Thank you for your overview of the new ASIAIR OS, astrojourneyuk - and, per Richard's commentary, I just started up my session 2 nights ago, et voilà, software update downloaded and executed providing the new and improved UI and more functionality... surprise! This user's transition to the screens and functions was a relatively straightforward process (been using ASIAIR+ for a number of months)... however I experienced glitches in 'GoTo Centering' and 'All-Sky PA' functions - both processes hung up in plate-solving indicating insufficient stars to complete the plate-solve. I reverted to the older plate-solving process (i > Experimental Features > New Plate-solving Algorithm - disable) and both centering and PA returned to full functionality. I continued throughout the night with reasonable target tracking (guiding total error 0.3"-0.4") and collected several hours of good data. Quite pleased with the AA+ and increased software functionality - makes my 'image capture life' much happier. (Using primary focus of ASKAR 107PHQ, 107mm, f/7, ASI2600MC-P, ASI290MM guide cam, CEM40, and urban Bortle 7.5 skies from my balcony.)
Thanks for sharing your experiences too. I’m still a huge fan of the ASIAIR and I’m amazed there isn’t really a competitor either. I don’t think I’ll try that new plate solver as it sounds a little iffy. Well not just yet. 😂
Nice video. I just updated my ASIAIR pro (automatic) and suddenly I had a new interface! It's always fun (and scary) to see. But it worked well, and I was glad to see the new capabilities, especially the mosaic ones. You mentioned that you didn't notice much change in the PA process. One thing I noticed is that the alignment which produces the smiley face has changed. I think on my rig last night it was 3.5' or so, when it always used to be 2'. I suspect it might now be taking into account the FL of your scope (?) I was shooting with a 115 APO, f/7 reduced to f/5.6, for a 644mm focal length.
Thanks Richard. I didn’t take a long look at the PA. But actually I do remember the PA error being quite a bit different and at the time though it might be a bug. I haven’t found any details on the changes yet though. Glad to see the update is out now though.
Just updated and several of the features you mentioned I was wishing for my last imaging session. I only have the northern sky from my backyard so being able to filter "best tonight" by N, E, W half of the sky is a huge time save when picking an object. Also being able to stack your fits without have to do it in "Live" mode was something I was hoping for. Thanks for the video!
I tried the stacking and wasn’t impressed with the results. I put it down to something going wrong with what I did so didn’t share but might try again. I would love the ability to connect to the app with the last device settings so I can setup plans etc in advance. Maybe one day.
@@astrojourneyuk I tried it too and it wouldn't let me stack during shooting so I guess "Live" mode stacking is the only way. The stacked image I did make, not during shooting, was ok enough to give me an idea if I was capturing the nebula aligned correctly. Took a long time to stack only 9 images.
@@astrojourneyuk My idea was to use it on faint/diffuse nebulas where one 3 min light frame isn't enough to insure good alignment of what you want to capture. I'll stick with DSS for my processing workflow.
Hey! Thanks for this. I'm very tempted to try out the beta myself now 👍 Seems like they might thinking about EAA with some of those on-board image editing and sharing features. That's how my family and I use ours and a bit more control over the image presentation without having to download and edit separately will be great.
@@astrojourneyuk Hi, EAA is Electronically Assisted Astronomy. I've also seen it referred to as EEA (electronically enhanced astronomy) and I think you have another name for it in the UK. My family and I recently bought a simple imaging rig with an ASIair to augment the visual experience that we enjoy with our dob. Our images are nothing compared with what you and others produce, but we have tons of fun, which is our main goal. Cheers!
Ahh thanks for that clarification. You are exactly right, it’s about having fun and getting enjoyment out of seeing the sky above us. Thanks for taking the time to chat.
Sorry for that. Sometimes I feel like I’m punished by RU-vid to cram things into short videos because it doesn’t favour long videos. Although I seem to have created a 1.5 hour PixInsight video that I’m currently editing and hopefully decide to post!
At the moment, who knows. There’s no date that’s officially communicated. I’ve asked but not got a response. I guess it’s released when it’s ready. I’ve had a few issues with my EQ6-R pro mount and they’ve now been fixed.
Thank you, I hope you found it useful. I've been using it further last week and have a few more points to add. I tried the Deep Sky Stacking feature, although I still not convinced on the benefit of including it as a feature or it's current capabilities.
Think I'll wait until its a full release, love my air plus, would never,ever go back to a laptop. Even though my scopes have a manual rotator I would still buy an electronic one if Zwo released one.
I completely agree with you. I see no reason to go back to a laptop and this device just makes everything so much easier. If only there was an auto stack and process the image, but I guess where’s the fun in that eh? 😂
Yours is the only video I’ve seen that discusses the mosaic feature. Can you plan for that during the day, save it, and then repeat it multiple nights easily? One night of mosaics wouldn’t be enough and I’d want to use the same coordinates for each panel each time. Thanks!
