LINUX in astronomy: is it worth it?

Science Data Analysis
1

Hello everyone,

I just bought an ASUS TUF Gaming F15 notebook that came with LINUX. So I would like to hear comments about the pros and cons someone would encounter when moving from Windows astronomy software to a LINUX environment.

When/why would it be advantageous to do so and when would it be too much of a hassle to move to LINUX?

Is there a LINUX Astronomy user group for amateur astronomers? Could someone direct me to such a group?

Notes:

  1. I have some experience with LINUX, several UNIX flavors, macOS, and Windows, but Iā€™m no programmer;
  2. I am into variable star photometry and spectroscopy (AAVSO associate);
  3. I use a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro, two ZWO cameras, an ATIK filter wheel, and a homemade focuser;
  4. I use/have used or tried on Windows 11: ASI Studio, PHD2, SharpCap, MaxImDL 6 Pro, TheSkyX, N.I.N.A., ASTAP, Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel.SkyChart, etcā€¦ Iā€™m not sure yet which software ensemble I will favor.

Thanks!

Ari Siqueira

2

Ari,

If I may point you to one more ensemble: Kubuntu, KStars, INDI, Ekos where:

Kubuntu is the Linux OS that uses .deb packages
KStars is the planetarium software ala Stellarium
INDI is the Linux answer to ASCOM
Ekos is the user interface that ties it all together

The first thing is to do is visit www.indilib.org. You can see all the equipment it supports, features, etc. I think itā€™s superior to ASCOM. You can also look at some Ekos tutorials. Ekos covers all the functionality in one, integrated program to include pointing, camera control, focusing, plate solving, tracking, and dome control. It also has a scheduler.

Plus, itā€™s all free! Now I do send them a donation once a year but I never have to worry about licenses. If you like what you see then I would suggest installing Kbuntu as your Linus OS. Astronomy aside, I think the KDE user interface is better than Windows.

Let us know how it goes.

CS,
Bob

3

Hi, Bob,

I had to refresh my LINUX abilities. It has been many years since I used LINUX for the last time.

My notebook came with Debian/GNU Linux 12 bookworm (x86-64) Cinnamon 5.6.8. Strangely, the user ā€˜guestā€™ was preconfigured, but not the ā€˜adminā€™ (or ā€˜rootā€™).
So, I created the users ā€˜ariā€™ (me) and ā€˜adminā€™. I couldnā€™t figure out how to choose the user that logs in. It is always the guest; after logging in as ā€˜guestā€™, I couldnā€™t change users either.

Anyway, I managed to install KStars and Ekos, but not INDI.

So, I will replace the Keep-OS distro with Kubuntu and install INDI, KStars, and Ekos. And I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you for taking the time to guide me.

Ari

4

Ari,

Debian-based distros donā€™t have a root like regular Unix or Redhat / Fedora. You accomplish root-like commands using sudo as in
sudo apt install package_name

I recommend Kubuntu 24.04 LTS where LTS stands for Long Term Support. The user you create when you install the OS will have a name like Ari which will have all the privileges to run root-like operations.

Bob

5

Bob,

Sounds great to me!

Since itā€™s 11 PM, Iā€™ll follow your tips first thing tomorrow morning, coincidently my birthday.

My machine is a Notebook ASUS TUF Gaming F15 FX507ZC4 RTX 3050 Intel Core i5 12500H 8Gb Ram 512Gb SSD. Will be upgraded to 16 GB RAM, or maybe 24 GB RAM.

I downloaded Kubuntu-24.10-desktop-amd64.iso. Will that be OK?

Kubuntu 24.04.1 LTS link is giving me ā€œ404 errorā€.

Kubuntu 24.04.2 was downloaded but it says ā€œamd64ā€. Iā€™m a bit confused about the options.

Ari

6

Ari,

I would recommend a variant of 24.04 LTS because itā€™s supported through April 2027.

Go to Download Kubuntu | Kubuntu, and slew to the bottom of the page. There youā€™ll find the latest 24.04 LTS.

Yes ā€“ the naming can be confusing. AMD-64 refers to AMD products and Intel chips like i3, i5, i7 etc. Also with this distribution comes a host of other astro software like QFitsView and the ever popular IRAF.

Bob

Happy Birthday.

7

Bob,

All went well. From KUBUNTU to INDI, Ekos, and KStars.

