observatory-operator

observatory-operator runs a telescope’s hardware on a liken cluster. You describe your mount, cameras, focusers, dome, and the rest of your equipment as Kubernetes resources. When you reserve a telescope, the operator starts an INDI driver for each device, connects them, and runs the steps you declared for the night: unpark the dome, cool the camera, open the dust cap. When the reservation ends, it runs the steps you declared for the end, such as parking the mount and warming the camera, and tells you when the equipment is safe to power off. You drive the telescope from KStars and Ekos on your desktop, as you would with any INDI server.

The operator does not take pictures, plate-solve, or guide on its own. It starts PHD2 for guiding and connects it to your guide camera and mount, and you run the session from KStars.

The operator is under development, and it has no release yet. Its tests and the drills on a test cluster run against the INDI simulators. Real hardware connects through the same resources, but no drill has run on real equipment yet, and some cameras cannot reach a pod at all. Connect USB equipment gives the details.

Start here:

• Install the operator with an observatory of simulators, so you can see every part work before you connect any hardware.
• Describe your equipment .
• Connect USB equipment .
• Reserve a telescope and drive it from KStars.

observatory-operator is one of the extension operators for running an observatory .

• The source
• The design documents
• The liken manual