Install Indi-Allsky

The Indi-Allsky system has a vertically facing camera that takes timelapse sky photos. The software creates time lapse videos and allows for instant camera views. The configuration is built upon a standard Raspberry Pi OS installation. The Cliff Notes version is below.

Create OS Image SD Card

Once there is a running system, use either the console or preferable an SSH session to perform the basic configurations steps.

The ADSB.im feeder systems are treated as appliances so don't do the normal update steps for them. It is quite likely that something will break if you do that.

For typical systems, apply the updates before continuing:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install Common Utility Applications

Copy the Configured SD Card to NVMe Stick

The installation can proceed using the SD card but a better approach at this point is to copy the SD card image to the NVMe stick that was built into the system

Use the SD Card Copier: Accessories->SD Card Copier

Choose the SD card from the Copy from Device drop down: /dev/mmcblk0
Choose the NVMe stick from the Copy to Device drop down: /dev/sda
...and click on start.

When the copy process is complete, shutdown and power off. Remove the SD card and power the system back up. The system should boot normally, just faster.

Because the /boot/firmware directory is mounted by id, it is possible that it will not be mounted on the copy when it boots. The /boot/firmware directory should not be empty. If it is, run the following command to clear things up:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Install Indi Allsky

Indi-Allsky Overview
Indi-Allsky Management
Getting Started

Weather Forcast APIs

OpenWeatherMap

URL: https://home.openweathermap.org
Email: lynnmacey@gmail
User: sjclynn/Mcpherson123!
API Key: 975d4ab32841382c4e94238b9fd037f6

Step 1: Enable Camera

Note: This should enable it, but it isn't visible. Skip for now.

Even if we don't use it, the system up to support a camera if it is attached.

Note: The lastest vesions of the camera utilities are of the form rpicam-hello rather than libcamera-hello. Try thos versions before installing this

sudo apt install -y libcamera-apps

Ensure the camera is enabled in /boot/firmware/config.txt. Add or verify the following lines:

camera_auto_detect=1
dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d,cma-512
dtoverlay=imx708

Out of the box, the only change necessary was to append cma-512 to the dtoverlay line

Step 2: Up to Date

Begin by ensuring that your Raspberry Pi OS is up to date. Open a terminal or SSH session and run the following commands:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

This will update the package lists and upgrade any installed packages to their latest versions.

Step 3: Install INDI from Source

INDI-AllSky requires INDI. Follow the Astroisk guide Installing INDI on a Raspberry Pi 5 to make sure you have the latest version available.

Skip Step 3: Installing 3rd Party Device Drivers. The Indi application is a generalised yet comprehensive astrophotography tool that is used for a variety of cameras, mounts and telescopes. The Indi-Allsky application, as it is implemented here doesn't require any of these extensions.

Step 4: Install Required Dependencies

Some of these packages are already installed, but there is no harm in mentioning them all here, just in case:

sudo apt install git python3 python3-pip libopencv-dev python3-opencv ffmpeg

Step 5: Connect and Verify PiCamera

Connect your Pi HQ camera, or whichever camera you choose, using the CSI/DSI connector. The cable to connect the camera to a Raspberry Pi 4 board is a constant width and grey. The Raspberry Pi 5 connection port is smaller than for earlier Pi models, so an adaptor cable may be needed For the Raspberry Pi cameras, this cable is brown and narrows at the computer end. The Raspberry Pi should automatically recognise the camera, without the need to enable anything in the system configuration.

With the camera connected, enter the following command:

rpicam-hello --list-cameras

This should respond with the camera’s details:

Available cameras

---

0 : imx708_wide_noir [4608x2592 10-bit RGGB] (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx708@1a)

   Modes: 'SRGGB10_CSI2P' : 1536x864 [120.13 fps - (768, 432)/3072x1728 crop]
                            2304x1296 [56.03 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop]
                            4608x2592 [14.35 fps - (0, 0)/4608x2592 crop]

These details are needed for configuring INDI-AllSky.

Step 6: Download INDI-AllSky

Create a project directory into which the source will be downloaded:

mkdir ~/Projects
cd ~/Project

The latest version of INDI-AllSky is cloned and installed from the official Github repository:

git clone https://github.com/aaronwmorris/indi-allsky.git

The system should appear at: http://localhost/indi-allsky. If you have done the installation remotely, replace localhost with the appropriate IP address.

Return to: Technical Guides, ADS-B Reception, Decoding & Sharing