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Jim Matzger: The firmware is no longer in a chip, but rather in the unit itself. So you are left with a place to put a TF chip. I put a 1 terabyte chip in it permanently so that no USB drive is needed. This freed up one port. There is also a new USB TYPE-C port that works well to transfer data directly to a computer. So a hub is less likely to be needed. |
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Ron Clanton: *** So I tested it out last night and a couple of things cropped up. The wifi disconnected and I had to reboot the device. Also, I couldn't really get the All sky polar alignment working. I was in Focus and plate solving worked but despite making large adjustments to the alt az bolts the PA error didn't update by much. Have you come across this? *** |
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If you can see Polaris I would use the regular polar alignment routine. About the connection. Make sure you disable your home wifi connection. I had this problem...my tablet would keep auto connecting on my home wifi. I just disabled it on my tablet settings. |
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Elmiko: *** I'm in the southern hemisphere and I don't have a clear view of sigma octans from my backyard. The actual ASIAIR plus wifi turned off in one instance and I had to reboot the device and in several instances it disconnected but quickly reestablished a connection. I'll take your advice though and see if that helps. I've heard some people say that power can be an issue and I've also heard people say they connect the ASIAIR Plus to another router and that works much better (that seems to defeat the purpose of having a wireless device though). *** |
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Hi Rob, Those issues are soooo familiar  1. Polar Alignment Similar to you, I can't see the SCP (or anything near it) from my yard because of huge trees. You don't need the SCP to do a Polar Alignment - the ASIAir Polar Alignment works remarkably well in this case. All you have to do is :- 1. achieve focus 2. aim at any patch of clear sky roughly 30° - due west (if you are in the south) and get a plate solve 3. go to the PA panel and start a PA. ASIair will do a plate-solve, then rotate the OTA in RA to the East, so another plate solve, then rotate the OTA again and do another solve. If all 3 solves succeed, then it hops into the fine-tuning section and away you go. This allows you to select a DEC that avoids obstacles. I have trees to the South and a 2-storey building to the East, so I start my PA facing due West, as close as I can to the horizon. That gives the OTA plenty of scope to swing to the East twice without coming to grief on the tripod. A tip I drilled 3 holes in the patio to mark where the tripod goes, and I use PS Align Pro to get a rough PA before I start. I use a carrier to attach an iPad to the top of my OTA to get as stable an alignment as possible, which makes the PA much quicker. Surprisingly, ASIAir displayed a message that I'd been added to ZWO's global leaderboard for one of the quickest PAs on record < 10 seconds 2. WiFi If the ASIAir has a weak point, it is definitely the WiFI. I upgraded from an ASIAir-Pro to the ASIAir-Plus, hoping to get better WiFi performance, but was disappointed. I had the same experience as you - WiFi just switches off on occasions - then tries to reconnect. Sometimes it does, other times it doesn't. I tried connecting directly via AP mode, and using Station mode to connect via the home network. I can't say either was 100% successful, or one was better than the other. One tip that might help ... I'm right-handed, so I sit to the left of my OTA. My AA+ was originally mounted with the antenna on the far side of the OTA, next to the Focusser, simply because there was an unused guide shoe there. To avoid the WiFi having to travel through/around the OTA, I moved the AA+ so the antenna was on the same side of the OTA as I was, and as far as possible from the focusser, in the unlikely event the stepper motor in the focusser caused any interference. That made a big difference - WiFI stability was much better, but still < 100%. My solution now is to connect to the ASIAir directly via ethernet - that is 100% reliable - and super fast FYI - ZWO said it wasn't possible to connect directly to the ASIAir from an iPad / Mac via ethernet, but it is - that's how I do all my sessions now. Sure, it means another cable, but wired will always be more stable than wireless. If I want to check the AA+ after I've gone inside, I can still connect via WiFI to see what's going on. Once the imaging session has started, being connected is not as important as it is when setting up. Same for the AM5 mount - the wireless connection is really fidgety to set up, and requires the wired handset to be connected (that's where the WiFi chip lives), so I just use a short USB cable between the ASIAir and the AM5 now, instead of the long curly-cord with the hand controller / WiFI chip. Also, using ethernet means I can connect to the ASIAir without messing with the home WiFi - essential if my boys are watching TV ! 3. Power I used to run my setup from the mains using a little power-pack, now I run it 100% from a Bluetti battery. This eliminates any mains ripple that might cause problems. I also use shielded power leads rated at 5A. I power my mount separately to the ASIAir. This avoids power surges from the mount having any effect on the ASIAir, which could introduce noise or affect performance on other ways. I hope all that helps |
