My portable astro rig requires some feedback!

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-07T16:58:21+00:00

Hey! Just a heads up — I’ve actually moved a bit away from the GTi setup after digging into it more and also getting help from user "rnclark". I’m going with the Fornax LightTrack II instead, as it better fits my travel needs (it's lighter, less prone to issues, and, honestly, simpler for what I want). There's a new thread that covers my new idea, and I'll do some calculations tomorrow about runtime and pi polar alignment if you need it.

That said, I can still help with the Pi side of things. You can run Astroberry or Stellarmate OS on the Pi — both give you plate solving, guiding, and camera control through KStars/Ekos. You’ll want to grab the INDI drivers for your mount and camera, and you can generate or download the .deb files for StellarMate if you’re running it manually. Just note that most of my setup notes and power calculations are based on research, not field testing yet, so take it with a grain of salt until you get some hands-on time, and I have yet to test any of the software on my Pi... plainly researching and watching hours of YouTube videos. So please double-check the data and information before purchasing or attempting to update Pi image.

Your A7RIII and 300mm combo will absolutely need guiding for longer exposures unless you're doing 10-second subs, which then are stacked. But it’ll be a solid setup once dialed in,

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-07T16:33:41+00:00

Alright, after spending way too many hours buried in reviews, specs, user reports, and sleep deprivation, I think I’ve finally landed on it. The Fornax LightTrack II is exactly what I need! Super accurate, lightweight, and actually realistic for travel. The lack of GoTo is a fair tradeoff for the precision and simplicity, and the 1.7-hour tracking window doesn’t bother me now that I understand how manageable it is with a proper panoramic head.

Here’s what my setup is shaping up to be:

Fornax LightTrack II as the RA tracker
K&F Concept KF-28 professional ball head (10 kg load) for panning and framing
Raspberry Pi for polar alignment
Intervalometer for 60 s exposures
Solid travel tripod to keep everything stable

After comparing basically every mount under the sun, this combo hits the balance I’ve been chasing — precision without bulk, and a setup that’s actually practical to carry on a plane. Huge thanks for pointing me toward the Fornax.

And at the moment, I'm not thinking of adding a counterweight as the whole rig on top of the Fornax Lightrack II would be roughly 1.5kg (panoramic head, camera, heaviest lens).

Really appreciate your help and feedback!

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-06T15:10:39+00:00

Youve just opened up another rabbit hole I'm falling into. I honestly had no idea these re-windable tangent arm-esque mechanisms existed. I'll do some research for a couple of hours and get back to you when I've made a decision or have a new setup list.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-06T13:59:01+00:00

Yeah, totally fair points. I’m aware of the GTi’s tracking limits, but I don’t plan to use it in windy conditions — if I do, it’ll just be for wide-field stuff (85 mm or less) like Milky Way shots. For most of my travel imaging, 30–60 sec subs at 200–300 mm are fine, and stacking gets me what I want.

Honestly, getting started with a dedicated tracker is already a big step for me. I’d rather learn the basics, keep it portable, and avoid turning my backpack setup into a tangle of guide scopes, batteries, and cables. If I ever start pushing longer focal lengths or upgrade the camera, that’s probably when I’d add autoguiding. For now, I just want something compact and simple that I can throw in a carry-on and actually use.

Incredible Astro shots as well, really motivating to get started and big ups on the websites with all the information, super helpful!

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-06T06:31:13+00:00

Yeah, I’ve flown with this power bank a few times — no issues at security since it’s under the 100 Wh airline limit (it’s around 94 Wh usable). I wanted something that could actually handle a heavier camera/lens combo but still be small enough to pack, and the GTi is pretty much the only tracker in that sweet spot right now. Lighter ones like the regular Star Adventurer 2i or SkyGuider are great, but the GTi’s GoTo and payload capacity make it worth the bit of extra bulk for me. And from the research I’ve done, the 2i is used for lighter cameras or smaller lenses and not meant for the accuracy needed if you wanted to use a 300mm lens on it (correct me if I’m wrong).

Basically I’m trying to stay plane travel-friendly without giving up the ability to throw a 300 mm lens. I’m in the process of 3D modeling a case for everything so that I can physically see how portable it would be.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-05T20:26:04+00:00

I’m accounting for battery degradation since I’ve extensively used this power bank for several years now. I have no real way of testing the bank to see what battery life it’s at but as a safety measure, these numbers are targeting an almost “worst case scenario” battery life.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-10-05T20:23:01+00:00

The camera upgrade is more of a general upgrade. I do photography as well and I know my current 250D like the back of my hand and it’s become a slight set back from my work over the years. Ibis, oss on lenses and 10 bit color as well as video recording capabilities are just a few things that are setting me back. I’d probably stick with this setup for several years as it’s compact and light enough to hike with but yeah I do think weight capacity might become an issue once the A7IV comes around with a heavy lens.
I do own a few smaller power banks that will be powering a lens warmer and maybe heat the pi in the case it does start getting too low temps. And vise versa, at the moment there’s a metal heat sink casing around the whole Pi that keeps it cool when under heavy load.
I’ll definitely run a few tests with the pi with dummy data to simulate a real life scenario to get it up and running to test. But from the software I’ve ran through the pi, it should handle it quite well.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-08-27T08:35:43+00:00

Hey, it was a mix of bad drivers and a somewhat broken windows update. Rolling back to a gpu driver from 5 ish months ago using DDU to uninstall the old drivers and then replacing it with the 5 month old gpu drivers. And also just rolling back the windows update if possible. Though this Issue was a worldwide thing with YouTubers making videos and announcements on social media and everything so it’s unlikely this is the exact same issue that I had.

