/AstroPiMaker4

This repository provides instructions and script for building a computer for Astrophotography

Primary LanguageMakefile

Introduction

This project contains instructions and Makefile for setting up a portable Astrophotography computer.

It can be used for setting up different computers: Orange Pi 5, Raspberry Pi, Libre Computers Le Potato and a regular x86 PC.

At this point in time (March 2023) it is strongly recommended using Orange Pi 5: it costs less than Raspberry Pi 4, has 4GB of memory in minimal configuration and much faster CPU.

Why use makefile as opposed to shell script? Because make stops execution in case of failures and can be invoked for the whole installation or for a part of it.

Why not use Astroberry? Because you want to know what exactly is intalled or you want to customize installation or you just don't trust downloading random images from the internet

Warning

This script is better suited for users, who have experience with Linux and want to build a system from scratch, utilizing official images from Ubuntu. In case if you don't have experience with Linux, it is suggested to install Astroberry image or buy StellarMate image.

List of features:

  1. Installs most commonly used Astrophotography software:
  • INDI
  • Kstars
  • PHD2
  • CCDCiel
  • PHD Log Viewer
  • Skychart
  • Astrometry with sextractor
  • ASTAP plate solver, which is much faster than astrometry
  1. Sets up Wireless Access Point. Default name is RPI and password is password but can be changed in the script. Once connected to WAP, IP address of PI is 10.0.0.1
  2. Sets up vnc to be started automatically
  3. Configures screen to be 1920x1080 for headless operation
  4. Miscellaneous software
  • Syncthing for syncing images into processing PC
  • Arduino IDE
  1. Fully headless operation

Installation on OrangePi 5

  1. Install Jammy (22.04) Xfce Desktop image from Orange Pi website
  2. Power on the Pi, once in Xfce desktop, open terminal and run the commands as below (password is orangepi on the 1st line).
sudo bash
adduser YOUR_USERNAME
adduser YOUR_USERNAME sudo
su YOUR_USERNAME
cd
git clone https://github.com/avarakin/AstroPiMaker4.git
cd AstroPiMaker4
make opi5
  1. Reboot
  2. Connect to Pi using VNC client, keep in mind that you have to use display :1, e.g. enter orangepi5.lan:1 as server address.

Notes

  1. Alternatively, you can install everything headlessly: just ssh into the Pi:
ssh orangepi@orangepi5.lan
  1. During update, there will be a question asked about what to do about configuration file '/etc/issue'. You can just hit enter on it, and it will keep the existing file, or you can enter 'Y' so the file gets updates with the content from the repository so in future you will never have to deal with it

Installation on Raspberry Pi

  1. Downlaod 32 bit image of 20.04 from page:

https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi

It looks like they use same image for RPi3 and RPi4, so same image can be used for RPi3

  1. Unpack and burn image into SD Card.

  2. Connect to Pi

Connect Ethernet cable, put the card into RPI and boot.

Once green networking LED starts blinking, you can try to find the RPI on the network using nmap. Replace 192.168.1.0 by your network's subnet:

nmap -p 22 --open -sV 192.168.1.0/24

You can also find IP address of your RPi in your router admin page, look for DHCP leases. Of course, you can also just add connect mouse, keyboard and screen and find the IP using command:

ip addr

Once you identify IP of your PI, login into it using ssh, with user/password : ubuntu/ubuntu, e.g.:

ssh ubuntu@192.168.1.100

It will ask to change the password.

  1. Install the software

Run the following commands. At some point installer will ask to select Display Manager. You need to chose lightdm.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git make
git clone https://github.com/avarakin/AstroPiMaker4.git
cd AstroPiMaker4
make

This will take an hour or so. It may ask some questions, so monitor the process. You will need to reboot Pi after that. Once Pi is up, you should be able to see it as RPI in the list of available Access Points. Password is "password" but can be changed in the script. Once connected to WAP, IP address of PI is 10.0.0.1

Steps after installation

  1. Reboot the system.
  2. Connect to it using VNC
  3. Installer creates a startup script indi.sh in home directory which you need to edit to include your drivers
  4. In case if you run Gnome, you can change the look and feel of desktop to be more conventional by opening Gnome Tweaks tool and enabling "Dash to Panel" and "System Monitor" extensions

Installation for x86 PC

Install any flavor of Ubuntu you like and then install script and rest of software:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y git make
git clone https://github.com/avarakin/AstroPiMaker4.git
cd AstroPiMaker4
make pc

Installation on Libre Computer Le Potato

Libre Computer Le Potato is a low cost ($35 as of January 2023) Raspberry Pi clone, which is widely available. It does have some shortcomings comparing to Pi 4:

  1. Lower speed, e.g. it takes 30s to plate solve an image vs 22s on RPi4
  2. It only has USB2 and no USB3, but performance degradation was not noticeable even for 26MB IMX571 mono chip
  3. Network is only 100MB and not 1GB, but performance degradation was not noticeable while using VNC
  4. Even though Wifi is missing, it can be added using a USB dongle, which also has an advantage of having an external antenna
  5. Missing Bluetooth is not a big loss for this use case
  6. Even thouhg this computer comes with only 2GB or RAM, it can still work with 26MB IMX571 mono chip by setting up swap space. No performance degradation was observed due to swapping

Installation steps

Even though you can use desktop version of Le Potato image as a starting point, it it not recommended because Gnome based Ubuntu desktop is resource intensive and may cause periodic freezing. Furthermore, Ubuntu desktop version comes with software which is redundant for the given use case. The instructions assume that you use base Ubuntu image of Le Potato as a starting point. The script installs Mate desktop which is very light weight.

  1. Download base version of Ubuntu: https://distro.libre.computer/ci/ubuntu/22.04/ubuntu-22.04.1-preinstalled-server-arm64%2Baml-s905x-cc.img.xz
  2. Burn it on SD card, insert it into the board and power it up
  3. Once computer is up, you need to create your user:
adduser YOUR_USERNAME
apt install sudo
adduser YOUR_USERNAME sudo
  1. Install base software, script and run installer
su YOUR_USERNAME
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install -y git make dialog
git clone https://github.com/avarakin/AstroPiMaker4.git
cd AstroPiMaker4
make le_potato
  1. Change hostname in /etc/hostname