Astroberry Server

Astroberry Server to gotowy system na Raspberry Pi służący do sterowania sprzętem astronomicznym.

System działa na komputerze jednopłytkowym z systemem operacyjnym Linux. Astroberry pozwala na zdalne sterowanie teleskopem, fokuserem, kamerą i wieloma innymi urządzeniami wykorzystywanymi w astronomii. Może sterować sprzętem zlokalizowanym w ogródku albo oddalonym setki kilometrów. Dostęp do systemu możliwy jest w trybe zdalnego pulpitu przez przeglądarkę internetową lub klienta VNC, albo może służyć jako serwer INDI dostępny dla każdego klienta INDI np. KStars, Skycharts / Cartes du Ciel lub Stellarium. Astroberry Serwer oparty jest o otwarte oprogramowanie, rozwijane i doskonalone przez astrofanów na całym świecie.

Projekt Astroberry Server jest zlokalizowany na stronie www.astroberry.io

Funkcjonalności

• Wsparcie dla Raspberry Pi 3 i 4, Pi Zero i... prawdoopdobnie każdą inną wersję Raspberry Pi
• Oficjalny system Raspbian Buster Desktop opracowany przez Fundację Raspberry Pi
• Repozytorium APT dla systemu Raspbian Buster (tak, teraz każdy użytkownik systemu Raspbian Buster może zainstalować Astroberry Server za pomocą 'apt install')
• Interfejs webowy z funkcją Panelu GPS i Panelu Astro (almanach niebieski dla twojej lokalizacji)
• Własny punkt dostępu wifi pozwalający na bezpośredni dostęp do systemu bez dostępu do zewnętrznej sieci wifi np. w terenie
• Pulpit zdalny dostępny przez VNC pod adresem astroberry.local:5900 lub przez przeglądarkę internetową pod adresem http://astroberry.local/desktop
• Szkielet INDI ze wszystkimi dostępnymi sterownikami urządzeń
• Planetarium KStars i Ekos ze wszystkimi dostępnymi sterownikami urządzeń oraz dodatkowymi sterownikami astroberry
• Planetarium SkyChart / Cartes du Ciel (tylko w gotowym obrazie systemu)
• Planetarium Hallo Northern SKY (tylko w gotowym obrazie systemu)
• Sekwencer CCDciel (tylko w gotowym obrazie systemu)
• Astrometry dla rozpoznawania pola (pliki z indeksami nie są załączone i muszą być pobrane z sieci)
• ASTAP, Astrometric STAcking (tylko w gotowym obrazie systemu)
• PHD2 do autoguidingu
• Gnome Predict do śledzenia satelitów
• oaCapture do fotografowania planet
• FireCapture do fotografowania planet
• SER Player do odtwarzania nagranych strumieni wideo (tylko w gotowym obrazie systemu)
• Sterownik Astroberry DIY dla fokusera i przekaźników
• Sterownik Astroberry PiFace dla fokusera i przekaźników
• Sterownik Astroberry Motor HAT dla fokusera zbudowanego na module Adafruit Motor HAT
• Wirtualny GPS dla użytkowników, którzy nie posiadają urządzenia GPS
• Serwer udostępniania plików pozwalający na dostęp do zdjęć
• Wsparcie dla raspi-config (konsola) i rc_gui (interfejs graficzny) do łatwej konfiguracji Raspberry Pi

Wymagania systemowe

• Raspberry Pi 4 (rekomendowane) lub Raspberry Pi 3 (minimum)
• Karta microSD 32GB (rekomendowana) lub 16GB (minimum)

Szybki Start

Weryfikacja Obrazu Systemu

Możesz zweryfikować pobrany plik za pomocą dowolnego oprogramowania dostępnego dla twojego systemu, służącego do weryfikacji sum kontrolnych lub uruchamiając poniższe polecenie w terminalu:

sha256sum astroberry-server_2.0.1.img.zip

Upewnij się, że powyższe polecenie zwraca wynik 098d986f9e31f209e2bf58321977d3d7232d63d2b5981dce5f23036c6ef0d141.

Jeśli nie, to plik jest uszkodzony i powinien zostać ponownie pobrany. Jeśli ponownie pobierzesz plik i suma kontrolna jest nieprawidłowa, skontaktuj się z nami.

Installation

Basic installation of the system requires flashing your microSD card with system image file. It's not the same as copying the file to microSD card. If you just copy downloaded file to your microSD card it's not going to work.

You can flash your microSD card (minimum 16GB required) using etcher.io or running below commands in your terminal:

unzip astroberry-server_2.0.1.img.zip
sudo dd if=astroberry-server_2.0.1.img of=/dev/sdX bs=8M status=progress

Note: Replace sdX with your microSD card identifier. Make sure it is correct before running the above command!

