See documentation site :

https://documentation.ostserver.fr/

OST - Observatoire Sans Tête

/!\ Work in progress — functional but evolving fast.

"Observatoire Sans Tête" is a joke with my friend Bob, a word-for-word French translation of "Headless Observatory". The goal: a server you control remotely from any browser, with no screen or keyboard attached to the machine running it.

OST is inspired by great open-source projects like AstroPhoto Plus and MobIndi, and by commercial solutions like ASIAIR and Stellarmate. The main difference: it's written in C++/Qt, talks to hardware through INDI, and exposes everything over WebSocket + JSON to any browser-based frontend.

What it does

OST runs as a background service and orchestrates a full astrophotography session:

Module	Function
Focus	Autofocus via V-curve and HFR minimisation (SCXML state machine)
Guider	Autoguiding via PHD2, drift monitoring and correction
Sequencer	Automated acquisition sequences (frame type, filter, gain, exposure)
Navigator	Plate solving (StellarSolver) and automatic field centering
Planner	Orchestrates Navigator + Sequencer for a list of objects
Polar	Polar alignment via the 3-image method
Inspector	Optical quality analysis: HFR map, aberration map, corner mosaic
Allsky	All-sky camera: keogram, max stacking, timelapse, weather overlay
IndiPanel	Raw control panel for all connected INDI devices

Modules communicate with each other (e.g. Sequencer triggers autofocus, suspends guiding during focus).

Architecture

• Backend: C++17 / Qt, communicates with hardware via INDI protocol
• Frontend: Angular web app, served by Nginx, talks to the backend over WebSocket
• Protocol: JSON messages over WebSocket
• Packaging: Ubuntu PPA (Launchpad) for 22.04 and 24.04

Installing from PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gehelem/ostserver-daily
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ostserver

Building from source

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mutlaqja/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake git \
    libstellarsolver-dev libeigen3-dev libcfitsio-dev \
    zlib1g-dev libindi-dev libnova-dev libgsl-dev libraw-dev \
    wcslib-dev libqt5websockets5-dev libqt5svg5-dev \
    libqt5scxml5-dev qttools5-dev-tools qtdeclarative5-dev \
    libsecret-1-dev libavahi-client-dev libavahi-common-dev \
    nginx indi-bin

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

If running headless (no display), add this to .bashrc:

export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen

Running

ostserver --webroot=/path/to/media --libpath=/path/to/modules \
          --lng=fr --loglevel=2 --grant=0

Then open http://<your-machine-ip> in any browser.

Platforms

Tested on Raspberry Pi 4, small NUCs, and VMs (VirtualBox/VMware) running Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04. Any Linux supporting Qt5 + INDI should work.