Stellar Plate Solving: Installing StellarSolver on a Raspberry Pi 5

ASTAP, Astrometry.net, Plate Solving, Raspberry Pi 5, Software, StellarSolver

StellarSolver is a powerful tool designed for precise star alignment and plate solving in astrophotography. It utilizes sophisticated algorithms to accurately identify stars in astronomical images, enabling precise alignment and stacking of images for stunning results. Whether you’re capturing images of distant galaxies, nebulae, or planets, StellarSolver is an indispensable companion for any astrophotographer. In this guide, we’ll take you through the steps to install StellarSolver on your Raspberry Pi 5, empowering you to unlock the secrets of the universe through precise star alignment and astrophotography.

This article describes a procedure to install software on a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8G RAM running Raspberry Pi OS (64-bit) (Debian v.12 bookworm) booted directly from a 1TB NVMe SSD PCIe drive. This procedure may work for other configurations, so please do let us know if it does, or tell us about any issues you faced and your configuration. Thanks!

Prerequisites

Raspberry Pi 5 board with Raspberry Pi OS (or any other compatible operating system) installed and configured.
For the best possible performance, check out how to Turbocharge Your Raspberry Pi 5: Booting from NVMe SSD.
Stable internet connection for downloading software packages.
Basic familiarity with the Raspberry Pi environment, including how to open a terminal and run commands.

Step 1: Prepare Your Raspberry Pi 5

Begin by ensuring that your Raspberry Pi 5 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 2: Build StellaSolver from Source Code

To start the StellarSolver build process, we first need to install some prerequisites:

sudo apt install git cmake qtbase5-dev libcfitsio-dev libgsl-dev wcslib-dev

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

mkdir ~/Projects
cd ~/Projects

Download the source code from the StellarSolver repository on GitHub. We will use a shallow clone to speed things up and save space:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rlancaste/stellarsolver.git

Build the code:

cd ~/Projects/stellarsolver
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DBUILD_TESTER=ON ../
make -j $(expr $(nproc) + 2)
sudo make install

Step 3: Verify Installation

To verify that StellaSolver has been successfully installed, you can launch it from the desktop environment menu or from a terminal by typing:

StellarSolverTester

This should launch the StellaSolver application:

Conclusion:

Congratulations! You’ve successfully installed StellarSolver on your Raspberry Pi 5. With StellarSolver at your fingertips, you have the power to achieve precise star alignment and plate solving in your astrophotography endeavors. Whether you’re capturing images of distant galaxies or observing the beauty of the Milky Way, StellarSolver is an invaluable tool for enhancing your astronomical experiences. So, grab your Raspberry Pi and get ready to explore the cosmos like never before. Happy stargazing!