I have also installed: Aladin - AstraStack - ESO/Starlink SkyCat - fv FITS Editor - Lynkeos - SAOImage DS9 - SER-player - Siril - Stellarium - TOPCAT - QfitsView

The only thing I havenā€™t installed yet is IRAF. I heard it has a steep learning curve; but I might approach it soon, as the need arises.

Thank you for giving me key advice.

Cheers,

Ari

8

Great! You have a couple of programs Iā€™ll have to take a look at.

You said youā€™re doing some spectroscopy. There is a good reduction program called BASS that runs only on Win. To run it on Linux youā€™ll need to install a suite of programs called Wine. You can either install Wine from your Linux distro or go to the Wine shop as it were and download from there. I do the latter and am able to run BASS with no problems.

Cheers,
Bob

9

Ari,

I took a quick look at AstraStack and found it had no documentation. If I may recommend a program called regim that handles bias, darks, flats, aligns images etc and comes with a full set of documentation.

It comes as a zip file which is easily extracted to a directory.

Bob

10

Bob, good morning.

Thanks for sharing the link to regim. It sounds promising.

Do you know if it would be possible, with some software installed in Kubuntu:

  1. to direct the mount roughly to a target (after carefully aligning my mount),
  2. take a frame,
  3. plate-solve it,
  4. automatically fine-adjust the framing,
  5. lock on the target as one takes subsequent frames, and
  6. iterate minor mount adjustments to keep the target on the same pixels?
    This would virtually eliminate the need for guiding with a second camera, guide scope, etc. If Iā€™m not mistaken, some Windows software (TheSkyX? N.I.N.A.?) already does it.

Ari

Note: I posted the same question about Linux vs. Windows on the Cloudy Nights forum and got some interesting replies: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/955553-is-it-worth-it-migrating-to-linux/. You might want to take a look at it.

1 Like
11

Hi Ari,

I can only share my experience. For the last ~3 years, Iā€™ve been using the following setup, and Iā€™m really happy with it:

  • Ubuntu operating system (MATE version)

  • INDI + INDIstarter + INDIgui

  • EQmod (I have an NEQ6 Pro)

  • Cartes du Ciel (Skychart) for planetarium software

  • CCDciel for image capturing and overall control

  • PHD2 for autoguiding

  • local Astrometry.net for plate solving

Currently, Iā€™m observing exoplanets. To process the images, Iā€™m using HOPS and learning how to use AstroImageJ.

Iā€™m also doing astrometry of asteroids. For processing the bias, darks, and flats, I use AstroImageJ. Then, I measure with Astrometrica, the only Windows software I use. It works great with Wine on Linux, so thereā€™s no need for Windows.

Hope this helps,
JoaquĆ­n

1 Like
12

Bob,

I didnā€™t succeed at installing and running regim.

This is what I got:
ari@ari-asus:~/Downloads/regim$ ls -la
total 52
drwxrwxr-x 4 ari ari 4096 jun 26 2024 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 ari ari 4096 fev 24 10:20 ā€¦
drwxrwxr-x 2 ari ari 4096 jun 26 2024 cdf
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 1024 jun 26 2024 colorIndex.dat
drwxrwxr-x 2 ari ari 4096 jun 26 2024 lib
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 759 jun 26 2024 regim.cmd
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 5208 jun 26 2024 RegimConfig.xml
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 761 jun 26 2024 regimLarge.cmd
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 460 jun 26 2024 regimLarge.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ari ari 450 jun 26 2024 regim.sh
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 759 jun 26 2024 regimSmall.cmd
-rw-rā€“r-- 1 ari ari 789 jun 26 2024 regimSmall.sh
ari@ari-asus:~/Downloads/regim$ regim.sh
regim.sh: command not found

13

Hi, Joaquin,

Thank you for sharing your setup and experience,

Are we both in the same class, with Dennis Conti?

14

Hi Ari,

On your question

Thatā€™s exactly how my typical observing session looks like. Iā€™m using Intel NUC installed on top of my scope. It runs Kubuntu. It uses KStars/EKOS/INDI stack which integrates ASTAP command-line for plate solving (item 3) and PHD2 for guiding (item 6).

When I want to show DSO at astro parties, Iā€™m using all the above for positioning and guiding and ASIDeepStack for live stacking. The whole ASI suite is available for Linux.

That NUC setup has no screen or keyboard and may run autonomously overnight. It runs a WiFi access point. As a user interface Iā€™m using is a laptop running Kubuntu and connecting to the NUC via RDP (Krdc).