The process takes some time and you need to be patient. If you abort the flashing process your system is not going to boot at all.

First Boot

After the first boot, search for 'astroberry' wireless hotspot and connect your PC to it using 'astroberry' for password. Point your browser to https://astroberry.local or https://10.42.0.1 to access Astroberry Server. For the Internet access connect your Astroberry to your home wireless network. Right-click top bar Wi-Fi icon and edit Wireless connection by entering your home network SSID and password. While connected to the Internet you can update your system by running below commands in your terminal: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade

Installation

Easy installation

See #Quick Start section

Advanced installation

You can install Astroberry Server packages on top of official Raspbian Buster with desktop system. This approach is not recommended for beginners. It does not provide all Astroberry Server features available in precooked image and you have to configure your system on your own, which requires advanced understanding of linux system. It's time consuming but you keep full control over the process.

Download official Raspbian Buster with desktop image and flash your microSD card with it. Connect keyboard, mouse and HDMI display to your Raspberry Pi, setup your system with the official first boot wizard and run the following commands in your terminal:

wget -O - https://www.astroberry.io/repo/key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo su -c "echo 'deb https://www.astroberry.io/repo/ buster main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/astroberry.list"
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

At this point you can choose to install all Astroberry packages at once by running sudo apt install astroberry-server-full or you can install only selected packages.

Packages installed by astroberry-server-full include:

• astroberry-server-wui
• astroberry-server-sysmod
• indi-full
• libindi-dev
• kstars-bleeding
• astrometry.net
• gsc
• phd2
• phdlogview
• oacapture
• ser-player
• gpredict
• indi-astroberry-amh
• indi-astroberry-diy
• indi-astroberry-piface
• virtualgps
• gwenview
• indiwebmanagerapp

Configuration

Setting time and date

Raspberry Pi does not come with real time clock (RTC), which remembers time and date between restarts. As the result it does not know what time and date is just after start. To overcome this limitation, it synchronizes time and date from the Internet. This can obviously work only if it has Internet access. Otherwise your system will think it is in the 1st of January 1970.

There are a few ways to ensure that you system is set to proper time and date.

Internet connection

Connect Raspberry Pi to a network, which has Internet access e.g. your home network or your smartphone, using wireless tethering function, and the system will do the rest for you. If you can't have Raspberry Pi always connected to a network with access to the Internet you need to use other options.

RTC module

Get a real time clock (RTC) module and connect it to GPIO. It will remember time and date between restarts. Additionally if you connect your Raspberry Pi to a network with access to the Internet, your time and date will be synchronized to minimize any difference.

GPS module

Get GPS module and connect it to Raspberry Pi. You can use either USB connection (plug-and-play) or serial device connected to GPIO. GPS module will synchronize time and date with GPS satellites. Note that satellites provide UTC time and are not aware of your time zone. However if you set your timezone correctly in the system, it will be used to adjust the time received from satellites accordingly. Using GPS module gives you additional feature of setting your location, which is required by various astronomy applications.

Manual configuration

You can always set time and date manually after each boot. It's not the most convenient way to keep system time and date accurate but it's good to know you can do it anyway. To set date to the 19th of May 2020 and time to 11:14:00 run in terminal: sudo date -s "2020-05-19 11:14:00"

Setting geographic location

Setting geographic location is quite important when using Astroberry. Many applications use your location to provide you with accurate position of stars and planets. Make sure that you set your geographic location before running these applications.

GPS device

To provide system-wide location info Astroberry system uses GPSD service. It grabs raw data from GPS device and provides it to whole operating system and applications that need this information. If you use GPS device the whole system and applications can get accurate geographic location from it. When using GPS device make sure that Virtual GPS is stopped and disabled by running systemctl stop virtualgps && systemctl disable virtualgps. Otherwise GPSD service will simultaneously use location from two sources i.e. GPS and Virtual GPS.

Virtual GPS

If you don't have GPS device, Astroberry provides Virtual GPS, which uses static location configured in /etc/location.conf file.

You can set your location by running Preferences/Geographic Location from system menu or running sudo nano /etc/location.conf in console.

After setting location in the file you need to make sure that Virtual GPS service is up and running.

• Run sudo systemctl status virtualgps to check service status
• Run sudo systemctl enable virtualgps to enable service
• Run sudo systemctl disable virtualgps to disable service
• Run sudo systemctl start virtualgps to start service
• Run sudo systemctl stop virtualgps to stop service
• Run sudo systemctl restart virtualgps to restart service

How applications get location data

By default applications use system-wide location data from GPSD service. However there are some other options, which must be noted.

