Update: The USB method now works very well with my Celestron CGX. I highly recommend ditching the ST-4 connection in favor of USB. With the USB route, you can plate-solve, meridian-flip, guide, and control your mount. It is much, much better!
I am so happy to hear your experience and updated endorsement! I like USB connection -- Dumb question though (I am still a beginner!) do you still connect guide scope directly to mount with ST4 cable AS WELL AS the USB cable to the computer (I do; but I am not sure if that is redundant--I use Computer to control mount----so much to still learn!)
I just got an asiair and I got everything working the first night out. However my autoguiding wasnt so great. This turorial answered alot of questions I had and improved my guiding the next time I went out. Thanks, subscribed
Hi, great video and tutorial, helps m,e a lot as an beginner to set my ASIAIR+ with my equipment. Finally works good and I have a base to train for my first photos...greetings from Germany! Fritz
Great information I have been playing with the settings and I think I see a few mistakes.Thank you for explaining what each setting does and why you use those times .Of course it’s cloudy tonight I just got my guide scope focused last night.I can’t wait to change my settings!🙂
So the calibration steps and the duration corrections you spoke to, whats the symptom of them being too low or high? How do you know if 500ms is too low, for example?
I am watching this video in preparation to getting my ASI Air Pro delivered and so the main things I wanted to see is how everything gets connected and then how you go through the prompts to getting it reading everything correctly. I’m sure I will ultimately figure this stuff out when I get my equipment in but some of the mundane things you need to do would be a great video walkthrough.
Good info on guiding and dithering. Finally, after months of waiting for stock and then delivery, I received the AISAIR Pro 2 days ago. Only have had one quick session with it last night so far. WiFi wasn't behaving itself too well, but some of that may be the position of the Air on my setup. I may need a WiFi extender. So first baddie about the Air - not great WiFi (hey, its just a Raspberry Pi!). Being a cutdown version of PHD2, one does lack some things. For example, you cannot build a library of bad pixels, so one has to be careful and make sure you are guiding on an actual star. Cooling my ZWO 1600mm Pro went fine, except there is no warming it up at the end of a session to (supposedly) prevent any temperature shock. The best thing was Polar Aligning, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where this can be a real pain! I have been using the QHY Polemaster, but used the AIR last night. I think I got my best alignment ever! Plate solving worked quickly and efficiently and subsequent goto's worked well. I am still awaiting delivery of a ZWO guide camera, so no guiding last night. But with 20x30 secs exposures, there was just about NO movement at all of my subject over that 10 minutes (maybe just a few pixels which was possibly the seeing conditions). So yeah, good balance and PA with the AIR did that trick (and of course a good mount). All in all, not sure about the AIR yet. But like anything, there are good and bad points. Still, have only used it once (again with no guiding), so still plenty of opportunity for the AIR to shine ;-) Hope it does shine so I have less cables and no laptop outside.
Birregurra Astronomy Yeah I was unsure when I first got mine too, but I love it now. It does have less features for guiding but that can always be updated later on. My biggest beef with it is the wi-fi range. It’s terrible. They should have some external antennae added to the devices on a future rendition! The PA feature is nice too, especially since the ASI Air and PoleMaster are almost the same price and that’s all the PoleMaster does. Not having to take my laptop outside and never having cable snags makes it all worth it to me.
Thanks for a very well performed video and excellent narrative. I like also your breaks for in-depth explanations. For me, living in Sweden, the ambient temperature is often below zero (C), which means the ASIAIR no longer works. I have had to build a small wooden box to house it. I use a 5W bulb to keep the temperature up. During the summer it is usually too light to get any good photos, so astronomy is not made easy for us living in the north.
Thanks for all of your informational videos. I have an AT102ED and the ZWO ASIAIR Plus, I'm using a ZWO ASI 224 color and a SVBONY SV165 Mini Guide Scope 30mm F4 for guiding. My problem is that it loops and then goes into "calibration" but never starts guiding ?? What am I doing wrong ? lol.....thanks for advice you might have......Mike, Ohio
Thanks for the video. The cooling stats show that it is "cooling". Also the target is clearly set. But how do we know what is the current temperature of camera?
