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ZWO ASiair Incoming


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2 hours ago, Grant said:

Not to mention how you would get all of those wireless connections to work simultaneously?

Thats what Indi is all about IMO - distributed - so a number of devices/drivers running on a number of lower power / cheap SCB's.

I have mount control on one RPI3 ,DSLR on another RPI3 and Kstars/KOS running on a 8gb 64bit Desktop to do all the heavy work - Platesolve etc.

RPI3 running Ubuntu 16.04 does allow for creating a wireless hotspot thru simple commands  - read this http://indilib.org/support/tutorials/169-ekos-on-raspberry-pi-complete-guide.html  - it works for me except for below ?.  

The bug bear is I too have to use the handset as per ASIair( i was hoping ZWO had done something more and removed the handset) - I drive an Grab and Go AZ  so Eqmod is not much use at the moment ? 

 

Thanks for the info Grant keep playing sorry working ?

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 25/07/2018 at 15:02, FLO said:

Astrophotography without a PC or laptop! 

The new ZWO ASiair is going to make astrophotography, especially portable astrophotography, a whole lot easier ? 

ETA early August. Price to be confirmed. 

 

zwo_asiair.jpg

zwo_asiair%5B1%5D.jpg

zwo_asiair%5B2%5D.jpg

The UK price has been set at £172 ? 

Our first delivery of ZWO ASiair is scheduled to arrive in 7-10 days. 

HTH, 

Steve 

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  • 4 months later...

I'm still having a lot of fun with this little gadget and with each software update, it gets better and better.

With wishful thinking on Sunday I was getting things setup for the Lunar eclipse and I was running out of power supplies for the ASIair, and it occurred to me - why don't I plug it in to the back of the ASI1600 where there is a powered USB hub? This worked a treat so meant the ASI1600 was plugged into the ASIair and the ASIair's power input was plugged into the ASI1600's USB hub - saving me some cables and made for quite a neat setup.

Had a good night getting my little grab and go setup setup Wednesday which has proved the concept so I just need a proper long night of clear skies to get some real data and a better method of polar alignment as I cannot see Polaris from my garden :(

 

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9 minutes ago, Grant said:

With wishful thinking on Sunday I was getting things setup for the Lunar eclipse and I was running out of power supplies for the ASIair, and it occurred to me - why don't I plug it in to the back of the ASI1600 where there is a powered USB hub? This worked a treat so meant the ASI1600 was plugged into the ASIair and the ASIair's power input was plugged into the ASI1600's USB hub - saving me some cables and made for quite a neat setup.

I have done a similar thing before now, but keep an eye on its behaviour.  When I tried it the power output from the hub was clearly a little marginal and the RPi whinged regularly about an under-voltage supply.  Finally one (I had several, each powered from its own powered hub) just refused to boot at all.  In the end I bought one of those charging station units for USB devices and plugged them all into that.  They've been fine ever since.

James

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3 hours ago, Grant said:

a better method of polar alignment as I cannot see Polaris from my garden

Does the asiair have an all star polar alignment, similar to celestron/skywatcher? Otherwise you may need to do a drift align. Ekos and phd between them, have several methods for polar alignment. A slight advantage for the competition, StellarMate, I believe.

Btw, using a micro usb contact for power supply is one of the weak points of the Raspberry Pi. It may work great indoors, but it's not really suitable for astro gear. A coaxial barrel contact would be better, imo.

Is the lack of a usb3 port for the camera noticable? ZWO recommend usb3 for their cameras.

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1 hour ago, wimvb said:

Does the asiair have an all star polar alignment, similar to celestron/skywatcher? Otherwise you may need to do a drift align. Ekos and phd between them, have several methods for polar alignment. A slight advantage for the competition, StellarMate, I believe.

Btw, using a micro usb contact for power supply is one of the weak points of the Raspberry Pi. It may work great indoors, but it's not really suitable for astro gear. A coaxial barrel contact would be better, imo.

Is the lack of a usb3 port for the camera noticable? ZWO recommend usb3 for their cameras.