• Kstars can use system-wide location data from GPSD service or it can read location from one of GPS drivers, namely INDI GPSD or INDI GPS NMEA
• Astroberry GPS Panel uses system-wide location from GPSD service
• Astroberry Astro Panel uses system-wide location from GPSD service

Geographic location architecture

Geographic location system architecture is quite complex.

                 |----> Mount with GPS ---------------------------> INDI mount driver ---->|
                 |                                                                         |
Satellites ----> |----> Smart Phone with GPS ---------------------> INDI GPS NMEA -------->|----> KStars 
                 |                                                                         |
                 |----> GPS Device ------>|                  |----> INDI GPSD ------------>|
                                          |-> GPSD service ->|
/etc/location.conf ----> Virtual GPS ---->|                  |----> Astroberry GPS Panel
                                                             |
                                                             |----> Astroberry Astro Panel

Configuring network connections

TBC

Maintenance and Upgrade

Upgrading the system

Astroberry comes with online software repository. If you installed your system from downloaded image file, it is already configured for you. Using software repository you can install and update your system without need to manually download updates. Just make sure that Astroberry is connected to a network with access to the Internet and integrated software management system will download and install all updates for you.

Astroberry is Rasbian based Linux system, which uses APT software management system. You can update the system by using aptitude or Software Updater.

If you prefer to use terminal just run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade

Major system upgrades are also released as a new image file. This is only for minimizing amount of updates you would have to apply between major system upgrades. There is no other need to reflash microSD card with new system image. If you decide to reflash your microSD card, make sure to backup your data first. All your data on microSD card will be overwritten during reflashing microSD card. If you update the system from software repository all your data and files are preserved.

Installing alien software

Astroberry is based on Rasbian Buster operating system. This means that it is a Linux operating system compatible with Debian 10 (Buster). Debian packages are distributed as .deb files available in numerous software repositories. Astroberry comes with it's own software repository (KStars, INDI, PHD2 etc) and additionally uses official Raspbian repository for core operating system functionalities. All of these are packages for specific version of operating system i.e. Rasbian Buster.

Using packages from other Linux distributions e.g. Ubuntu is technically possible, but sometimes requires advanced configuration changes. There is no guarantee that alien packages will work properly on Astroberry. It is common error that users add Nightly Builds repository for Ubuntu to Astroberry. It can work for some packages, sometimes. In majority of cases this can be very problematic and make your system unstable. You should not do it, unless you really know what you're doing.

The safest way to bring alien software to your system is to build it from sources. This way all dependencies and requirements are ensured at compilation time.

How-to

Flashing microSD card

After downloading Astroberry Server image you need to unzip it first. Use your preferred software to do it or run this command in your terminal:

unzip astroberry-server_2.0.1.img.zip

You can flash your microSD card with unzipped file using etcher.io or running below commands in your terminal:

sudo dd if=astroberry-server_2.0.1.img of=/dev/sdX bs=8M status=progress

Note that copying downloaded file to a microSD card will not work. You need to flash your microSD card with unzipped file.

FAQ

How can I update the system?

You can upgrade all system components using regular system upgrade using apt, apt-get, aptitude or Software Updater.

The image is too large for my microSD card

If the image appears to be too big shrink it according to this example

How to connect to my wireless home network?

Wireless connection is predefined for you. Just edit it and change network name and password.

• Right-click wireless icon on the taskbar
• Select Edit connections
• Double-click Wireless connection
• Enter your network name in SSID field
• Go to Wi-Fi Security tab
• Enter your network password in Password field
• Reboot

I cannot login to astroberry HotSpot

Note that default keyboard layout used in the image is QUERTY. If you use other keyboard layout the password you type in might be different than you think e.g. for French keyboard it may become astroberrz (instead astroberry). Change your keyboard layout using raspi-config or gui_rc to aligh system configuration and your keyboard.

How can I change my regional settings or add support for my language?

The easiest way is to run raspi-config (console) and rc_gui (graphical UI). The latter is accessible in Menu / Preferences / Raspberry Pi Configuration

Screen resolution does not match my display. How can I fix it?

If your display cannot handle FullHD resolution (1920x1080) you need to either connect via web browser and set Local in sliding menu Settings / Scaling OR you need to change the system resolution by running raspi-config in terminal or Raspberry Pi Configuration from Prefferences menu.

What is the source of location data in GPS Panel and Astro Panel?

The panels use GPS readings for your location. If you don't have GPS the panel uses virtualgps provided with Astroberry Server. You can set your static location by editing /etc/location.conf file or using Preferences/Geographic Location menu. After the change reboot or restart virtual GPS by running: sudo systemctl restart virtualgps.service

How can I login to default pi user account?

Pi user account is disabled for security reasons. You can reenable it anytime by running: sudo passwd -u pi

Help and Support

Astroberry Server is free and open-source software. It does not come with commercial support. Lots of information on how to manage it can be found in this documentation and INDI Forum. Also make sure to review open issues at GitHub

Report a Bug

File any issues on GitHub