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Robert: Power- The power supply sold by ZWO for the AIR is OK but not ideal and ZWO recommends a separate power supply to power any cooled camera they sell. I have used this method, 1 supply for the camera and 1 supply for the AIR, since I bought my first ASI AIR Pro and I have never had the devise shut itself off. https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asi2600mc-pro-color Wireless- I highly recommend running an Ethernet cable from the AIR Plus or Pro to a small booster/hub plugged in to an outdoor receptacle instead of using the wireless feature in the devise if you image close enough to your house. If you are remote or just want to be next to your rig in your yard you will have to remain quite close to the AIR and without line of sight obstruction in order for the wireless to work best. This also helps to prevent your phone or tablet switching to your home wifi. Plate Solve- I've never run a PA from the southern hemisphere but just for fun I did try the "All Sky PA" feature using this video as a guide and it worked perfectly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP2Z32e5ZcI I also recommend buying a pier extension for your tripod to help prevent running your rig into the tripod legs. As others have said the AIR has no feature to limit imaging below certain elevations but the work around for this is to simply learn where your meridian is and calculate how long you have to effectively image past the meridian and set your Auto Run times accordingly. Learn how to set and use "Home Position". I hope this helps, scott |
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Robert, Sorry for your issues... Wifi I guess that I'm lucky and have not had any issues. I have a permanent mount and run the ASIAir in station mode. My router is only about 50 feet from the telescope, so that may be why. Polar Align Since I have a permanent mount, I haven't tried it. I'll give it a go to see if I can make it work. I'm getting ready to take a trip and need to see if I can make it work on the road. Power A couple of years back I got tired of the whole inadequate power thing... so I bought a regulated 30 amp power supply and have never had another problem. I do run the mount and camera on their own power cable through a hub. It's probably overkill... but less issues. It looks like you got some great advice above... good luck! Ron |
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Gary JONES: *** Hey Gary, that's super helpful ☺️ I started at the zenith and that was plenty of room to capture the images. My first couple of attempts ended up with trees in front lol but when I started at the zenith there was plenty of clear skies for the 3 images. it's a similar workflow to NINA and Stellarmate so I'm reasonably familiar with the process and how to adjust the alt az bolts. The issue I had is I made adjustments and this didn't appear to be reflected when the images refreshed so in the end I made huge adjustments to both alt and az and the PA workflow didn't appear to properly update the PA error. With respect to the wifi. I did step around the scope on more than one occasion so I wonder if that was why the wifi cut out. I wouldn't have thought that would be an issue considering how close my IPAD was to the ASIAIR though. I was powering the ASIAIR through my Pegasus power box which should be pretty stable and I haven't had issues with it before. I guess I can always boot up the Pegasus software this evening on my laptop and check the power distribution. *** |
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Hi Robert, Great - I'm glad that helped I've had a similar experience ... if you don't get the PA inside one of the smaller circles, then it seems that no matter how much adjustment you make to the Alt/Az bolts, the target doesn't move. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it helps a lot to get a reasonably close PA before you begin. Please do try PS Align - it actually works very well. The other traps I fell into :- 1. recenter your Az adjustment before you start - last time I got 99% of the way to a perfect PA, but ran out of thread ! Had to move the tripod and start again. 2. I was looking at the PA target on the iPad so intently whilst adjusting the Alt/Az bolts that I didn't notice the AA+ was displaying 'Solving Failure', thanks to an unfortunately placed palm tree. Make sure you watch out for this one - I fell into this trap a couple of times. 3. Sometimes I made the tiniest adjustments to the Alt/Az bolts, and the target flew from one side of the screen to the other. Another trap - make sure you let go of the adjustment screws between readings - just holding onto them can mess up the adjustment ! Re power ... I'm probably being a bit over-cautious on that side of things - but try to eliminate anything that might cause problems, so I can fix the things that do Also following Scott's advice above - I also invested in a pier extension to avoid clashes with tripod legs - worth every penny. The downside of this is that its raises the centre of gravity of the rig, and with a heavy OTA like mine, the whole lot very nearly fell into the garden bed when imaging near the zenith. So - I designed some weight carriers - see here - to easily add weight to the setup, which makes it much more stable. I hope this helps - would be great if you can post back with the results of your next PA Cheers, Gary |
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Gary JONES: *** Thanks Gary. That's super helpful. I'll give PS align a go. What ever helps really. Despite having a compass and inclinometer my initial alignment is typically not very good and that doesn't help, regardless of what software/device I'm using! I'll report back after tonight. Thanks again 🙂 *** |
