AstronomyWood: Acquisition Software Timeline

I have gone through quite a few applications to choose the right one suitable for my needs so far and list them here.

BackYard EOS - 2012

Starting in 2012 I got an early version of BackyardEOS from OTelescope. I attached my Canon 400D DSLR to my Dobsonsian and took a few pictures of the moon and then forgot about it.

In 2019 my passion for astronomy was reborn and I got a goto equatorial mount the HEQ5 Pro with Rowan belt modification. I paired it up to a William Optics ZenithStar 73. Again I updated my BackYardEOS to the latest version, had my DSLR astromodded and set off taking a few pictures.

At this point the mount was just being controlled by the handset and I was using the capture software purely to open the shutter using a Shoestring Astronomy DSUB box.

ASCOM and EQMOD - 2019

I discovered ASCOM and EQMOD by reading up articles on the internet and bought the nexecassry cables to connect my computer to the mount.

Initially I used Cartes DU Ciel to control the telescope but found it a bit clunky. So I moved on to Stellarium and StellariumScope to control the mount via ASCOM/EQMOD. This proved to be the right way to go.

AstroPhotography Tool - 2019

I stumbled across this software purely my watching AstroBackYard on Youtube where Trevor Jones advocated the use of it. It is reasonable cheap to buy and has a nominal yearly maintenance cost.

I used AstroPhotoGraphyTool for quite a time and used it with Platesolve2/ASTAP to accurately position the telescope. Also I upgrade to a OSC cooled camera and a guide camera to produce better results. Again this was paired with PHD2 guiding software to give the ability to produce longer guided exposures.

All the time whilst using the Windows based software solutions I had the laptop outside in a box and was concious that there must have been a better way to do this without tying up a computer in the elements.

RaspberryPI4 and Astroberry - 2020

I saw a lot of people on various forums were extolling the virtues of using the inexpensive Raspberry PI outside and some were using Astroberry. This is loaded with Astronomy software and is maintained on a free open-source basis.

Astroberry is a full flavor remote desktop system, designed for Raspberry Pi. The system can be accessed via a web browser or VNC client from any location in the world! It sits at your telescope, wherever it is, and lets you remotely control all your astronomy equipment from behind your desk, using recognized astronomy software such as KStars, Skychart/Cartes du Ciel or Stellarium. You can slew your telescope by simply clicking on a skymap, change focus, capture images, plate solve images and much more!

KStars/EKOS - 2020

As the Astroberry comes with Kstars I decided to trial it and found out that there was no need to use anything else as my equipment could all be controlled with the INDI drivers that were installed.

EKOS is the scheduler system that works just like Windows based software such as Sequence Generator Pro.

An EKOS sequence can be setup that does the following (and more):

Slew the telescope to your desired target
Platesolve to get it very close
Change the filters in your filter wheel
Cool the camera and control all parameters of it
Guide the telescope using an internal guider or PHD2
Take a sequence of shots performing a meridian flip if required
Change to another target and repeat the process
Shutdown the observatory and close the dome etc
Take flats, darks.

It can do all this and more automatically.

It was a no brainer and as the PI takes up little room can be mounted inside my power supply box along with an ethernet switch. Astroberry can also use wireless connections for use out in the field for instance.

So in a relatively short period of time I have changed the way I acquire images. The most significant part is I have gone away from a Microsoft operating system to a Linux operating system.