Recommended version

The currently recommended minimum version of stellarium is 24.3 qt5

Importing Coordinates

To import coordinates of an object or view from stellarium you must first enable remote control.

• Open Stellarium and select the Configuration window on the left hand edge.

• Choose "Plugins" tab
• Scroll down in the left selection window to "Remote Control"
• Tick "Load at Startup" in the "Options" at the bottom
• Choose "Main" tab
• Click "Save settings" then restart Stellarium.

• Once again open the configuration window
• Goto "Plugins / Remote Control"
• Scroll down to "Options" and click Configure.
• In the new window, select "Server enabled" and "Enable automatically on startup", also make a note of the port (usually 8090) or change the port to one that fits your preferred setup.
• Click "Save settings"

• Restart Stellarium to be sure everything is loaded correctly.

• You can check all is working correctly by selecting an item in stellarium and then Alt-Tabbing (or using the non-fullscreen button ) out to a web browser and entering the following URL, you should receive a JSON reply detailing the object you selected. http://localhost:8090/api/objects/info?format=json

Once Stellarium is confirmed to be working correctly you can proceed to setting up SSC/Alp.

In the SSC Config section enter the IP address of the machine running Stellarium in Stellarium Host, and the port you noted / entered earlier in Stellarium Port and click save at the bottom of the page.

Retrieving coordinates is as simple as selecting an item or moving the camera view to an area in Stellarium and then clicking the retreive button in SSC.

Controlling Seestar from Stellarium

Seestar can be controlled via Stellarium using the following steps (which happen to be from a README.md related to docker. But docker is not used or needed in this approach). Running on Linux Mint/Ubuntu ("jammy") and using Stellarium-24.1-qt5-x86_64.AppImage :

NOTE: Raspberry Pi users should skip this step, and proceed to step 2.

#from a command line; this only needs to be done once when first getting Stellarium running
mkfifo /tmp/seestar

#assuming indi libary is already installed, do this;  this only needs to be done once when first getting Stellarium running
indiserver -f /tmp/seestar &

#install pyindi : #note that this is different than PyIndi and this
# particular fork of the MMTObservatory source is more up-to-date
#this only needs to be done once before getting Stellarium running

pip install git+https://github.com/stefano-sartor/pyINDI.git

#The expected location of a .dtd file appears to be under /device
#The simplest approach for me (mconsidine) was to create a symlink where
#  it is expected to be, pointing to where it is (which is a level higher)
#So, in the system's site-packages/pyindi/device folder make a symlink via ln -s ../data data
#this only needs to be done once before getting Stellarium running

~/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pyindi/device$ ln -s ../data data

#in seestar_alp/indi folder :
#edit or copy and edit this .py script to correctly point to the files mentioned. Then run it at the
# start of each session where you want to run Stellarium

python3 start_indi_devices.py

#in seestar_alp/ continue as usual
python3 root_app.py

Once that is done, these following steps need to be stepped through to set up a telescope in Stellarium. 1: In Stellarium, enable the Telescope Control plugin by clicking Load on startup

2: Restart Stellarium, go to the Telescope Control plugin and click Configure

3: Click Add New Telescope icon

4: Click INDI/INDIGO

5: Name the telescope Seestar (or whatever else you'd prefer)

6: Select Equinox of the date (JNow)

7: Leave INDI host settings at defaults and click Refresh Devices

• NOTE: Raspberry Pi users should replace 'localhost' in the INDI dialog with the IP address / host name of their Pi

• You should now see "Seestar Alpha" (or whatever you called it in your config.toml file) listed as a device when pulling up the telescope configuation dialog in Stellarium (e.g. Ctrl-0 then select "Configure Telescopes...")

• Select the Seestar, then click "Connect"

• You should now see the location of your Seestar on the Stellarium sky atlas. Its position will update every couple of seconds.

If you click on an object and then access the telescope control (e.g. Ctrl-0), you can select "current object" and "slew"