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Bob Rucker: Lwizzit: I could not find the recommended tools from Bill Banchards - can you kindly point me where to find them? |
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Gary JONES: *** Hey Gary, I didn't have much luck last night either. Not entirely clear what the issue is 🧐 I haven't been able to use that app yet but it's clear that the initial alignment should be as good as possible! I suspect within 2-3 degrees? I gave up after an hour and switched to NINA on my mini PC. Intially I thought that was going to be much faster but also took a long time. I was able to eventually get the polar alignment to within 5 arc minutes. I've been using a compass and inclinometer to get the initial alignment as close as I can but I still end up being out by 8-10 degrees in some cases. Not really sure why. It's certainly clear that the polar alignment algorithms struggle if the initial alignment isn't very good so it's something I need to work on. I don't want to be wasting lots of time on polar alignment on imaging nights. Most of last night was wasted messing around with the polar alignment. *** |
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Hi Robert, Ooooh dear - that story is soooooo familiar - I've lost count of the number of nights where I gave up after spending hours of trying to get a good PA. Yes, a good initial PA is critical - it does make a huge difference. With your compass - you are using true South, right - not magnetic South - which is about 9° east of magnetic south ? Once you do get a good PA, you might like to mark the positions of your tripod legs - I drilled 3 holes in the patio, so I get the tripod in more-or-less exactly the same spot every time - still, it always requires some tweaking, but usually takes minutes, rather than hours. That trick doesn't work in the field unfortunately BTW - I have been planning to try Nina - how would you compare it to ASOIAir ? I might have a go at loading it up it tonight. Keep at it - would be pleased to learn how you get on Gary |
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Gary JONES: *** Hi Gary, Yes I'm using true south! I've made that mistake before lol. As an update Ive actually returned the ASIAIR plus (the guys I bought it from were very understanding). It's a very nice product but I just wasn't sold on the all sky polar alignment feature and really I'd need to be able to get it too work reliably and quickly in the long run. Maybe I'll revisit it in the future when the software is updated and the all sky polar alignment is released (and not just an experimental feature). I really like NINA. I find it intuitive and easy to use and it packs some powerful features. I'm running it on a mini PC (Mele 3) which was recommended by quiv the lazy geek. He reviewed an earlier version. It can be a little bit sluggish but overall it handles Stellarium/PhD2 and NINA very well. I just have a little but of work to do to set it up so I can remote into it from my iPad. I use Stellarium to pick out targets and send coordinates to NINA so I can slew and use the framing assistant. Plate solving and autofocus work great when properly set up and the polar alignment workflow works much better than the all sky polar alignment feature in ASIAIR (from my experience at least). I actually changed track though and used drift alignment in PHD2 to polar align and got it down to one arc min or less. Took a lot less time than the 3 point. I also would say that if you are an experienced astrophotographer you may prefer the additional capabilities that NINA provides and the control you have over guiding and things like periodic error correction in the mount, setting mount limits.... Etc. It also has a great flat wizard and an advanced sequencer which I haven't even touched yet (appears to give a lot of control how you setup sequences). It's also a well supported product in my experience with regular updates and new functionality coming online. I'm keen to brush up on my coding and start contributing. I think the caveat is that ASCOM/Stellarium/NINA/PhD2 takes a little bit of work to setup and isn't completely free from software bugs. I've definitely has a steep learning curve but feel like I'm starting to findy feet. I've been having issues with my ZW0 2600mc camera failing to download images and not yet clear whether it's a NINA issue or something else. I suspect it's dodgy cables/and or something to do with the sensor temperature but I need to investigate. Otherwise I just want to test that the meridian flip works consistently/reliably and I'm in business. When I'm happy everything is working well I'll take and image of the mini PC and maybe update the software once a year or so. It was my camera acting up at a dark sky site last weekend and precipitated my purchase of the ASIAIR. Dealing with bugs/connection problems does get extremely tiresome at times. Still I'm loving this happy and what I'm learning and the pictures I've been able to take. Happy to chat offline if you can a run through of NINA or how to set it up. I can also point you towards some excellent tutorials on YouTube ☺️ *** |
