PHD2 and distant access with Kstars/Ekos

[Philippe ANGERS]

Hello

I'm new to Kstar/Ekos and I'm discovering the settings.

I managed to figure out how to set it up for distant connection to a Raspberry PI4 installed with the latest release of Stellarmate.

I've been said that I should be able to use both PHD2 and Kstars from my Windows 10 laptop (much more comfortable than a VNC connection to my RPI).

I have been advised to first start up PHD2  and then Kstars in order to do so, however, doing so, my laptop PHD2 can not detect cameras and mount.

However if try to use the PHD2 version built-in StellarPHD, it does detect and can use cameras and the SW AZEQ6 GT Pro mount.

Is there a way to use successfully  PHD2 from my laptop along with Kstars in distant mode? 

I think it should be possible as I noticed that a port (4000) is mentioned for PHD2 in the INDI panel!?

By the way, which entry should I select for my AZEQ6 GT Pro mount connected in Eqmod in PHD2?

Thanks for your help

Philippe

[Patrick Chevalley]

Hi,

INDI server must be running on the RPi before you start from the laptop.

Then be sure to set the hostname or IP address of the RPi in the PHD2 INDI camera and telescope selection, click Connect just below to retrieve the list of driver running on the RPi.

After that it work the same than locally.

If this not work, check the server run on port 7624 and be sure this port is open in any firewall.

Patrick

[Philippe ANGERS]

Hello Patrick,

Thanks for your answer.

indeed, that's what I found out lately, as I struggled to understand how to get a distant connection to be working.

I've created a profile through the web manager and thus managed to successfully connect to the RPI.

Through my failed attempt I had tried to disable the firewall and it made no difference.

As a matter of fact, this was not a port issue, but simply a misunderstanding of the distant connection process.

I initially let the "stellarmate.local" alias, but soon substituted the local IP as I manage a Windows domain with 4 servers (I'm an I.T  project manager).

I believe that even though Windows 10 firewall is always enabled, it does let port 7624, 8624 and 4000 operate.

As mentioned in my previous post, PHD2 is working properly locally on the RPi as well as Ekos.

From my laptop, only Ekos through Kstars is working properly.

PHD2 cannot find both cameras an the mount.

I should mention that I came across an event in one log :

[2021-04-05T14:34:08.843 Paris, Madrid (heure d’été) INFO ][     org.kde.kstars.ekos.guide] - "La connexion a été refusée par le pair. Veuillez vous assurer que le composant « PHD2 » est lancé et que le nom de l'hôte et les paramètres de port sont corrects."

I guess from your name that you're French or speak French, you'll then be able to understand the meaning.

Admittedly, I don't knwo what to think about this event, I don't know if it's related to my issue...

This probably happened when I repeatedly try to connect to my laptop PHD2...

I'll try again tomorrow first disabling the firewall.

Should I deduce from your answer that "theoritically" it's indeed possible to operate PHD2 from my laptp ?

Philippe

[Philippe ANGERS]

Helo all,

I managed to remotely control my RPI with Kstars/Ekos and partially for PHD2.

I indeed found out that I set the wrong IP for PHD2 guiding in the Ekos Profile.

I had one IP for my RPI and I set the same for PHD which is installed on my... laptop !

Stupid, IPs are obviously different !

With the correct IP, now, I simply have to start-up PHD2 BEFORE starting Kstars, and then, when i click "Connect" in the Alignment tab on Ekos, the PHD2 Eqmod window pops up !

However I still have no connection with both my cameras, my Zwo ASI 294 MC pro for imaging and my Zwo ASI 290MM for autoguidng, inspite of the fact that the drivers are installed alongs with ASCOM ones on my laptop !

Does anybody have a idea about how to get both cameras available for PHD2 ?

Thanks for your help

Philippe