Autoguiding with a Tablet. Possible? - Forums

Hello, I want to go one step further in my setup and start autoguiding.
For that I am planning everything I need. I have on my list to buy the zwo autoguider package. It is the tube and the most typical camera among starters in autoguiding in my opinion.

My real question is about how do i control the autoguider. I don't have a laptop, just a desktop pc and a samsung s7 tablet.
The only option I have found (without having to buy a laptop), has been to buy an AsiAir mini. But I don't want to spend more budget either, since I'm just with the self-guided package.

With what I have, is it possible somehow to do it? I've read something about using a raspberry pi (I have no idea how that works). But there is also the problem that, for example, phd2 does not work on tablets.

So what can I do? tips? low budget alternatives? Thank you all in advance

Tomás,

Perhaps I am not understanding, but it sounds like you are simply asking if you can use your / a tablet to control your imaging. If that is what you are asking, the answer is probably "yes."

I use my Apple tablet to operate a ZWO ASIAIR-Plus/Pro through WIFI. I sit in my car and work from there. There is no "setup," except to make sure the tablet is connected to the ZWO WIFI signal. From there, the ASIAIR just does its thing ....

Jay

I don't know of any PHD2 Alternatives that can run on a tablet, and I also don't think you'd be able to give an output to the mount or even run the camera, as I think you can only control a ZWO camera using a tablet if you have ASIAIR. I'd honestly recommend buying a cheap laptop online as you wont have to go through the hassle of trying to get guiding to work on a tablet (if it'll even work at all). I had the same problem when I started guiding as I only had a desktop PC and I just ended up buying a £90 laptop online, nothing fancy, but it doesn't need to be just to run PHD2 ( + capture software etc) You could probably get one even cheaper second hand.

I had looked into controlling it using a tablet but it seemed best to steer clear of it, and as for controlling it using a mini PC or an ASIAIR it would have been more expensive than just buying a laptop. A cheap basic laptop that runs windows, a cardboard box to keep dew off and TeamViewer so I can control the laptop from my desktop inside was the cheapest and probably best option, as I can run capture software such as SharpCap and AstrophotographyTool which probably isn't possible on a tablet.

Overall it cost me ~£100 to get everything set up, which is a bargain compared to the £300+ it would have cost to use a mini PC or an ASIAIR, and there's no point wasting money on trying to set up a tablet system which would be an absolute nightmare to use (at least in my opinion) and may not even work.

Jay Hovnanian:
but it sounds like you are simply asking if you can use your / a tablet to control your imaging.

Hello Jay,
maybe I should redo my question in the forum haha. But it's almost that.

In simple words, I don't want to buy a laptop or an Asiair, since it is very expensive. I would just have my autoguide equipment and my tablet. With those 2 things, is it possible to self-guide in some way?

It's that from what I've heard, you can't install phd2 or some autoguided program on Android, so I don't have how to use the tablet. And that's where the raspberry pi comes in, but I don't quite understand how it works.

I hope my question is better understood now

Hi,

There are two showstoppers:
1) You need a driver for the guide camera, which just doesn't exist in Android. Only keyboards, mice, headsets and things implementing the Open Accessory protocol can be attached to an Android.
2) The guiding program itself (PhD is the most typical) is written in C++ and Android runs only Java programs.

The Raspberry pi on the other hand may have an ARM processor like Androids, but is a full, proper computer, running Linux. Therefore, it can run the driver and the guiding software.

Cheers,
D.

The good news is you don't have to buy an ASIAIR. You can just buy a Pi and install KStars, INDI, astap (or astrometry.net) and PHD2, plus a VNC server for controlling it through your tablet. It not as streamlined but definitely doable.

Alternatively you can install StellarMate OS ($50) which is basically all of the above, prepackaged and with a nice Android app.

Are you currently controlling your mount with the desktop PC? How are things currently connected?

Why can't you use your desktop, can it be moved closer to your setup.

Theoretical- your tablet has all of the hardware required to do the job, so do the cheap chrome books available etc. But practically, I don’t know of any way to make the software work. Your cheapest current options are;

1 - a used laptop with 4 threads (dual core with hyper thread or 4 core) and 4gb ram but preferably 8gb or,
2 - a mini pc with the same specs. Celeron 4125 or 5xxx séries for about $170 usd. or,
3 - a raspberry pi 4 and astroberry if you can find one at the proper retail price and not being sold for a kings ransom.

I may yet buy one of the super cheap $99 mini pc’s with a dual core celeron 3xxx series and 4gb of ram but I haven’t been curious enough yet to try and no one seems to be able to very that they work well.

It sounds like you're a relative beginner (I apologise if you're not). Just get the ASIAir as your first step. Instead of mucking around with laptops and all the associated software drivers, connections etc, the Air will give you all that you need - including a cut down version of PhD guiding - and it's all controlled through your tablet or phone. That's how I started from scratch about 2 years ago and I'm quite happy with the astrophotography I've been able to do.

