Announcing: INDIGO to GO — an iPhone app for monitoring sequences

[aaron]

Hi all! I'm happy to announce INDIGO to GO — an iPhone app for monitoring INDIGO-based astrophotography sequences. Also, my first iPhone app ever. And I invite you to try it!

The code is very fresh and now on GitHub. For those of you without Xcode, I'll have a way for you to test using Apple's TestFlight system in a day or so, once Apple approves it.

I built the app to increase confidence that my sequences are running, by glancing at a single screen.

• Uses Bonjour to discover agents on the network
• Reports sequence in progress
• progress bar images are colored according to my guess of your filter names
• Respects when sequence repeats
• Estimates completion time
• Calculates meridian and HA limits
• Displays filename of last image — eventually will display the image too but that's currently broken
• Displays cooler status
• Display guiding status & RMSE

INDIGO to GO requires iOS 14, and runs fine on iPhones and iPads. Thanks to Catalyst, the app will be able to run on Macs too, once Apple releases macOS 11.2 in a few weeks.

I've tested this with both the Astro* suite from this site, and indigosky running on my Raspberry Pi, but I could really use your help testing on other systems.

I'm grateful to Peter and Rumen for creating INDIGO and this suite of apps. I've learned a lot about INDIGO with this project, and in my opinion the protocol is really well suited for mobile devices. Maybe we'll create more apps?!

.

[Peter Polakovic]

[iMustBcrazy]

Excellent! This is truly useful and I look forward to trying it. Its nice to see some synergy in the Mac/iOS Astro environment!

[JohanB]

Great! If you send the Testflight link when it isi available, i'll give it go!

[aaron]

OK! Apple has approved the app for TestFlight, and I hope everyone can try it and give feedback.

Using TestFlight is easy.

First, you must have iOS 14 on your iPhone or iPad. Then, install TestFlight from Apple's App Store. Finally, click this link to join the INDIGO to GO beta.

Thanks all!

[JohanB]

Hi Aaron,

Gave it a go; works brilliantly, love the app!

Ran a server, agent_imager, agent_guider and agent_mount on the Raspberry, all using the simulators. Ran AG, AI and AT on the Mac, all latest v4.

A few remarks;

When the phone locks, the servers are lost, only to reconnect straight aways again when i press Save. Maybe you can prevent screen-lock for the duration of the session?

When i stop the server on the Rpi or the apps on the mac, the server and agents remain selectable for a very long time, even though they're not there anymore (they still are selectable now...maybe even indefinitely, not sure). Maybe it is possible to refresh periodically and delete the ones that are gone?

When i run a standard setup (server and agents on the RPi, AG, AI and AT on the Mac), in the Server selection window there are three options for each Agent; i can't read the names. Maybe it's easier to present a list with a tick box next to each available server/agent?

Minor GUI issue; the semicolon at the end if AgentImager moves to the next line on the server selection screen (maybe because of the three options that are listed).

When i used the CCD Simulator of the RPi and set the Cooler to a certain temp, the "Cooling in progresss" turned green and temperature was shown correctly, but after a while the temperature value disappeared. Happened once; after i restarted the server and tried again it worked fine.

The HA Limit is showing a value equal to the Meridian Transit value. Yet in my case the HA Limit set in AT is "24:00:00", meaning no HA Limit. Maybe a status "Not set" is more appropriate? You may want consider showing the "Time limit" as well? Where "12:00:00" means no time limit set.

Feature request; If you can detect that dithering is in progress, you may want to change the "Guiding" text to "Dithering", to prevent a panic over
the RSME values going wild for a while

That's all i can think of; pretty cool and useful app! Thanks Aaron!

Regards, Johan

[aaron]

Wow quick feedback!!

When the phone locks, the servers are lost, only to reconnect straight aways again when i press Save. Maybe you can prevent screen-lock for the duration of the session?

I could, but I think your battery life would prefer that the app simply reconnects painlessly. I've done some improvement there already, which will come in a future version. But probably I need to check to see when the last update was, and force a re-connect if it is more than a few seconds.

When i stop the server on the Rpi or the apps on the mac, the server and agents remain selectable for a very long time, even though they're not there anymore (they still are selectable now...maybe even indefinitely, not sure). Maybe it is possible to refresh periodically and delete the ones that are gone?

I'm not seeing that on mine — but this is why we beta! The software should react quite quickly to changes in server availability, and update both the "Servers" screen and the main screen.

Do you see the same behavior with Peter's apps, perhaps? That is, does indigosky remain as an available agent in AstroImager even after you stop the server?