Thanks for the update. In the 4 sessions I have used it, I have been struggling to get good guiding with my ASIAir Pro (mainly RA problems). I have blamed it on my somewhat poor seeing conditions but wasn't really sure. I have polar aligned to about 40" of total error (I think that is good enough??). I have tried adjusting the exposure and aggressiveness, but i still was getting a total RMS guiding error of about 2". I'm going to try changing the default calibration, Dec and RA times as you suggested. Hopefully this will help. Thanks again.
David Helster Polar alignment really can help out! I’ve try and get mine to 1-0” every session. I use the Polemaster or Air, and then use the Celestron ASPA to really tighten it up. ASPA is so easy to do when you’re basically already aligned! With practice you’ll get better. I’ve noticed every session my guiding starts improving. The area of the sky really affects things too. Guiding near the zenith is tough since the mount kind of just floats there and can get backlash.
1st you need to get a good PA, but then one has to consider the capability of your guide-scope system’s images scale and the quality of your mount. Then of course there is the question of what quality of seeing you actually have. You can check that with the Astrospheric App. It collects NASA and Canadian sky data to provide a forecast. What defaults are you referring to? In any event if you have something like a Zwo guide scope mini with only a 120mm your image scale is about 6 arc-seconds. That’s fine if you have a short focal length lens through which you quality of stars what show how bad your tracking it, but your guide scope system may always be very limited by the image scale. ZWO doesn’t know what the default settings should be. I’ve tried Phd2’s defaults of 2500 and my guiding got much worse. I also use max durations around 400-650 and get veyr good results. Not only is Zwo’s Phd a ‘light’ version I be it is also a very old version of Phd. Ten years ago the Phd defaults were 300. When you system is working you will find the quality of guiding is certainly tied to the seeing conditions. Besides an average RMS guiding result you want the ratio of the DEC average and the RA average to be close to one. Otherwise you might get a very good total average but if the ratio is not close to one you may still produce ovoid stars. Note also if you are looking obliquely throught the atmosphere your guide star will often look terrible. Finally when it comes to adjustments one needs to turn off; Correctiosn: Hide so the correction pulses are reveal. Watch are the pulse and aggression so strong your RA trace races past the axis to the other direction. If so back off one the adjustments so the graphs are naturally but quickly brought back to the axis. If you are dithering your graph will look worse so for adjustments and checking your performance turn the dither off.
TheDesert IsPatient Great response! Unfortunately I can’t pin it because it’s a reply, but thanks for the input on how to improve guiding. This tutorial is mainly a how to get started, but you’re right, so much goes into it. It’s why I went with the ZWO 178MM for guiding. The small pixel size gives me pretty good sampling on the 210mm Guidescope. Thanks again-
Thanks to the both of you for responding. As someone who is new to astrophotography, I am amazed and thankful for the help the community provides. I didn't realize that 40" of polar alignment error was too much. I guess I got all excited by the ASIAir's green smily face telling me what a good job I did. My next time out I will spend more time getting my polar alignment more accurate. I will also adjust the calibration, RA and Dec times as you suggested in the video. If that doesn't work, I will try and connect with the full version of PHD2. My error is mostly RA and it bounces back and forth (even with aggression very low). I am using the ZWO ASI120MM mini guide camera (with the ZWO mini scope) and a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro mount. Thanks again.
Very informative video, thank you so much. Would you recommend any site to learn all about technical aspects of guiding ? I use an Asiair Plus, but the provided ZWO user guide is not updated at all.
I am coming in late so forgive my remedial questions. I am using a Celestron AVX mount. Everything works fine except for the guiding. I notice that you used to use the ST4. I assume that went from the guide camera to the mount? What about the connection to the ASIair? Could you give a brief explanation or guide me to any videos you did on the use of the ST4? Thank you !!!
Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I will learn from it. However, I have a question. Since a couple of months I use ASIair plus. I purchased it to control my EAF motorfocus. Last weekend I connected the first time ASIair with my Goto (with a USB cable). I have no guiding scope and camera yet. I simply performed a two star alignment plus three calibration stars manually on my Celestron mount as usual. After that I choosed the California nebula from the catalogue prompted by ASIair. The tube slewed into position and (new to me) the tube did two short moves in order to center the nebula. On my ASIair a message appeared that the object has been centered successfully. From then on, the tube was perfectly kept in position. One and half hour it showed no drift while live stacking. So, my question is: Does ASIair contain some "built-in" guiding features? Do you know about that by chance? Thanks for a short reply.