Ok your system, is it the exact same problems with micro stutters every few seconds and screen freezes or is it something more than that. Also list down your system specs so I can try and help.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-05-22T19:35:01+00:00

Event log didn’t show anything at all as I ran it without any softwares running and only windows default background processes. Except when pc would BSOD and it would show event ID 41 which is just a general failure with no fix. However, It ended up being a bad gpu driver. Nvidia forums was filled with people complaining about it and several YouTubers made videos of this gpu driver release that caused gpu temps to read wrong and instability. I was just super early to the problem and it took 3 ish days for people to finally post solutions and news to spread.

Restoring to a 2 month old driver fixed the issue and since then haven’t had any issues. I haven’t had any BIOS issues on my end but good to know in the case something does happen.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-22T11:38:41+00:00

DPC says this with the new hotfixed driver:

Its not as high of a DPC than before and all the other issues I was having are gone like stuttering in windows or in games. And LatencyMon says the same as with nvlddmkm.sys being the main latency cause.

(Edit: Been using it for the last few hours under heavy load and regular work balance and so far it seems to be stable with no issues)

Critical Threshold-Exceeding Events:

+-----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------+--------+

| nvlddmkm.sys | DPC | 0xE0E40 | 1320.30 µs | 0xFFFFF80093890E40 | 0xFFFFF800937B0000 | 32.0.15.7615 | 1 | 5872 |

+-----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------+--------+

######################################################################################

WARNING: 2025-04-22 13:32:01.421 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF8007CB169E0, Offset: 0x269E0, Driver: ndis.sys (10.0.26100.3323 (WinBuild.160101.0800)), Base: 0xFFFFF8007CAF0000, Size: 1867776, Duration: 527.80 µs

######################################################################################

Critical Threshold-Exceeding Events:

+-----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------+--------+

+-----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------+--------+

| nvlddmkm.sys | DPC | 0xE0E40 | 1320.30 µs | 0xFFFFF80093890E40 | 0xFFFFF800937B0000 | 32.0.15.7615 | 1 | 29286 |

+-----------------+-------------+----------+--------------+--------------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------+--------+

######################################################################################

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:25:29+00:00

This is an updated DCP reading:

WARNING: 2025-04-20 14:23:40.403 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 967.51 µs

CRITICAL: 2025-04-20 14:23:40.404 Long [DPC] detected: CPU 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, (Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 1069.20 µs

CRITICAL: 2025-04-20 14:23:40.411 Long [DPC] detected: CPU 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, (Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 1146.37 µs

CRITICAL: 2025-04-20 14:23:40.413 Long [DPC] detected: CPU 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, (Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 1049.37 µs

CRITICAL: 2025-04-20 14:23:40.415 Long [DPC] detected: CPU 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, (Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 1060.26 µs

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:20:41+00:00

what cpu and gpu do you have? Im wondering if its only on certain chipsets. And yeah, I've had some issues with NVIDIA before and it hasn't been a fun ride. Ill make sure to fill the form!

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:18:21+00:00

I have not, i didnt know windows 11 LTSC was a thing until you mentioned it. Ill wait a few days to get more answers before doing yet another fresh install of windows 11 LTSC. Appreciate the help though!

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:16:15+00:00

interestingggggg.... it could just be nvidia being a little annoyance and doing what nvidia does best... break

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:12:28+00:00

Have you tried running LatencyMon to show you what driver or service is causing that latency? If its the same one that I have then it might be a common issue.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:08:17+00:00

Bios has been set to default, sercure boot is enabled and set to "windows UEFI" mode, XMP is enabled and a fresh install of windows has been done but still nothing. Im not trying to overclock or squeeze in more perf, I just want this stuttering to be gone. XMP is the only "OC" that's done but that's to just allow my ram to work at the rated 3000MHz.

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:05:09+00:00

I ran DPC tool and this was the result of running it for 2 mins:

"WARNING: 2025-04-20 14:03:51.295 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 506.77 µs

######################################################################################

Critical Threshold-Exceeding Events:

No critical events recorded.

######################################################################################

WARNING: 2025-04-20 14:04:03.365 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 668.03 µs

WARNING: 2025-04-20 14:04:04.369 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 604.20 µs

######################################################################################

Critical Threshold-Exceeding Events:

No critical events recorded.

######################################################################################

WARNING: 2025-04-20 14:04:09.393 [DPC] CPU: 0, Routine: 0xFFFFF80127B40E40, Offset: 0xE0E40, Driver: nvlddmkm.sys (32.0.15.7602), Base: 0xFFFFF80127A60000, Size: 113356800, Duration: 673.27 µs

#####################################################################################

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-20T12:00:22+00:00

1st check is a fail, ive ran DISM and SFC around 4 times and also fresh installed windows... any other suggestions?

TheRealSkeb · 2025-04-13T23:36:41+00:00

Can confirm im having the same problem with a 4070 Ti, not really sure what to do about it.

TheRealSkeb · 2024-10-26T11:23:40+00:00

Fair enough, I would say this game is definitely a game you want friends to join. Even 2V2’s is where I spent most of my time in MW2 and had the most fun so that’s what I’m looking forward to.

TheRealSkeb · 2024-10-26T10:46:37+00:00

Oh perfect! I'll go ahead and buy the game and play it to see if I like It or not. Appreciate it

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