When i run a standard setup (server and agents on the RPi, AG, AI and AT on the Mac), in the Server selection window there are three options for each Agent; i can't read the names. Maybe it's easier to present a list with a tick box next to each available server/agent?

I had that before actually, but worried that people may check ALL the available agents! Can you send a screenshot of this behavior, perhaps? I think you can do that through TestFlight somehow.

Minor GUI issue; the semicolon at the end if AgentImager moves to the next line on the server selection screen (maybe because of the three options that are listed).

Again, screenshot please!

When i used the CCD Simulator of the RPi and set the Cooler to a certain temp, the "Cooling in progresss" turned green and temperature was shown correctly, but after a while the temperature value disappeared. Happened once; after i restarted the server and tried again it worked fine.

Is it possible you connected to two imaging agents at once? If so, they would clobber each others' values...

The HA Limit is showing a value equal to the Meridian Transit value. Yet in my case the HA Limit set in AT is "24:00:00", meaning no HA Limit. Maybe a status "Not set" is more appropriate? You may want consider showing the "Time limit" as well? Where "12:00:00" means no time limit set.

Good point! I'll make those changes. If HA=24 I'll probably remove it from the UI. Same with Time limit.

Feature request; If you can detect that dithering is in progress, you may want to change the "Guiding" text to "Dithering", to prevent a panic over the RSME values going wild for a while

Heh -- I like this too! I'll see if I can detect it.

So grateful for the quick feedback! I'll work on some of these things tonight.

[JohanB]

Hi Aaron,

JohanB wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:45 pm
When i stop the server on the Rpi or the apps on the mac, the server and agents remain selectable for a very long time, even though they're not there anymore (they still are selectable now...maybe even indefinitely, not sure). Maybe it is possible to refresh periodically and delete the ones that are gone?

I'm not seeing that on mine — but this is why we beta! The software should react quite quickly to changes in server availability, and update both the "Servers" screen and the main screen.

Checked this morning; the mac apps and the server are all still there in the Server selection window (when all has been stopped for the night, but the app kept running). I checked with Discovery (the Bonjour browser on IOS); the server on the RPi is discovered immediately on bonjour level on my phone when started and disappears from the bonjour list immediately when stopped. This is not reflected in the app though. Noticed that when i kill the app and restart, it does refresh the server/agent list.

JohanB wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:45 pm
When i run a standard setup (server and agents on the RPi, AG, AI and AT on the Mac), in the Server selection window there are three options for each Agent; i can't read the names. Maybe it's easier to present a list with a tick box next to each available server/agent?

I had that before actually, but worried that people may check ALL the available agents! Can you send a screenshot of this behavior, perhaps? I think you can do that through TestFlight somehow.

JohanB wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 9:45 pm
Minor GUI issue; the semicolon at the end if AgentImager moves to the next line on the server selection screen (maybe because of the three options that are listed).

Again, screenshot please!

This morning there are just the mac apps (which have not been started) and the RPi server. Yesterday there was another server (?) who's name started with "Indigo..". When there are "None" and three other options, the names are to short to read. Not sure what the other server was, it not there now The semi-colon issue is still there though. Not sure how to send a screenshot through Testflight, yet here it is;

IMG_8D13435EE857-1.jpeg (57.38 KiB) Viewed 285 times

Regards, Johan

[aaron]

The next version of INDIGO to GO is available on TestFlight!

- New Park & Warm button to park the scope & warm the camera Thanks Peter!
- HA Limit no longer displayed if you have it disabled (set to 24:00:00) Thanks Johan!
- More room for the discovered agent list Thanks again Johan!
- Switched from legacy sockets to websockets, which should be much more robust after leaving the app
- Removed the preview image, but that will come back soon

I invite you all to test the software on your iPhones and iPads at: https://testflight.apple.com/join/QCNM9Z3O. And of course, please post your feedback and suggestions here!

[JohanB]

Hi Aaron,

Looked at the new version; looking good!

1) New server selection screen; gui looks good, no glitches!

2) HA limit; great fix, works.

3) Server list still does not reflect changes after servers/agents have started/stopped ;
As long as the app is running, new and stopped server are not reflected in the app.
Only on app quit and restart a refresh of the server list takes place.
When checking with Discovery on the iPhone, i see the Bonjour services appear and disappear immediately on server start/stop.

4) After sleep mode of the iPhone, on unlock, the app still reverts to the server selection screen. When "Save" is pressed the app screen restores.

5) Changing "Guiding" to "Dithering" on dither; not implemented yet?

Regards, Johan