Astroberry Server

Astroberry Server es un sistema para Raspberry Pi para controlar equipamiento astronómico.

Corre en una computadora simple y se ejecuta sobre el sistema operativo Linux. Astroberry permite controlar remotamente su telescopio, enfocador, cámara y otros dispositivos utilizados en astronomía. Puede controlar su equipamiento ubicado en su jardín o a cientos de kilómetros de distancia. El sistema puede ser accedido mediante un escritorio remoto, a través de un explorador de internet o un cliente VNC o puede actuar como un server INDI, accesible por clientes INDI como KStars, Skycharts / Cartes du Ciel o Stellarium. Astroberry Server está basado en software de código abierto, desarrollado y mejorado por astrofanáticos alrededor del mundo.

El sitio del proyecto de Astroberry Server está en www.astroberry.io

Características

• Soporte para Raspberry Pi 3 y 4, Pi Zero y... probablemente cualquier otra versión de Raspberry Pi liberada hasta el momento
• Raspbian Buster Desktop oficial por Raspberry Pi Foundation
• Repositorio APT para Raspbian Buster (si, ahora todos los usuarios de Raspbian Buster pueden instalar Astroberry Server con 'apt install')
• Interfaz Web incluyendo Panel GPS y Panel Astro (almanaque celestial para su ubicación)
• Hotspot Inalámbrico Astroberry permite el acceso al sistema en forma directa, esto es sin necesidad de una red inalámbrica externa por ej. en el campo
• Escritorio remoto accesible sobre VNC en astroberry.local:5900 o vía web browser en http://astroberry.local/desktop
• Framework INDI con todos los drivers de dispositivos disponibles
• Software planetario KStars y Ekos con todos los drivers de dispositivos disponibles además de drivers astroberry personalizados
• Programas planetarios SkyChart / Cartes du Ciel (sólo en la imagen prearmada)
• Programa planetario Hallo Northern SKY (sólo en la imagen prearmada)
• Software de captura CCDciel (sólo en la imagen prearmada)
• Astrometry para solución en campo (archivos índice no provistos, deben ser descargados por separado)
• ASTAP, the Astrometric STAcking Program (sólo en la imagen prearmada)
• PHD2 para autoguiado
• Gnome Predict para seguimiento de satélites
• oaCapture para toma de imágenes planetarias
• FireCapture para toma de imágenes planetarias
• SER Player para ver los streams de video capturados (sólo en la imagen prearmada)
• Drivers DIY Astroberry para enfocador y placa de relay
• Drivers Astroberry PiFace para enfocador y placa relay
• Astroberry Motor HAT para enfocador basado en Adafruit Motor HAT
• GPS Virtual para usuarios que no tengan un dispositivo GPS
• Servidor de archivos compartidos permitiendo acceso por red a las imágenes capturadas
• Soporte para raspi-config (consola) y rc_gui (IU gráfica) para configuración simple de las opciones de Raspberry Pi

Requerimientos de Sistema

• Raspberry Pi 4 (recomendada) o Raspberry Pi 3 (mínimo)
• Tarjeta microSD de 32GB (recommendada) o 16BG (mínimo)

Inicio Rápido

Verificación de Imagen

Puede verificar el archivo descargado con cualquier programa de checksum para su sistema o ejecutando los siguientes comandos en su terminal:

sha256sum astroberry-server_2.0.1.img.zip

Asegúrese que la salida del comando es 098d986f9e31f209e2bf58321977d3d7232d63d2b5981dce5f23036c6ef0d141.

De no ser así, el archivo está corrupto y debe ser descargado nuevamente. Si lo descarga de nuevo y el checksum continúa incorrecto, por favor háganoslo saber.

Instalación

La instalación básica del sistema requiere flashing your microSD una tarjeta con el archivo de imagen del sistema. No es lo mismo copiar el archivo a la tarjeta microSD. Si sólo copia el archivo descargado a su microSD, no va a funcionar.

Puedes flashear tu microSD (se necesita un mínimo de 16GB) utilizando etcher.io o ejecutando los siguientes comandos en su 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

Nota: Reemplace sdX con el identificador de su tarjeta microSD. Asegúrese que es correcto antes de ejecutar el comando!

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