Maybe. So, you can plan it during the day but only if you have everything connected up. When the device platesolves it rotates the field of view to the correct orientation and that is needed for mosaic planning. I’m not sure if it remembers this each time. However, once you have planned everything you add the coordinates to a plan and then you can use that night after night.
Great video - thanks for the breakdown of the new features. One thing I keep thinking they’ll fix is the target search feature. If you search for a DSO by its common name it doesn’t seem to work. For example “IC 1805” works but no result is found for “Heart.” Am I doing it wrong or do they need to upgrade that?
They really do need to provide that feature. I’m not sure why they haven’t done it because it wouldn’t be that big a change compared to some of the other features they’ve put in.
Always love your videos and helpful presentations. You may not be able to help with this, but I’d thought I ask. I’ve been trying to implement the mosaic on the new update. I’ve tried everything, I’m exhausted. I’m able to get the panes transferred into the plan mode but, typically I either get “select a target” (which I don’t understand since the target name is clearly listed in the box) or my imaging gets stuck on the same pane and not progressing to the second, third, etc. pane. I just did a firmware update…I know I’m missing something…..I thought you might have some insight on this mode and could give me the precise sequence of how to get plan mode to work with the mosaic. If so, I’d love for you to break the process down to the most minute level. I’ve wasted three nights now, and I’ve tried every trial-and-error combo. Help! Thank you so much for being such a resource.
Hi Joseph, sorry to hear that you’re having issues. Let me see what I can do about a video. Although sadly at the moment (and typically most nights) it’s cloudy and raining here so I will be a while likely before it clears. Windy City Astro has a video on the mosaic feature so that might be worth a look.
Very good review! I haven't installed the new beta version yet. I am intrigued by what the process would be like to frame a mosaic, that is, how it informs the degrees of rotation of the camera that must be done to match the frame that one wants. Maybe it would be nice if you could show this in another video. Thank you very much!
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I’ll see what I can do on the mosaic testing and frame rotation. Here’s hoping for some clear nights to play about with the features.
Yes that’s right. Once you’ve plate solved the camera field of view is correctly oriented. Once you’ve got that you can add the mosaics in and add them to a plan. If you haven’t got the rotation correct there is a feature to continuously take images and plate solve and rotate the camera and it will update. Similar to how the polar alignment process works, I.e. take image, plate solve, update view repeat.
I did try it out finally. Did the polar alignment, go to, auto focus, etc. New features are promising. The only annoying feature of this beta is the smaller size of text and buttons, which may be a disadvantage when using ASiair on the phone. Although I was using the iPad Mini, it was not comfortable when clicking here and there.
I didn’t want to install it on my phone as I was still using my plus with the phone. However, I did note that on the change list for the update that there are changes to the iPad version that might be different to the phone. I must admit that the text does still seem a little on the small side though.
Thanks for this review it was very informative to me I'm a little disappointed (being new to the AA+) that there is not roi or adc support, or pass-through support for remote desktop control.
Hi Gary, thanks for dropping by. Quick question, what is ROI & ADC in this context? On the last point I think there could be a root to this but with an intermediate machine, so ASIAIR runs on MacOS as well now and Android you can run on Bluestacks. So you could Remote Desktop to that machine and then get to the ASIAIR device. However, it's not insurmountable to be able to support a direct internet connection, with a good level of security though!
@@astrojourneyuk Thanks for the quick response! ROI- region of interest (i.e. to change the size of image field to speed up real time camera display for focusing and other setup); ADC- atmospheric dispersion corrector configuration support tools like sharpcap/asiCap provides. Being a newbie I'm still learning the tools and their capabilities. Yes, I could load Bluestacks (and did but removed it); or run 2 PCs with VNC, but its all a bit of a kludge. I assumed incorrectly that the AA+ would allow a fast camera connection, but it doesn't, on the bright side, it does do other things quite well.
Do you know if you can have 2 AsiAir units, one with the beta software to play with, and a second asiair that is used for imaging? My fear is if I update the spare Asiair I will be forced to update my second one.
You can if you have two mobile devices. Once you get the beta app it is that which updates your ASIAIR and you can’t go back. I used my iPad for the beta and kept my phone version on the current public release.
I’ve been using it with my ASI183MC Pro, 120MM Mini & EQ6-R Pro and it’s worked mostly without issue. There were issues with connecting it to the mount a couple of times via direct USB connection but it’s ok now.
I gave the stacking a quick go the other week and I was rather disappointed in the results. It seems that it didn't handle meridian flipped images too well and didn't calibrate out the amp glow from my ASI183MC Pro at all despite having all the correct calibration frames. :(
