KStars is free, open source, cross-platform Astronomy Software. It provides an accurate graphical simulation of the night sky, from any location on Earth, at any date and time. Bundled with KStars is Ekos astrophotography suite, a complete astrophotography solution that can control and automate all your atronomy equipment.


The topology of StellarMate App, KStars, Ekos, and INDI can be simplified to the following points:

  1. Astronomy devices are connected to StellarMate via USB or Network (WiFi/Ethernet).
  2. Each device is controlled by a corresponding INDI driver. An INDI driver provides an abstraction layer so that clients like Ekos can issue commands regardless of the underlying implementation of each unique device.
  3. INDI drivers can be managed directly in KStars by starting and stopping INDI server, or via StellarMate Web Manager that provides an API to remotely start and shutdown INDI server.
  4. An INDI server is a hub where all drivers communicate with each other and the clients.
  5. When using Ekos inside StellarMate directly (HDMI, VNC, or SM App via EkosLive), Ekos completely manages the INDI server.
  6. EkosLive is a middleware that allows external applications to talk with Ekos over websockets.
  7. When using Ekos on a remote PC/Mac, it can control the equipment by bypassing KStars completely and launching the INDI server remotely via the StellarMate Web Manager.
  8. EkosLive not only provides communication between StellarMate App and Ekos, but it also connects KStars to the online ekoslive.com portal where you can use a web-based interface similar to StellarMate App to control Ekos remotely.



KStars can be connected to StellarMate Controller in a number of ways

  1. Directly in StellarMate OS

Use VNC, Rustdesk, or HDMI to directly operate KStars inside StellarMate. Using KStars inside StellarMate gives the fastest results since images are saved immediately on the local storage.

  1. Remote KStars

Since KStars communicate with the INDI server using TCP/IP, KStars can be used to run devices on any StellarMate Controller remotely.



When configuring KStars for remote connection:

  1. Change mode to Remote
  2. Enter remote StellarMate Controller IP address or host name.
  3. Enable StellarMate Web Manager

SM Pro: Add to remote drivers @localhost:12624