That's not to say that using a laptop with broader or more complex software and applications is not the way to go eventually - I'm always trying to convince myself to start using NINA myself, and I'm sure I will one day. But the AIR is an ideal package to start the AP journey until you're ready for the next steps.

Frank

I do the same as what others have mentioned. My son gave me an Apple tablet and I use that for all my AP along with the ASIair. It works great.

In my case, the used Apple tablet was free, the ASIair was 300 bucks (CAD), and I was off to the races. Eventually I will graduate to NINA, as almost all of my Astro group uses it and can help out if I need it.

As others have mentioned you need some kind of computer to run the specific software to control the rig. A mini computer or a cheap laptop is your cheapest route.

Hopefully this helps.

Ian

I edited some mistakes 3/15/23 (but you got my idea before):

There are 4 different types of astrophotographers that I know of (the last type of AP can be used to practice processing, which I did)
1. The ones who use an ZWO ASI device with a tablet or phone
2. The ones who use N.I.N.A. with a small PC on the mount or a direct cable to the autoguider with a laptop or PC
3. The ones who use Rasberry Pi or Arduino with a laptop or PC which is a more stressful and often failing procedure
4. The ones who do remote astrophotography, meaning they wirelessly or/and rent and use professional telescopes hundreds of miles or even thousands of miles away or/and collect data and then process them and call the images their own.

The first 2 are more common.

CS

3. The ones who use Rasberry Pi or Arduino with a laptop or PC which is a more stressful and often failing procedure
then process them and call the images their own.

an AIR air is just a ZWO customized PI designed to make for an easy user experience.
In the right hands a standard PI running EKOS/INDI etc is very reliable and gives you alot of flexibility in terms of operating equipment from different vendors thanks to the INDI project.

It will however have a steeper learning curve if you are not from a linux background than an ASI AIR.
@Tomás Andonie
As others have said. you need a physical device of some sort with the necessary device drivers connected your astro hardware to interface with control software that you are running. I dont believe that you can install these drivers on a tablet/phone etc and then connect the phone to the hardware.

Unless the astro hardware had built in wifi and some sort of control app...

3. The ones who use Rasberry Pi or Arduino with a laptop or PC which is a more stressful and often failing procedure
then process them and call the images their own.

an AIR air is just a ZWO customized PI designed to make for an easy user experience.
In the right hands a standard PI running EKOS/INDI etc is very reliable and gives you alot of flexibility in terms of operating equipment from different vendors thanks to the INDI project.

If you run the full stack on the Raspberry Pi and open a remote desktop connection from the other computer, it is as stable and reliable as the ASIAIR. Maybe a little inconvenient if your monitor is too small (e.g. a mobile phone). But I actually prefer it to the ASIAIR.

If you run only the INDI server, connecting to it with EKOS from the laptop, well it is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you have a proper, large UI which doesn't even need to be on Linux, because KStars is supported on Windows and Mac too. And plate solving is extremely fast (compared to the Pi), even on a 10 year old PC, I mean seriously, there is no contest whatsoever. And the INDI driver itself is relatively lighweight, so every component is focused at what it does best.

BUT the link between INDI client and INDI server is not designed to survive connectivity issues like a remote desktop connection, and connectivity issues can be a very real thing between a raspberry pi and the rest of the world. Wi-fi is lost for half a millisecond => you need to restart the world. Also, guiding (which runs on the laptop) is very much affected by an extra 1-2 second delay to download every guiding sub and by the lag between issuing a guide command and actually having it delivered by the Pi to the scope, both of which can be very significant if connectivity is less than perfect, even if connection doesn't drop completely.

Cheers,
Dimitris

I forgot to say, there's one more method of autoguiding that not many people know.

AI standalone autoguiding:
1. https://staraid.ai/ A autoguiding camera that supposedly does everything by itself. I just found the website and I think I'll buy one later because it seems too good.
2. https://mgen-autoguider.com/en/ A autoguiding device with a screen that uses AI to control the cameras and mount. No PC or tablet or anything like that required. Also not sure if it does plate-solving (it would be cool if it does)

The best alternative in my opinion is to use a laptop. I wish Ipads worked but no. Others use min pcs but in my case, I use several programs on my laptop to do autoguiding (PHD2), imaging sequences and plate solving (APT) and Polar Alignment (Sharpcap Pro). The first two are totally free.

I recommend a look here for more information about using a computer for astrophotography.

I run my ASIAIR Plus and ZWO AM5 from my basic Samsung tablet (might be an S7 too, can't remember) just fine, especially since I don't have much to type and the lack of keyboard isn't felt as critically annoying. And if I have concerns battery-wise, a small powerbank is easy to velcro in place to the back of the cover.

@Joe Linington mentioned Astroberry, which I can definitely recommend if you have access to a Raspberry Pi. I went from using an intervalometer on my DSLR with no guiding or computer control whatsoever to a fully-operational guiding & acquisition setup with NO real issues, having never used Linux before in my life.

