🚀 Introducing PINS (Pi N Stars) – N.I.N.A.-style imaging on the Raspberry Pi (Early Dev, No ETA)

PINS (Pi N Stars) started as an idea to bring the power of N.I.N.A. to the Raspberry Pi and make astrophotography more portable and accessible. It began as a solo experiment by Nico and turned into a close collaboration with the Touch N Stars team.

🖥️ Designed for the field

PINS runs headless by design. Touch N Stars provides the full touch-friendly UI, while the Pi handles backend imaging tasks. We’re targeting Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 for real performance (Pi 3 technically works, but we don’t recommend it unless you enjoy pain).

⭐ Guiding that actually holds up

We’re using a dedicated PHD2 fork optimized for the Pi to keep guiding stable, lightweight, and responsive.

🧩 What already works

PINS runs reliably on the Pi

Touch N Stars is fully integrated as the UI

Guiding via our PHD2 fork is stable in field testing

🧬 Important clarification

PINS is a community-driven fork of N.I.N.A. It is not affiliated with or supported by the official N.I.N.A. dev team, so please don’t ask them for PINS support.

🧪 Early development — no ETA

We’re moving fast, shipping builds, breaking things, fixing them, and testing in real night-sky conditions. But PINS is still early, features are changing, and there is no ETA for a public release yet.

📦 The goal

Provide a stable Raspberry Pi image for everyone. All builds of PINS, PHD2, and everything else we produce will be shipped through our own Debian repository so installation and updates are painless.

🤝 Want to help?

Contributions in any form are appreciated — code, docs, ideas, or just hanging out and asking questions.

🔗 Links

GitHub: https://github.com/nitr57/pins

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/4gZJEMWFcN

If you’re curious, interested, or just want to watch the chaos unfold — hop in. Something cool is forming here. 🌌