How To Connect Your Star Adventurer GTI to the ZWO ASIAir 

Hahahaha hearing protection 🤣🤣🤣 That little battery pack is soooo good 😌 The colour is ok I guess 😉 I do think you’ll see lots of these at star parties while the big rigs are left at home in more permanent setups. If they could come up with an auto home sensor in a future version then wow. Even get rid of the battery pack and add some extra electronics or a electronic polar scope that can wifi into their app, that would be cool too.

@@StevenMorrisPhotography Good suggestions!

Good video! Have you had any problems powering the Star Adventurer GTI with the ASIAIR? Usually it common to power the mount apart from the ASIAIR, but the GTI may be the exception if it’s power draw is low.

Your very welcome 😀

Yes I remember those days of lugging so much gear around including a table and seat, things have changed so much in the past 5 years and is only getting better the more people are starting to get into astro.

Sorry, I don’t think I do have any videos for polar alignment with an asiair system as I currently no longer use an asiair anynore.

No star alignment was done after polar alignment. If using the ASIAir system when you slew to an object the system will plate solve that part of the Sky and make necessary adjustments if the object isn’t central so a star alignment isn’t needed.

If your using an ASIAir and a zwo camera you should plug in into the ASIAir. Sorry for the delay in reply.

The Lithium power bank is a 15Ah which lasts throughout the night not a problem. What I also like about the power supply is that it has a 3.5mm jack like you mentioned. It also has 2 x USB ports and other outputs. If your looking into buying the GTI and AIS Air to start out with it's a very good start in equipment. The GTI mount is a little noisy though, just a heads up and if you can stretch your budget to a Celestron AVX mount or Sky-Watcher equivalent then you are future proofing yourself a little further. The GTI is still a great little portable mount.

Ive looked up the AVX, as good as it looks with better weight handling, Im seeing horrible reviews because of gear backlash. Have you heard the same? Im just trying to weigh out my options. I think the GTI will hold me off for a bit. I do have mirrorless cameras with 135mm, 200mm, and 300mm to work with for now. Im really liking that 400mm Skywatcher 62ED evolux. That would be 600mm equivalent on crop sensor camera right? Im definitely not wanting to spend all that much right now on higher tier gear. Im fancied by hooking up an asi air plus into a GTI and using my tablet to do it sll from. That video you made really caught my eye haha Plus, I love the portability of the GTI. Are you still just as giddy about it now as you were when it came out? I figure I can start with my dslr and lenses, then buy actual telescopes and camera later when Im feeling more confident with my experience and processing. Until then, I think the GTI would hold me off for quite a bit with what I can capture with its limit of 5kg? What do you think? Thanks a lot pal!

@-R-A-I-N-Y- everyone I know including me love the little AVX, but the gti is a cool little mount that you can carry out with one hand tripod and all, plonk it down and get started. When in use with lenses it will be perfectly suited and can handle a scope, just a light weight one. 5kg is max, I pushed it a little further and it still handled things as long as it’s well balanced.

You would need to enter the guide scope details as the main scope for the polar alignment process. Once you’ve polar aligned then connect your camera up. I’m not sure if the Fuji is compatible, if it is great.

This is something that I don't understand. When using the ASIAIR with a guiding scope, do you have to polar align the mount itself, or will the software and guidescope be able to figure out where in the night sky it is pointing?

I just used the cables that came with the AsiAir to power the mount. You could do that, im also using those same cables to run from the asiair to a power bank so I don’t see why not

@@StevenMorrisPhotography so the asi comes with extra power cables?

Yeah they asiair pro came with extra power cables for each 12volt outlet on the asiair. I was able to use that for my power pack because it had that style connection

Not to my knowledge and I haven’t used an Asiair in a while as I’ve been occupied with the triplets and NINA, so the GTI hasn’t been used in a while. Sorry I can’t help you out anymore than that at the moment and nothing is coming to mind when I had used the asiair during the summer months. If it’s going in the wrong direction the sometimes that could be the north / south hemisphere problem? It thinks your in the northern hemisphere? So double check and make sure it knows your in the southern hemisphere. That’s all that I can suggest, sorry I can’t help you any more than that mate. Good luck and let me know what you worked out.