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Hi Robert, You must be reading my mind ... Ive actually spent the morning getting NINA running one my Mac using parallels - the app works fine, but connections to equipment proved to be unreliable - issues with drivers I suspect. I just pulled my old AlienWare PC out of storage, am blowing the dust off and loading NINA as we speak. I found the ASIAir very easy to set up and use, but the ceiling in terms of functionality is rather low - things like planning sequences I find a bit frustrating, and the WiFi is finicky to set up and unreliable. I'm thinking of getting a PrimaLuce Eagle 4 ... providing I can get my gear running on an actual PC first I might just reach out re NINA - many thanks for the offer Gary |
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Gary JONES: *** Ye, I was pretty disappointed when I first setup the ASIAIR Plus and it was disconnecting. I didn't have any issues the second night when I put my iPad in airplane mode but I suspect that wouldn't have been the last time I'd face connection issues. Bit disappointing seen as one of the selling points of the ASIAIR plus was it's supposed improvements in wifi. Ye, please reach out with any questions or if you want to chat. I don't know your equipment profile but I suspect with a few config steps your connection issues will vanish. *** |
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OK - taking you up on that kind offer Ive loaded NINA on my PC and the app runs just fine. Unfortunately, NINA can't see any of my gear :- ZWO 2600MM ZWO 174MM ZWO EAF ZWO FW ZWO AM5 Windows can see all of these apart from the AM5, but displays 'needs troubleshooting' for the 2 cameras - tried that and restarted - no change. NINA doesn't connect with any of them. Being a Mac user for 30+ years, Ive never needed to download drivers - but I suspect that is the issue - if you have any tips ? Gary |
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Update ... After a bit of research, I downloaded and installed :- - ASI drivers for cameras - ASCOM & C++ & .net framework 3.5 for Windows (after realising the links on the ZWO website appear to be out of date) - ASCOM Drivers for ASI cameras, EFW, EAF and AM5 The following work :- - 2600 MM - 174 MM - FW - after clicking 'Scan' and 'Connect', NINA can see my FW now - and correctly identifies it as having 7 slots - it works ! - EAF - despite ZWO saying no drivers needed, it did not work until I installedphd download ASCOM. - AM5 (after trying every possible com port) The only thing that did not work is Guiding. It took me a while to realise that I need to download and install the guiding software first - PHD2 - d'oh ! Everything works now - beeeeutiful |
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Gary JONES: *** Nice work Gary. Sounds like you are up and running pretty quickly. In general I think the connectivity is superb in NINA. It certainly puts Stellarmate to shame! I hit connect and everything connects without fail bar my Pegasus box (but that manually connects no problems). Autofocus and plate solving need a bit of config. For the autofocus you will need to put in your backlash. If you know this already then you are in business. I use the overshoot method which works really well. Just make sure that you only put backlash in one of the directions. Then you just need to setup up your step size/initial number of steps. Make sure you manually focus first to get a get starting point and turn on star annotation. You will then get an idea of how far you can step the focuser before it stops recognising stars (and screws up the auto focus curve) That pretty much determine how far you need to cover for auto focus and how many steps to put in. Once it's setup it works so really well. For plate solving I use ASTAP. That works really well. You need to download and install and point NINA towards it. I think I've set both plate solving and blind solving to ASTAP but you have other options too. The 3 point polar alignment (if you can't see the pole) is a plug in that you need to install. In terms of sequence generation I suspect you will like being able to adjust the gain when you use different filters. Something I don't think is possible in ASIAIR. A word of caution if you are using Stellarium. In theory you can control/slew your telescope with Stellarium but in practice it kept crashing Stellarium on my mini PC. Once I stopped doing that Stellarium works without issues. I can pick out targets, frame the shot and send the coordinates to NINA with no issues. Rob ** |
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Thanks Rob, All running nicely now, and controlled remotely via my Mac / iPhone / iPad - everything connects with the click of one button. I like the file format settings - have been asking ZWO for years to enable filenames starting with date & time Love the plugins - have downloaded 3PPA + Target Planning + Horizon Creator - very useful. I'm also going to try the 'Synchronisation' plugin - now I can dither with two OTAs on one mount. I'll try plate solving once I take some pictures - have installed ASTAP too, Astronomy.net is too slow for centering. Have you had good results with 3PPA ? I think I'll buy an Eagle4S tomorrow. We should probably bump this chat to a new thread - not wanting to criticise ASIAir, it is a really great device for what it is. Really appreciate your help with all this Gary |
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Gary JONES: *** Yes let's do that. Wasn't my intention to turn this into a NINA thread. I think there has been spent very good discussion in relation to the ASIAIR though. I made a snap decision to return it as it's not the right product for me at this point in time but perhaps in future with a properly released all sky polar alignment workflow (and some better guidance/documentation) I'd consider getting an ASIAIR. For the foreseeable future I'll be working with NINA on the mini PC. *** |
