macOS

PFR Sentinel on macOS

New in the next release — not available in version 3.7.9 or earlier.

PFR Sentinel runs on Apple-silicon Macs (M1 and later) as a regular app, PFR Sentinel.app. Windows remains the main platform; on a Mac a few Windows features are missing (see What's different).

Requirements

• An Apple-silicon Mac (M1 or later). Intel Macs are not supported by the packaged app.
• For ZWO camera mode: nothing extra. The ZWO camera library and the USB library it needs are inside the app.
• For timelapse: ffmpeg, from Homebrew with brew install ffmpeg.

Installing

1. Download the .dmg (see below for where).

2. Open it and drag PFR Sentinel onto Applications.

3. The app is not notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open a downloaded copy macOS says it "cannot be opened" or "is damaged". Clear the download flag once in Terminal, then open the app normally:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "/Applications/PFR Sentinel.app"

   A copy you built yourself with build_sentinel_macos.sh doesn't need this.

Dev builds are published with the Windows ones: the newest is always at the dev-latest prerelease as PFRSentinel-dev-unsigned-macos-arm64.dmg, and each build is announced, with its download link, in the "Dev builds" thread under Discussions. There is no macOS release build yet.

Where things are kept

Settings, logs and calibration live in ~/Library/Application Support/PFRSentinel. Images are saved to ~/Library/Application Support/PFRSentinel/Images unless you choose another folder on the Output Settings tab.

To move a Windows setup to the Mac, copy config.json (and allsky_calibration.json if the camera and lens stay on the same mount) from %LOCALAPPDATA%\PFRSentinel on the PC into that folder. The camera library path in the copied settings points at a Windows file; PFR Sentinel notices and switches to the library inside the app on its own. Folder paths you chose on Windows (output, watch folder) need setting again.

Running unattended

For an observatory Mac that should look after itself:

1. In PFR Sentinel, turn on Start at login and Auto-start capture on launch on the Settings tab. If PFR Sentinel crashes, macOS starts it again after 30 seconds.
2. In System Settings → Users & Groups, turn on automatic login for the account PFR Sentinel runs under, so the Mac logs in by itself after a power cut. (Automatic login isn't available while FileVault is on.)
3. In System Settings → Energy, turn on Start up automatically after a power failure, and stop the Mac from sleeping.

What's different

• USB camera reset: Windows can reset a stuck USB camera; macOS has no way for an app to do that. Camera recovery still reconnects and, if needed, restarts PFR Sentinel, but a camera wedged at the USB level needs unplugging.
• NINA: NINA only runs on Windows, so the NINA plugin, the NINA sequencer scripts and anything that comes from NINA are not available.
• Look: the app uses the same Fluent design as on Windows, with the Mac's own fonts, so it doesn't match pixel for pixel.