That’s interesting, I haven’t updated the software on it since it was released, I would have to check and see what firmware version I’m running. Have you updated the firmware on the gti?

Hi mate, do you have a printer cable laying around. That’s all I used so try that first and if it works then that’s all you need to buy is a printer cable 😊

@@StevenMorrisPhotography many thanks Steve 😊 I am buying one and I hope to learn how to get the best out of my rig. I will keep watching your fantastic videos

I run lithium power packs. The brand is called Thumper and they are located in South Australia, Mount Barker.

@@StevenMorrisPhotography thanks for that, I will look them up.

Hi Todd, personally myself I haven’t done any guiding with mine. I’ve only used the asiair to do polar alignment as well as control the camera and goto functions like plate solving etc. It all seems to work perfectly fine but I can’t comment on the guiding aspect. I also haven’t updated my gti since it was released, I haven’t checked if there has been new updates. If things work I don’t do updates because it can introduce new bugs and cause things to malfunction sometimes.

@@StevenMorrisPhotography thank you for the reply!

Hi Todd, I’ve actually quite some problems as you described My set up is: AsiAir Plus (tried both the V2.0 and V2.1 with the respective Firmware) Star Adventurer GTI (also used the 3.44 and the latest 3.45 Firmware) Guide Camera Zwo Mini 120mm (connected to the AsiAirplus) Main Camera Sony A7III (connected to the AsiAir Plus) I've tested both the USB-B to USB-A Cable as well as the EQMOD (Cable RJ45 to USB-A) for connecting the AsiAir Plus to the Star Adventure GTI. So, now to the problem, the ASI app starts good, I can connect easily the camera (in V2.1 version, obviously not in the V2.0 version), the Zwo Mini as a guidescope and the mount (EQMod Mount selected). Now: whenever I control with the arrow buttons the mount, it first works maybe once or twice I touch them but then the mount doesnt stop slewing. Same issue when I Goto to a deepspace object it just starts slewing but never stops and I cannot cancel it - the SA GTI does not stop. When I just use the Syncscan App to control the SA GTI it works just fine, no issues at all so it must be the AsiAir Plus.

@@nickr3252 hi! Did you find a solution to this ? As well as this issue when I hit home it goes past the home position :-/

No the GTI power source comes from a power supply. If your powering it through an asiair Plus and you can control the power ports via the app make sure they are on. If not check the GTI to see if the red led is blinking, if so it should be on.

I’ll see what I can do in a future video to assist. You need to make sure your main camera is connected and the focal length of your telescope or lens is entered correctly or it can’t plate solve. Once that’s done you should be able to access to polar alignment feature.

@@StevenMorrisPhotography thanks so much. I had the Star Adventurer 2i pro and am replacing it with the GTI and added the ASIAIR with the 120mm guide scope. I’ve got an A7III and will be using the 200600G for deepspace. Polar alignment with the 2i was a pain and fumbly 🙈

with the syn scan pro application the mount works correctly

So the AsiAir system can help with polar alignment, equipment expansion and compatibility, image planning and camera control as long as the camera is compatible etc. the Skywatcher app is ok for basic functions. I hope this helps.

@@StevenMorrisPhotography thank you

I’d say so, if your using the tablet just to operate the asiair then you’ll be fine because the files don’t save to the tablet, they save to a SD card or internal hard drive space on the ASIAir to transfer to your computer ready for processing later. If your using a dslr then you can save it to the memory card.

Thanks!

I have the exact same issue, and it is driving me crazy!! Did you ever find a fix for this? I know it's been a few months since you posted this.

@@strykker666 sorry, I missed your comment. I managed somehow to make it work. Not sure what did the trick though, but here's what I did: I updated the mount firmware and the ASIAIR app version. I turned off the flipping settings on the synscan app. I set up the meridian flip settings to 5 minutes each (stop guiding 5 minutes before MF and start capturing 5 minutes after MF). Hope this helps.

@@JohdagM I'll give it a try tonight. Thanks!