Astrel Instruments AST16200-B User manual

Astrel Instruments AST8300-B / AST16200-B
Astrel Instruments
AST8300-B / AST16200-B
GETTING STARTED
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Getting starte with the Astrel Instruments camera
Thank you for purchasing an Astrel Instruments CCD camera. Your new camera is a leading
edge scientific instruments: please take your time to read carefully the following User's anual
to learn how to get the best out of your equipment.
The philosophy behind your camera is the concept that the CCD camera could be the real brain
of your astronomical equipment. This is possible thanks to the powerful microprocessor that is in
charge of managing not only the camera itself but also, through the extended set of I/O
available on-board, the other components of your system.
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Camera connections
The following picture shows the I/O interfaces available:
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The following connectors are available on the camera:
•12V: the camera needs a 12V 3A power supply. The use of the included 3 meters cable
with its filter box is strongly suggested to connect the camera to a car lighter receptacle
using the included adapter, or to the optional 12V 3A power supply.
•ETH: the camera can be connected to a PC using a normal cat.5 Ethernet cable.
•LCD: this connector is used to attach the touch LCD monitor to the camera. Please pay
attention to the polarization key inserted inside one of the connector's pins: this is used to
avoid reversed connection that could damage the camera.
WARNING: connect the LCD monitor only while the camera is powered down: connecting the
LCD when the camera is powered could damage the monitor and the camera.
•USB 1&2: these two 480 bit/sec hi speed USB connectors can be used to connect
devices like USB dongles, guide cameras, keyboards and mice. USB hub can be used
when multiple connections are needed. Each USB port can drive max 500 mA.
•EXT1: this is a 12 pin general purpose connector giving access to 3.3V and 5V power, an
SPI interface and one general purpose I/O pin that can be used to trigger external
devices.
•EXT2: this is a 10 pin general purpose connector giving access to 3.3V and 12V power, a
UART (serial port) connection which can be used for bringing the Linux serial console to
a PC, and an I2C port that can be used to connect the (not included) opto-coupled mount
motors cable used for auto-guiding or any other I2C device.
•WiFi: this S A connector is used for the included WiFi Antenna.
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Powering up the camera
To correctly power up the camera, please follow this sequence:
•When needed, connect the touch LCD monitor paying attention to the polarization key.
•When needed, connect the Ethernet cable to the camera and to the PC.
•When needed, connect the wifi Antenna.
•Cables other than USB, for example the mount motors cable or the serial cable, can be
connected and disconnected at any time, but it's always a good rule to connect any
needed device before power up.
•Connect the power supply cable.
After the power supply is connected, the camera boots the Linux operating system and then
starts the Desktop application, from where all the camera's applications can be accessed.
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Powering own the camera
WARNING: never power down the camera by simply disconnecting power supply: your camera
has a true PC inside running Linux and, as any other PC, you should shut it down in the correct
way. The Shutdown application in the main page of the Desktop will take care of all this
sequence, so, before powering down the camera you must run the Shutdown application. At the
end of this application the system can be safely powered down.
The Linux distribution inside the camera is stored into the internal SD card, which is the main
storage of the camera. In unlikely situations, removing the power supply while the operating
system or any application is writing on the SD card could damage the files stored on it.
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Wifi an Ethernet operations
When the Wifi antenna is mounted the camera acts as a WiFi access point, like a normal wifi
router, that you can connect to using a PC/tablet/smartphone. The wifi connection is open, no
password required, and by default the network name is ast_ap followed by the camera s/n
while the ip address is 10.0.0.1.
When the camera is connected using an Ethernet cable, the default ip address is 10.42.0.10.
In order to connect to the Camera you also need to configure the PC LAN network accordingly,
assigning for example the 10.42.0.1 IP address.
Your PC/smartphone/tablet should connect automatically when the camera powers up.
The network configuration can be modified using the corresponding application.
WARNING: remember to connect the WiFi antenna.
Once connected, you can operate the camera in Connected mode like described in the
following paragraph.
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Stan Alone an PC/tablet/smartphone Connecte mo es
The camera is operated using the collection of applications available on-board, which can be
accessed using the touch LCD monitor in the Stand Alone mode, or in the Connected mode
using any VNC compatible remote desktop application on a PC/tablet/smartphone with
Ethernet/wifi connection. There's only one set of applications for both the Stand Alone and
Connected modes, so the users don't need to learn different interfaces, the only difference is the
way to interact with them.
Astrel proprietary applications are collected on the Astrel Desktop, which is organized in pages
of icons corresponding to applications. When choosing one tab, a different page of icons is
displayed. The applications and tabs can be customized modifying the desktop.cfg file. Here
follows a screenshot of the main Desktop page:
Other third-party applications are available on the Linux Desktop.
The camera automatically senses the presence of the touch LCD monitor at boot. When the
monitor is not detected, the applications are started in VNC server mode and can be accessed
by a VNC client.
When operated in Stand Alone mode, the camera is very similar to any smartphone or tablet:
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just touch the icon of the selected application to start it or touch a tab to navigate to other
pages.
When operated in Connected mode, you only have to install a VNC client application on the
PC/tablet/smartphone, which is an application used to show the camera Desktop in a window in
the PC screen. There's no need to install any driver on the PC because the applications always
run on the camera, not on the PC, and all the communications use Ethernet. This is why you
can run the same applications even with a tablet/smartphone.
any free VNC client are available for many architectures: here follows a brief list of the tested
ones:
•PC/Windows: TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com/)
•PC/Linux: TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com/)
•Android: akRDC Free (available on the store)
•Windows Phone: TinyVNC (available on the store)
To install them just follows the steps indicated on their websites.
WARNING: closing the VNC client application doesn't shut down the camera: the VNC client
only shows the camera applications on the PC screen. That means that you always have to run
the Shutdown application before powering down the camera.
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Accessing the camera storage
The camera main storage is the internal 8Gb (AST8300) or 16Gb (AST16200) SD card, where
the operating system and the photos are stored. You can add more storage by simply
connecting a USB dongle or even a USB hard disk to either USB connectors.
If you need to access other folders (for example a USB dongle or hard disk) or simply prefer to
use a file-manager like application, you can use any remote file-manager application using the
ssh protocol: here follows a brief list of the tested ones:
•PC/Windows: WinSCP (http://winscp.net)
•PC/Linux: any file manager opening the location ssh://<camera ip address>
The username is astro and the password is astronomy.
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