Hardware My journey with a Raspberry Pi 4

Tracy's journey with the Pi 4

After looking (and ordering - backordered) an ASIAIR Plus, I got to doing some research and figured that I might also want to try another system since I do have 1 QHY camera that could be used for planetary capture.

So, now began the hunt for somewhere with a Raspberry Pi 4GB in stock. If you go to the Raspberry site, all their associated vendors were out of stock. I did luck out and find 4GB and 8GB kits in stock on Amazon. I debated long about whether to get the 8GB one or not, but decided against it as 4GB on a simple Linux system has always been more than adequate. Then on top of that, the ASIAIR only has 2GB of RAM, and uses many of the same drivers, so I should be good there.



I decided that since I would not always be around WiFi that had internet access, I wanted a real time clock for the system also - and those are only about $15.00

I ended up getting a 4GB and an 8GB version.
If you can get it, I'd recommend the 8GB RPi 4. I have both the 4GB and the 8GB versions. The 4GB is used on my Apertura 72mm rig and the 8GB is used on the ZenithStar, both using StellarMate OS. The 4GB is sitting with about 84% of it's available RAM in use when capturing. The 8GB one is using about 18% of it's available RAM.

Next: Assembly of Raspberry Pi 4 for camera control
Next page: Pi 4B assembly
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  • The RPi journey begins
About author
Tracy
I've been interested in astronomy since I was in Jr. High (graduated in the early 80's).
It wasn't until I retired that I was able to really get into it due to monetary and time constraints.

Comments

Just a note.. after playing around some... the minimum RPi I would get would be the 2GB model.. but I would STRONGLY recommend the 4GB and better yet the 8GB or the price difference.
This is my 8GB unit running StellarMate OS with only KStars actively being used

Screen Shot 2022-08-24 at 4.23.01 AM.png
 
Hi Tracy, what RTC did you use ?
 
The one I was happiest with I got from AdaFruit on Amazon.

The first one I got was also from Amazon, but it required some "work" to be able to use in my case I had.
 

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Tracy Perry
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