StellarMate is a small mobile astronomy gadget that you can connect your astronomy devices to. It enables you to control your mount, camera, focuser, filter wheel, dome, and many more devices. Designed for astrophotgorahy, it includes free powerful astrophotography tool that supports mount control, batch capture, autofocus, autoguide, and astrometry.

The gadget include several methods that enables you to connect your equipment. StellarMate communication channels include 4x USB 2.0 ports, 10/100 MBPS Ethernet, 802.11n Wireless LAN, and Bluetooth 4.0. You connect your equipment to StellarMate using any of the supported communication channels. Once connected, you can use a mobile (Phone & Tablet) or desktop (Windows, MacOS, Linux) application to control your equipment.

You need equipment (Mounts, Cameras, Focuser...etc) that can be connected to a computer via either USB, Bluetooth, or Ethernet. All modern gadget include connectors to computers. For mount with Serial connectors, you will need to purchase a Serial-2-USB adapter. Since StellarMate uses INDI for device control, you need to make sure your device is supported. While not strictly required, it is highly recommened to use an external powered USB hub to connect your devices to.

To use the StellarMate App, you need either an Android or iOS based smart phone.

After you purchased StellarMate OS, you should receive a confirmation email with links to the downloads. In the future, if you want to download StellarMate OS again, make sure you are logged in to the stellarmate.com website and then go to the Orders page.

You should see a list of  your orders. Click on your order link, then scroll down to see the downloads. Make sure to download the SM OS version appropiate for your hardware platform.

Absolutely! StellarMate works with all variants of RPI4. We recommend you purchase the 4GB version.

You can connect to StellarMate via the following methods:

• Direct Connection: Plug the supplied HDMI cable to a monitor to gain direct access to StellarMate OS. You also need to plug your Mouse & Keyboard.
• Wired: Connect StellarMate to your LAN via Ethernet. You can access it like any other device on your network. You can use Network Discovery tools on your operating system (e.g. Avahi/Bonjour). to detect it as it advertises its services over the network.
• Wireless: Use StellarMate App for Android and iOS to connect to your gadget.

The maximum reported SD card size is 128GB.

Make sure to use a reputable class 10+ SD card.

No, it's not broken. That's the normal behavior. Here are what the LED lights mean:

Red LED

• Keeps steady on when powered.
• Flashes if the power drops below ~4.63V.

Green LED

• Steady on if no SD card during boot.

• irregular flashes for SD card access.

So if the Green LED is off, it means there isn't much activity going on. If you cannot detect StellarMate HotSpot on your phone, please use the supplied HDMI cable and connect it to an external TV/Monitor. Check what you get on the TV:

• If you see StellarMate OS desktop, then the unit is working fine. Check the network settings.
  1. Attach a keyboard and mouse (wireless would work as well).
  2. Click on StellarMate Tools App.
  3. Click on Network Reset. Confirm network reset.
  4. Reboot the unit.
• If you see error messages on the console, there there is a problem in booting up the Operating System. If you have StellarMate OS image, then the best course of action is to reflash the image. Check the integrety of the microSD cards as they tend to degrade with time. If you do not have StellarMate OS image, Contact support so we can help you resolve this issue.

There are many mobile and desktop applications that you can use to control StellarMate. For a complete list, please check INDI Clients page.

However, only Ekos and StellarMate App are officially supported.

username: stellarmate

password: smate

To reset StellarMate, use go to StellarMate Control Panel (stellarmate.local) and click on the Diagnostics icon on the side menu as illustrated below:

After clicking the icon, the diagnostics tab will open with lots of options including:

• Reset Network: Click this button to reset WiFi settings in case you have issues accessing the unit via WiFi or HotSpot. It will restore StellarMate to HotSpot mode.
• Reset Factory: Click this button to reset all settings, including WiFi. This action is irreversible! Please make sure to backup any important data on the SD card!

StellarMate must now be restarted for the above to take effect.

If you have trouble connecting StellarMate to your router via WiFi, please access your router and clear all cache and any entries for StellarMate.

StellarMate HotSpot is only active when StellarMate is not connected to any WiFi network. By default, the StellarMate Hotspot operates at 5Ghz WiFi (not 2.4Ghz). Therefore, your phone/tablet/PC must support 5Ghz WiFi. It is possible to switch StellarMate WiFi to 2.4Ghz but you need to use SM App to switch and you need a 5Ghz WiFi capable device first to connect to it.

Common Issues

1. Noisy WiFi Environment: In case you have a very active and noisy WiFi environment (many WiFi network), it can overwhelm the WiFi controller in StellarMate and it cannot generate a proper hotspot. Try to get away from very noisy WiFi environments to have a successfully HotSpot.

2. Metal Enclosures: If using StellarMate OS with your own Raspberry PI with a metal case, then it can lead to attentuation of WiFi signals. Try to use a plastic enclosure.

3. Close Promixity to other electronic devices: Some users reported HotSpot signal loss when StellarMate is stacked with other devices like monitors or USB hubs. Try to maintain at least 15 cm away from any other electronic device that can cause interferance with the HotSpot Signal.

