ASIAIR TOP TIPS

[powerlord]

Still no real other place for asiair as a device, so starting a thread here for top tips that are not in the manual. here's my starter for 10:

 

1. linking it with your wifi not only means you can control it easier, but it also means you can mount the internal and sdcard on your computer (SMB so fine for windoze, linux or mac) - and easy grab all the files off there.

2. it runs linux so if you are familiar you can easily change those Samba shares to be read/write letting you delete stuff and add stuff

3. If you see a picture you like on the forum or elsewhere, you can copy it to the asiair (either via 2 above, or manually putting on sd card) - you can then browse to it on the asiair app and plate solve it and goto! no need to manually enter coordinates. It would be nice if zwo added a way to browse your phone/tablet gallery and do it that way - but still - this can be quite useful.

4. you can only connect 2 phones/tablets to the asiair at one time - but 2 can be useful..see 5

5. on a new mac (mac silicon) you can natively run ios apps. that means you can run asiair app on your mac - even at the same time as running on your phone/tablet - can be handy if you are using your computer

6. if you have more than one asiair, I'd recommend having a phone/tablet for each because of the issue with switching (see 7).

7. you can switch between asiairs on the app, but it does not recover local state well. e.g. you might switch to asiair2 and it shows your mount as connected when you know it isn't - it is still showing the state of asiair2. the same is true of most things. In order to 'sync' it, you have to switch to the asiair you want to use, then close the app, then open it again - it will then reconnect to the last connected asiair and you will see it has now 'syned' to accurately show the status of that asiair. Hence, it is best if possible to use a dedicated device to run the asiair app for each asiair you are using.

8. if you are not sure what the exact FL of your guide scope is, just make it the main camera, shoot and plate solve with FL=0. asiair will work out the exact FL and set it - record this and use it when you switch it back to being your guide camera (note: this might be a bit different to what you thought it was - use the asiair setting).

9. If very accurate positioning is required, once the asiair has completed a goto it is beneficial to shoot another picture, platesolve, and goto again.

10. be aware that the extra step of 9 cannot be done if doing automatic meridian flips- so it's not uncommon for them to be a bit off target.

11. if you have very different setups you share an asiair with (e.g. different mount with different guiding settings, different guide scope, etc) it might make sense for you to take a copy of the sdcard (use something like Apple Pi Baker or Win32DiskImager) and keep each card for that setup - it can avoid you forgetting to reconfigure the backlash or guide tuning or whatever when you swap between your EQ5 and azgti or whatever.

[Lee_P]

Good tips! Here's another:

12. You can create custom targets and framing, then add them to a Plan mode. This means you can image the same bespoke area night after night. Instructions here.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Lee_P