To install STVID, several dependencies need to be met. The following sections will detail the installation. The system wide installation commands provided here are specific for the Ubuntu 22.04 operating system, but similar software packages will be available for other operating systems.
The following assumes the dependencies are installed in $HOME/software
. Adjust this as necessary. To create this directory, run the following command.
mkdir -p $HOME/software # Create directory
The hough3dlines application is used to detect satellite trails in 3 dimensions (x and y position over time). The following commands will download, compile and install the hough3dlines
executable in /usr/local/bin
.
sudo apt install git make g++ libeigen3-dev # Install dependencies
cd $HOME/software # Goto directory
git clone https://gitlab.com/pierros/hough3d-code.git # Clone repository
cd $HOME/software/hough3d-code # Goto directory
make # Compile application
sudo cp hough3dlines /usr/local/bin/ # Install executable
make test # Test installation (optional)
Predictions of satellite positions, using two-line elements (TLEs), are computed using satpredict.
git apt install make # Install dependencies
cd $HOME/software # Goto directory
git clone https://github.com/cbassa/satpredict.git # Clone repository
cd $HOME/software/satpredict # Goto directory
make # Compile application
sudo make install # Install executable
Stars are detected, and their positions and instrumental fluxes measured, using the source-extractor
application. Depending on the operating system, this application can be known as the source-extractor
, sextractor
or sex
executables. STVID expects this to be present in the path as sextractor
, so the executable may need to be copied to the sextractor
name. On Ubuntu 22.04 it is known as source-extractor
.
sudo apt install source-extractor # Install binary
sudo cp /usr/bin/source-extractor /usr/local/bin/sextractor # Copy executable
The initial astrometric calibration of the STVID observations is performed with astrometry.net. This application can be installed with the following command.
sudo apt install astrometry.net # Install binary
This application needs index files, which can be downloaded from data.astrometry.net. For the widefield observations obtained with STVID, we need to download the 4100 series images (340MB in total). Check where the add_path
variable in /etc/astrometry.cfg
where the application will search for index files. Usually this is /usr/share/astrometry
. These can be downloaded (as root) as follows.
sudo bash # Create a session with root privileges
cd /usr/share/astrometry # Goto the add_path directory
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4107.fits # Download index files
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4108.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4109.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4110.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4111.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4112.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4113.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4114.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4115.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4116.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4117.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4118.fits
wget -c http://data.astrometry.net/4100/index-4119.fits
exit # Exit session
For users that will operate ZWO ASI cameras, you will need to download and install the ZWO ASI SDK (software developers kit). Go to the ZWO ASI software and drivers page and click the Developers tab. Download the Linux & Mac SDK. This likely is called something like ASI_linux_max_SDK_V1.28.tar.bz2
. This file can be extracted as follows (assuming the file is downloaded into the $HOME
directory; adjust as necessary.
cd $HOME/software # Goto directory
bzip2 -cd $HOME/ASI_linux_mac-SDK_V1.28.tar.bz2 | tar xvf - # Extract archive
To operate and focus a ZWO ASI camera, it is recommended to install the ASIStudio software from ZWO ASI. This software will allow you to test the camera indepently from STVID and will help with pointing and focusing by giving you full interactive control of all camera properties. The installation of this software will also ensure that the ZWO ASI camera will get the necessary user permissions for it to operate with STVID.
To download ASIStudio, click the Linux tab at ZWO ASI software and drivers page and download the x64
version of ASIStudio. This will likely download a file called ASIStudio_V1.8.run
. The following commands will run the installer (assuming the file is downloaded in the $HOME
directory).
chmod +x $HOME/ASIStudio_V1.8.run # Set permissions to execute installer
$HOME/ASIStudio_V1.8.run # Execute installer
The ASIStudio installer will ask where to install the applications and to accept their license. Once installed, run the ASICap
application with your ZWO ASI camera attached. The application will ask to you to provide the sudo
credentials to install the udev
rules setting the necessary user permissions. Once those are set, you should be able to operate your camera from within ASICap
.
With the dependencies installed, we can install STVID using the following commands.
sudo apt install python-is-python3 python3-pip # Install python3 and pip
cd $HOME/software # Goto directory
git clone https:/github.com/cbassa/stvid.git # Clone STVID repository
cd $HOME/software/stvid # Goto directory
pip install -r requirements.txt # Install python requirements