No polar alignment features in the ASIair yet, but I believe some are planned.

I used a StellarMate prior to the ASIair but found the tablet / phone app for the ASIair far superior for control then having to use VNC to remote on to the PI.

I thought ZWO recommended their USB3.0 cameras on windows because the driver for their USB3.0 cameras works better on newer versions of Windows? For long exposure work, USB2.0 is absolutely fine and as this is what the ASIair is intended for, I've not noticed any problems - download times take a few seconds but it's not a major issue and during focusing it loops much quicker.

 

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That's the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thanks @Grant.

How is device support with ASIair? AfaIk, only ZWO cameras are supported, which makes sense from a camera manufacturer. But what about other hardware? E.g., I have a Pegasus Astro focuscube with my SW scope.

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7 hours ago, Grant said:

better method of polar alignment as I cannot see Polaris from my garden :(

 

Just following on from Wim's suggestion. What mount do you have? If on a tripod and you set up on your garden slabs then you could drill 3 indentations in the slabs where the tripod sits. I've done this and it's a real time saver. Or resin 3 washers onto the slabs. That way your tripod will always go back in the exact same spot. As for polar aligning the mount. I'm assuming you drift align if the conditions allow? If after a good alignment could you not rig up a cheap laser pen permanently attached to a non rotating part of the mount and make a mark/target somewhere in your garden? The further from the mount the better? Or remove the polar scope seeing as you don't need it and try and rig a laser down through the mount to a mark on the floor? Though the idea of a laser dot further away will make for better fine tuning. Might get you pretty close next time you set up.

I appreciate none of this might be applicable to your setup but it's something I've thought about so just sharing a few ideas?!

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4 hours ago, wimvb said:

That's the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thanks @Grant.

How is device support with ASIair? AfaIk, only ZWO cameras are supported, which makes sense from a camera manufacturer. But what about other hardware? E.g., I have a Pegasus Astro focuscube with my SW scope.

ZWO cameras and devices only but I believe DSLR support is being added soon.

 

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2 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

Just following on from Wim's suggestion. What mount do you have? If on a tripod and you set up on your garden slabs then you could drill 3 indentations in the slabs where the tripod sits. I've done this and it's a real time saver. Or resin 3 washers onto the slabs. That way your tripod will always go back in the exact same spot. As for polar aligning the mount. I'm assuming you drift align if the conditions allow? If after a good alignment could you not rig up a cheap laser pen permanently attached to a non rotating part of the mount and make a mark/target somewhere in your garden? The further from the mount the better? Or remove the polar scope seeing as you don't need it and try and rig a laser down through the mount to a mark on the floor? Though the idea of a laser dot further away will make for better fine tuning. Might get you pretty close next time you set up.

I appreciate none of this might be applicable to your setup but it's something I've thought about so just sharing a few ideas?!

The point on the wall is a good idea - ideally a hole through the house pointing at Polaris ?

I’ve done the marks on slabs previously and that was great and saved a lot of time so will definitely do that again as well.

I am hoping polar alignment routines will also be added to the ASIair in future to help automate the process a bit.

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10 minutes ago, DaveS said:

I'm noting that the ASIair isn't compatible with the ASI 120 USB2, yet FLO are selling an ASIair / ASI120 / mini guide-scope bundle :confused:.

That’s because it is compatible with the ASI120 Mini :)

The ‘mini’ cameras whilst USB2.0 use the new drivers and chipsets and do work fine on the ASIair, it’s only the older generation of USB2.0 cameras that don’t work with the ASIair - all cameras currently for sale will work just fine.

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On 25/01/2019 at 16:12, wimvb said:

That's the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thanks @Grant.

How is device support with ASIair? AfaIk, only ZWO cameras are supported, which makes sense from a camera manufacturer. But what about other hardware? E.g., I have a Pegasus Astro focuscube with my SW scope.

It has been said by ASI that autofocus will be coming soon, and, as the pegasus has INDI drivers, I would expect it to be OK

I'm also waiting for that.

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