software on laptop A.  I will work that out later. But as a basic principle this approach does seem to work.

Hope to try it with my Horizon (Hurry up Santa!!!!!).

[roelb]

PC 'A' at scope serves as a image processor
PC 'B' serves only as a 'viewer'
Compute Stick (with sufficient) memory can handle the job.

[Noah4x4]

True Roel, but until this week I had never heard of 'Teamviewer' or 'remote desktop.'. Prior to my retirement these probably routine workplace  tools today were not mainstream. Too often assumptions are made that all generations have contemporsry computer and technology knowledge. But what we lack we make up in problem solving skills.

[Noah4x4]

Found a solution for wireless control of the Horizon at 4K UHD resolution.

1. Put a mini-computer at the scope.
2. Install Win 10 Pro on that computer (only needed on one).
3.  Install camera software on that.
4.  Control that computer from a second computer using Windows Remote Desktop.

This solution has always worked for lesser cameras as earlier described by Roel, but it suffers from lag with higher resolution cameras running with a 4K UHD monitor. The key to success with the high resolution Horizon is disable Windows Remote Desktop 'RemoteFX Compression' via Windows 10 Pro Group Profiles. This compression artificially  restricts screen data flow to under 10Mbps even if you have a 433Mbps network. It is designed to prevent a single user choking a commercial network (so dont use this over the Internet!), but that isn't an issue over your personal WAN/LAN.This data flow is insufficient for the Horizon. So disable RemoteFX compression and turbo-charge your Remote Desktop network. It improves performance over wireless or cable.