Good Morning Campers!
I've been looking into small-scale optical observatory automation using linux. Is there anything out there in terms of astronomical CCD control that we could actually put into fedora? If it requires a kernel driver, or a proprietary library then we can't include it.
I'd like to be able to get to a point where we could specific a specific off-the-shelf hardware setup for an automated observatory that we could have a Fedora based system work with out of the box. A telescope, and CCD camera being the primary things we need to support. Telescopes I know we can support already out of the box, I've done it with Stellarium with a low-end Meade.. but all the off-the-shelf astronomical CCDs I've looked at seem to need something we can't easily ship as part of Fedora, either out of tree kernel modules or proprietary libraries. Is anyone out have a working CCD control setup through Kstars or other program that is not making use of bits we can't ship? Reading over the Kstars documentation its unclear if the usb Apogee CCDs require additional drivers or not.
-jef
Jeff Spaleta wrote:
Good Morning Campers!
Hi Jeff,
I've been looking into small-scale optical observatory automation using linux. Is there anything out there in terms of astronomical CCD control that we could actually put into fedora? If it requires a kernel driver, or a proprietary library then we can't include it.
I'd like to be able to get to a point where we could specific a specific off-the-shelf hardware setup for an automated observatory that we could have a Fedora based system work with out of the box. A telescope, and CCD camera being the primary things we need to support. Telescopes I know we can support already out of the box, I've done it with Stellarium with a low-end Meade.. but all the off-the-shelf astronomical CCDs I've looked at seem to need something we can't easily ship as part of Fedora, either out of tree kernel modules or proprietary libraries. Is anyone out have a working CCD control setup through Kstars or other program that is not making use of bits we can't ship? Reading over the Kstars documentation its unclear if the usb Apogee CCDs require additional drivers or not.
Right, automatism of a telescope itself isn't a big problem as you just pointed because it's accepting standard commands thought serial console. CCD cameras are the tricky part, I know that PhotoMetrics [1] CCD cameras has the driver directly in kernel, however I'm not aware of any application for its management and unfortunately I can't try 'cause I don't have any. What typo of CCD camera do you have? I'm wondering how hard is to pass the review process for kernel patches :)
What I've seen in practice with linux was an USB webcam on a scope with GOTO rotation using serial port. In other words you will adjust your location using the scope itself and after you shot your picture using USB control or even video4linux.
Any other experiences from the list?
-jef
On Dec 17, 2007 10:55 PM, Marek Mahut mmahut@fedoraproject.org wrote:
What typo of CCD camera do you have? I'm wondering how hard is to pass the review process for kernel patches :)
I don't have anything that's weight appropriately for moderate backyard scopes, I'm interested in seeing if the Apogee line of USB CCDs requires a driver or not. The Kstars documentation seems to suggest that libusb is all you need for them.
Kernel patches to the Fedora kernel aren't going to happen. It would be easier to try to get them upstreamed, but that won't be easy either.
-jef
On Dec 18, 2007 10:25 AM, Jeff Spaleta jspaleta@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 17, 2007 10:55 PM, Marek Mahut mmahut@fedoraproject.org wrote:
What typo of CCD camera do you have? I'm wondering how hard is to pass the review process for kernel patches :)
I don't have anything that's weight appropriately for moderate backyard scopes, I'm interested in seeing if the Apogee line of USB CCDs requires a driver or not. The Kstars documentation seems to suggest that libusb is all you need for them.
Kernel patches to the Fedora kernel aren't going to happen. It would be easier to try to get them upstreamed, but that won't be easy either.
Reading through the LWN Grumpy Editors guide to Cameras and his guide to doing the OLPC one.. it isn't easy to deal with since they all have hidden variables that you have no idea why you are setting at XYZ unless you want it to break. I haven't done anything with CCD's as all my imaging was done before CCD's were 'cheap'. We used a 1960's black and white TV camera for the image gathering...
On Dec 18, 2007 9:06 AM, Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com wrote:
Reading through the LWN Grumpy Editors guide to Cameras and his guide to doing the OLPC one.. it isn't easy to deal with since they all have hidden variables that you have no idea why you are setting at XYZ unless you want it to break. I haven't done anything with CCD's as all my imaging was done before CCD's were 'cheap'. We used a 1960's black and white TV camera for the image gathering...
I'm going to have to go to a group dedicated to Kstars. There is some documentation on supported hardware, but i need to find people who have actually done it: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdeedu/kstars/indi.html
When I had access to a telescope, I was able to stitch something together using my Nikon DSLR snapping pictures with gphoto. But it wasn't optimal because I had a very small Meade scope and the camera was not weighted nor shaped to work in that situation. I'd like to be able to present a specific package of off-the-shelf hardware that would work for backyard astronomy with a Fedora Astronomy image and then start beating the drum to get other hardware supported upstream in the kernel. I'm sort of surprised that kstars doesn't support the retail DSLR CCD cameras that gphoto does.
I'm in a situation now where I maybe helping a HS teacher put together a robotic observatory. I want to give him the option of setting it up using Fedora, and then giving his students livecds such that they can control the system remotely. From reading the Kstars pages, it should have the necessary bits to integrate the basics if I can find at least one listed CCD that has native linux support, the Apogee USB units listed may only need libusb and not a wacky kernel driver. Everything else you want to control, like a filter wheel or even the dome opening can be done via some simple DYI serial communications scripts if need be (pyserial!!!!!) But I don't want to DYI the scope and the CCD if I can avoid it. I'd like to be able to present Kstars as the basic interface, since it saves captures as FITS files, when can then be processes by any post-processor that understands FITS files.
-jef
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