4. USB 3.0: There is a known issue with USB 3.0 ports causing significant interfaces with 2.4Ghz signals. If an active USB 3.0 port is used by any peripheral, it may lead to signal degradation. There are two methods to resolve this issue:
4.1 Connect USB 3.0 peripherals to the StellarMate USB 2.0 port
4.2 Switch StellarMate OS WiFi HotSpot Frequency to 5Ghz range which is immune to this interference from USB 3.0.

5. HDMI Resolution: If you connect StellarMate to an external display using an HDMI cable, then high resolution is known to cause interference with WiFi. Try to lower the HDMI resolution to improve the situation.

If you have trouble connecting StellarMate to your router via WiFi, please access your router and clear all cache and any entries for StellarMate.

The StellarMate WiFi Hotspot by default operates at 2.4Ghz. As with any WiFi-enabled device, the signal strength and reliability can be affected by several factors:

1. Power Supply: StellarMate requires the use of a 3A+ 5V power supply (3 Amperes or higher) in order to properly operate StellarMate OS on Raspberry Pi 3/4. Using anything less than 3A would result in system instabilities and possible corruption. To solve this problem, invest in a reputable power supply before you boot StellarMate OS.

2. Congestion: if there are many WiFi Networks in the area surrounding StellarMate, the WiFi Hotspot might be slow due to signal and channel congestion. A possible solution in case of severe interference is to toggle WiFi frequency (2.4Ghz/5Ghz) in StellarMate OS and try to locate a channel that is relatively free of congestion.

3. Obstructions: If you used a metal case for StellarMate or the unit is attached to a metal surface, this can attenuate the signal. Try to keep StellarMate separate from any nearby metallic objects.

4. USB 3.0: There is a known issue with USB 3.0 ports causing significant interfaces with 2.4Ghz signals. If an active USB 3.0 port is used by any peripheral, it may lead to signal degradation. There are two methods to resolve this issue:
4.1 Connect USB 3.0 peripherals to the StellarMate USB 2.0 port
4.2 Switch StellarMate OS WiFi HotSpot Frequency to 5Ghz range which is immune to this interference from USB 3.0.

5. HDMI Resolution: If you connect StellarMate to an external display using an HDMI cable, then high resolution is known to cause interference with WiFi. Try to lower the HDMI resolution to improve the situation.

If none of the above solutions work, another possible solution to to try using a Wired connection using Ethernet cable. This can be achieved via a direct Ethernet connection between StellarMate and your PC/Mac, or via a router. It is a last-resort solution but is known to be reiable and almost 10 times faster than WiFi.

StellarMate WiFi HotSpot password: stellar@mate

To change default password, follow the steps in this vide:

By default, the unit hostname is stellarmate.local

From StellarMate App, go to My Mates then select your unit. The hostname is the unit name. If you changed the unit name, then just use the name followed by .local

For example, if you changed the unit name to observatory, then your new hostname is observatory.local

Another way to find the hostname is to open the Web Manager from the StellarMate App and you will see the unit hostname in the browser address bar.

If you using StellarMate Web Manager, please add SkySafari driver to your Auxiliary drivers. From within Ekos, select SkySafari from Auxiliary.

For complete instructions, please visit SkySafari INDI support page.

Please follow instrucitons in Controlling your Mount with Joystick tutorial.

Use Web-Based VNC Viewer or any VNC Viewer to access StellarMate. Simply double click the Software Updater icon to fetch updates. If there are any available updates, a window shall appear with the required upgrades. Click Install to download and install them. It is recommended to restart the unit after installation updates.

If for any reason you are having problems with the GUI Software Updater, you can directly write a command to start update process. Double click the Mate Terminal icon and a terminal window shall be opened. Type in the following command and press enter:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Yes. Stellarmate does not use the default SSH port. Use port 5624 to login to StellarMate using your username and password.

ssh -p 5624 stellarmate@stellarmate.local

The same port should be used for SFTP (e.g. in FileZilla). You can perform remote update using the following command:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

StellarMate ships with 32GB MicroSD card. Images are saved by default to the internal SD card. It is possible to change the default Pictures directory (/home/stellarmate/Pictures) to a different location using either StellarMate Tools or StellarMate App.

StellarMate Tools via VNC

Once the Pictures Directory is set, KStars and Network Storage is updated to the new directory. StellarMate requires a restart for this to take effect.

StellarMate App

From StellarMate App Capture Module, toggle File Settings to change the default Pictures directory or set it to an external storage.

KStars on PC/Mac

If you are using Ekos on PC/Mac, then you need to set Upload mode to Local and then set the Remote Directory to /home/stellarmate/Pictures as illustrated below:

2. If you are using Ekos directly on StellarMate, simply set the Directory field in the capture module to /home/stellarmate/Pictures. The Upload mode should remain as Client.

/home/stellarmate/Pictures is case sensitive. Make sure not to set it by mistake to /home/stellarmate/pictures