Software Setup

Once you’ve built or otherwise obtained a PiFinder, here’s how to setup a fresh SD card to run it. The easy and recommended way is to download the current prebuilt release image file and use the Raspberry Pi imager to burn it and configure your wifi settings. If you prefer, you can build an image from scratch following the instructions below.

Prebuilt Release Image

The image files on our release pages contain the proper version of the Raspberry Pi OS, the installed and configured PiFinder software, and all the catalog images for deep sky objects.

_images/rpi_imager_001.png _images/rpi_imager_002.png

  • If you’d like to set up your network so the PiFinder can connect to it, click the gear icon at the lower left and fill in:

    • SSID: The name of your wifi network

    • Password: The password for your wifi network

    • Wireless LAN Country: Where you live to configure wifi in accordance with local laws

  • You can also setup your locale and keyboard settings if you like, but these are not used by the PiFinder software and only affect the language of the underlying operating system.

_images/rpi_imager_003.png _images/rpi_imager_004.png

Important

Do not set the hostname or username/password. SSH is enabled on this image by default.

  • Click the ‘Select Storage’ button and choose the SD card on your computer

  • Then click the ‘Write’ button to start.

Once the image writing is complete, you can insert the SD card into your PiFinder and power it up. The first boot will take a bit longer as it will expand the filesystem to fill the entire SD card, so be patient.

Now that you have the software installed, you’re ready to hit the Quick Start Guide to get ready for a night of observing!

Build From Scratch

You can do this completely headless (no monitor / keyboard) if desired.

General Pi Setup

Important

You must use the specific Raspberry Pi OS version listed here or the PiFinder software will not work. The software is designed and tested for a specific version with each release.

  • Create Image: I’d strongly recommend using the Rapsberry Pi imager. It’s available for most platforms and lets you easily setup wifi and SSH for your new image.

    • Select the 64-Bit version of Pi OS (Legacy) Lite (No Desktop Environment)

      • Make sure you select the Legacy Bullseye option here

    • Setup SSH / Wifi / User and Host name using the gear icon. Below is a screengrab showing the suggested settings.

      • The username must be pifinder

      • The host name, password, network settings and locale should be customized for your needs.

Raspberry Pi Imager settings

  • Once the image is burned to an SD card, insert it into the PiFinder and power it up. It will probably take a few minutes to boot the first time.

  • SSH into the Pifinder using pifinder@pifinder.local and the password you setup.

  • Update all packages. This is not strictly required, but is a good practice.

    • sudo apt update

    • sudo apt upgrade

      • Enable SPI / I2C. The screen and IMU use these to communicate.

      • run sudo raspi-config

      • Select 3 - Interface Options

      • Then I4 - SPI and choose Enable

      • Then I5 - I2C and choose Enable

PiFinder Software Install

Great! You have a nice fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS ready to go. The rest of the setup is completed by running the pifinder_setup.sh script in this repo. Here’s the command to download and run the script in one step:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/brickbots/PiFinder/release/pifinder_setup.sh | bash

The script will do the following:

  • Clone this repo

  • Install the needed packages/dependencies

  • Download some required astronomy data files

  • Setup Wifi access point capabilities

  • Create a samba share for pulling images, and observations logs and adding observing lists

  • Finally, setup the PiFinder service to start on reboot.

Once the script is done, reboot the PiFinder: sudo shutdown -r now

It will take up to two minutes to boot, but you should see the startup screen before too long:

Startup log

Catalog Image Download

The PiFinder can display images of objects in it’s catalogs if they are available on your SD card. These images take approximately 5gb of space and could potentially take several hours or more to download… but you can cancel and resume the download process at any time.

The Prebuilt Release Image already has these images downloaded and is much quicker to download as a single file from your main computer.

To download the catalog images, make sure your PiFinder is in WIFI client mode so it can access the internet and SSH into it using the password you setup initially.

Once connected, type:

cd PiFinder/python
python -m PiFinder.get_images

The PiFinder will quickly check which images are missing and start the download process. You can monitor it’s progress via the status bar displayed.

Image Download

There are 13,000+ images, so it will take a bit of time, but can be done in multiple sessions. The PiFinder will use whichever images you have on hand each time you observe.