Initially I connected the mount and cameras directly to laptop and moved to NUC setup to avoid tangled cables.

Regards,
Dmitry

15

Yes, Iā€™m currently enrolled in the exoplanet course with Dennis Conti!

16

Ari,

First regim. One of the vagaries of Linux and Unix. If you type a name of an executable, the OS looks at the directories contained in your $PATH setting. Even if youā€™re in the executable directory, like regim, if that directory is not in $PATH, the OS says canā€™t be found. So you have to type
./regim (dot slash regim)

As for aligning, etc, what you have described will definitely work. If you have a faint target, going to a nearby ā€œbrightā€ star (anything brighter than mag 5), centering the star, syncing the scope to the star, then moving to your target object and doing a plate solve will take any guess work out of the process. You will need to download and install a bunch of astrometry files. Iā€™ll send you a list. Within Ekos there is a StellarSolver which basically uses an encapsulated version of astrometry,net.

You do need a separate guide camera if youā€™re doing spectroscopy. Iā€™m not an imager so others may have a different opinion when imaging. The internal guide function in Ekos is far superior to PHD2. Once youā€™ve started tracking, you donā€™t need to worry about minor mount adjustments or anything else. Take a bunch of ten minute subs during a two hr track and regim or ASTAP will do any required alignment fine tuning.

You do need PHD2 when doing spectroscopy and obviously a second guide camera. There is a video somewhere on the Ekos pages that tells you how to use PHD2 as your tracking program. Iā€™ve lobbied for Ekos to have the capability to have a user option that says I want to put that star right there but so far no luck.

Iā€™ll go read CN inputs.

Cheers,
Bob

17

Bob,

Nice tips on aligning, etc., thank you.

I have two ZWO cameras (ASI120MM and ASI533MM Pro) and a 30mm f/4 guide scope. My main OTA is an 8-in Meade SCT (f/10 and f/6.3).

I have used PHD2 on Windows.

My spectroscope is Christian Builā€™s Starā€™EX 2,400 l/mm with several slits, from 10 Āµm to 35 Āµm. But maybe I should start with simpler things, such as photometry of some bright stars and spectroscopy with the Star Analyser SA-100. There is a long and winding road ahead of me.

So, what I need now to try the new Kubuntu-based system is clear skies. Of course, there will be a learning period. But with your tips, I feel I have an excellent starting point.

regim.sh worked just fine (which tells me that JAVA is OK too):

ari@ari-asus:~/Downloads/regim$ ./regim.sh
.
openjdk version ā€œ21.0.6ā€ 2025-01-21
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.6+7-Ubuntu-124.04.1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 21.0.6+7-Ubuntu-124.04.1, mixed mode, sharing)
Java minor version: 21
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Regim version : 3.11
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Operating system: Linux, amd64, 6.11.0-17-generic
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Java Runtime : OpenJDK Runtime Environment, 21.0.6+7-Ubuntu-124.04.1
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Java VM info : mixed mode, sharing
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) User dir : /home/ari/Downloads/regim
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Argument 0 : -Xms64m
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Argument 1 : -Xmx2048m
24.02.2025 21:03:44 : (LOG) Argument 2 : -Dit.tidalwave.imageio.raw.defaultSource=rawImage

Thanks!

Ari

18

Ah. You have a Starā€™Ex. So do I.

A gotcha to avoid. When doing a bench alignment you probably noted the position of the slit in your guide camera. That position can change a lot with flexing and temperature variations. So before making an observation, shine a light down the scope or point the scope at a nearby bright star to illuminate the slit

Have fun

19

It is good to know we are in the same Starā€™EX boat.

And you already gave me a precious tip: slit unpredictable movements due to flexure and temperature shifts affecting the optical train.

Notes taken, thanks!

May I ask what your background is? Computer sciences?

Mine is in scientific research, with a PhD earned at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, USA, in 1988. Along my trajectory, I worked in parasitology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and protein modeling/theoretical chemistry. I was a university professor in Brazil for 35 years, and retired in 2016.

20

Hi,

Linux is my ā€œright handā€ in astronomy. I use Debian for both equipment management and Python programming. I highly recommend INDIGO and Ain Imager by Rumen Bogdanovskiā€”itā€™s an open-source platform for managing astronomy equipment. Itā€™s not a fork of INDI; it runs very stable and lightweight. Thereā€™s also a version for Raspberry Pi, but I use it on a computer that I use as a server for remote use of my observatory.

Kind regards,
Nikola