The advantage to Astroberry (other than the fact that it is free) is that it installs all of the software you need - you just burn an image provided by Astroberry to the SD card the Pi runs on, create a profile in EKOS and configure PHD2, and you're off to the races.

The challenge with the Pi is that you'll need to connect to it from your desktop computer, or a laptop with a large-ish screen (my 13" Macbook was too small). I did monitor it quite happily using VNC on my iPhone, but to get the session started it's handy to have a keyboard and a display large enough to view various tabs/windows in full-size. This is why I have now switched to an ASIAIR, as I needed to make my setup portable. While the ASIAIR is easier to use, I found Astroberry more stable and way more customizable.

My entire Raspberry Pi setup cost my about $125 CAD for the 4GB model with a nice case and a fast SD card. If you're on a budget, it's great

CS,
Mark

You have two solutions.
The first solution: ASIAIR, simple.
The second solution: you need a raspberry, then you have to install Astroberry on it. You have to watch 100 tutorials to figure out how to get the various devices running correctly and to get everything going. Eventually you will succeed but you will realize that for some strange reason your setup does not drive well. Then you'll start asking questions, doing research and you'll find that for some reason phd2 works if you're lucky but if you're not lucky … After months of cussing you'll throw the raspberry in the trash (actually no, you'll resell it since it now costs almost as much as an ASIAIR) and you will buy an ASIAir.

If you want to use a tablet or mobile phone (Android or IOS) only ASIAIR exists, all the rest is for those who have a lot of time to waste.

There is still another solution with the Raspberry Pi: you could also try and install INGIDO Sky - if you are the type of person who also likes to tinker and try things out. The support in the forum is also really good and quick.
This is a slightly different (and more distributed) approach than the fully packed Astroberry with Ekos and everything INDI, or the out-of-the-box ASIAIR. If you only need guiding, you only use the guiding agent. There is also a web interface for the most basic functions and config, to which you could connect from your tablet (so no VNC).
To be honest, the learning curve is a little steep in the beginning, but once you get it (and if you like to try things out or "waste some time"

), it works like a charm and it is really lightweight.
And most important, it won't cost you hundreds of dollars. If you like to connect your PC to the RPi at a later time, there are also Windows / Linux / Mac clients available.

The only points are:

You need a Raspberry PI
With my model (RPi 4B 4GB) I sometimes have WiFi dropouts, with an ethernet cable it is super stable.

Joe Linington:
Theoretical- your tablet has all of the hardware required to do the job, so do the cheap chrome books available etc. But practically, I don’t know of any way to make the software work. Your cheapest current options are;

1 - a used laptop with 4 threads (dual core with hyper thread or 4 core) and 4gb ram but preferably 8gb or,
2 - a mini pc with the same specs. Celeron 4125 or 5xxx séries for about $170 usd. or,
3 - a raspberry pi 4 and astroberry if you can find one at the proper retail price and not being sold for a kings ransom.

I may yet buy one of the super cheap $99 mini pc’s with a dual core celeron 3xxx series and 4gb of ram but I haven’t been curious enough yet to try and no one seems to be able to very that they work well.

I have several of the MeLE Quieter fanless mini-PC computers in service and I can tell you they work great. They cost about $235 new depending on the processor, ram and storage capacity. These have built in Wi-Fi that is very strong so I simply put it on my home Wi-Fi and it is stable as a rock. I mount the mini right on my dovetail bar and I use Anydesk to control it. They are 12v so very easy to power it and have 4 USB ports built in. Easy to plug in all your gear which allows you to organize cabling in a manner which virtually eliminates snag potential.

This allows me to run NINA and Phd2 with ease which is my overwhelming preference over the ASIAIR.

Cuiv The Lazy Geek has a video on this setup on his YouTube channel, well worth taking a look at that.

Just in case anyone is interested, Cuiv the Lazy Geek also talks about why he chose NINA instead of the ASIair
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnodH1nGFg4

Tomás Andonie:
Hello, I want to go one step further in my setup and start autoguiding.
For that I am planning everything I need. I have on my list to buy the zwo autoguider package. It is the tube and the most typical camera among starters in autoguiding in my opinion.

My real question is about how do i control the autoguider. I don't have a laptop, just a desktop pc and a samsung s7 tablet.
The only option I have found (without having to buy a laptop), has been to buy an AsiAir mini. But I don't want to spend more budget either, since I'm just with the self-guided package.

With what I have, is it possible somehow to do it? I've read something about using a raspberry pi (I have no idea how that works). But there is also the problem that, for example, phd2 does not work on tablets.

So what can I do? tips? low budget alternatives? Thank you all in advance

*** Maybe consider a mini PC which you are remote into via a tablet?

I used a MeLE Quiter3 fanless PC with Windows 11 and I can run PhD2, NINA, EQMOD and Stellarium.

I remote into it via an Apple iPad and it works pretty well.

Pretty handy when I'm out in the field as I don't need to use my laptop and when everything is up and running I can put away my iPad.

***