Hi, very nice video. Than, you can guide with st4 cable (+usb cable from guide camera to asiair) or without st4 cable and only usb cable from guide camera to asiari, correct?thnks a lot!
For a beginner visual + astrophotographer looking for a 8" or 9.25" aperture, which EQ mount + OTA + autoguider + camera would you recommend ? Celestron(AVS/CGEM etc + OTA + autoguider) or Skywatcher or AM5 ? Priority on easy learning curve, setup, decent accuracy, reasonable cost ?
Can you please help me? I've been looking all over the internet for information on this but really haven't found anthing. In your video you explain that you changed your Calibration step/Max DEC/MAX RA for better preformace... Can you please exlpain how you got to that? What each one does and why you would want to change the numbers? How to tell from guiding your not getting good results? Any help with this would be great!
Thank you so much for the insight! I would have figured it out eventually, but the video really helped clear up my guiding issues and saved me a lot of time. I do use the USB method and I really like it. However the ST4 cable is still in my wiring harness, just in case. the stars are pin point and my images are nice and sharp. Again thanks a bunch!
@@fabrizioveneziano9003 Let me clarify.....the guide camera runs directly to the asiair. My asi eaf and the usb connection from my mount connect to a usb 2.0 hub that in turn connects to the asi air. I ran out of 2.0 ports on the air. If you do it that way don't use a 3.0 hub, it won't work.
Hi Cody, off topic but just a suggestion. I'd love to see how you do your post processing, what tools do you use and what workflows. Thanks for all you're doing to advance my understanding of this hobby!
Have the guiding issues people were having with the ASIAirPro been corrected? I know it was affecting version 1.5.1. I have just acquired an Air Pro and all of my equipment is communicating but I haven’t had a clear night to try my guiding which incidentally will be the very first time I have guided in my life. I put it off forever but finally jumping on the wagon. If you or anyone out there can help a new guider like me, please do. Thanks!
I really enjoyed your video 😁. During your setup, did you have the auto restore calibration function turned on or off during your session? I hope you can advise. All the very best, Dougie from Scotland.
@@AstroBlender that's awesome, thanks so much for your speedy reply 👍. I had it on last time and all the stars looked like tiny circles of light. Some people advised me that my scope was out of focus, but I thought it odd that only a few middle images were in focus and the ones at the start and finish of my session were not. Thanks so much for your advice. All the very best.
Hi Cody, I had problems guiding near Polaris. I did my normal calibration routine near the Meridian and Celestial equator (Redcat 51, AM5 mount). I ended up with star trailing, double stars, and when I later "blinked" through the subs, the stars were rotating around Polaris. Can you think of anything I need to be aware of when imaging Polaris?
Very confused. It seems that the ST4 cable from guide camera to iOptron CEM26 mount will not allow a meridian flip. I am told by you and others a usb cable connection of some sort is required. However, I have never come across instructions on how to do this with my mount and ASI290 mm mini guide camera. There are two sockets in my hand controller, one goes directly to the ASIAIR and the other from the hand controller to the mount. I am at a loss on how to do this. Perhaps I don't need the ST4 cable from guide camera to the mount. Perhaps it does its guiding job and meridian flip just by being connected to the ASIAIR via the power connection from my main ZWO camera. My guide camera is recognized by ASIAIR when the ST4 cable is removed. Help please. Thanks.
Anyway you can do a video of post? (.fit to Lightroom, Photoshop, or PixInsight). I’m having an issue where all of my images are green and just look like crap coming off of the ASIAIR Pro. Maybe I’m missing a step...
In my guiding display, I never see the red and blue curves. I just see a red and blue thin line at the very beginning. It never develops into a changing curve. The numbers on the right read RA: 597" and DEC 640". Im not sure what I'm doing wrong. Also. I tried the go to feature to slew to Saturn and it's not slewing anywhere close to it. Polar alignment worked fine but something is seriously not right.
Since it has been sometime since you made this video are there any significant changes you would make to your setup? I found your video very helpful. Thanks
I know this isn't really a Q&A section, but after successfully guiding my 8" sct on the first outing with the ASiair and my small 32mm guide scope off my Redcat, I received a new longer focal length guide scope and asi120mm camera. Now, my guiding calibration will not complete and I get an error message "Calibrate failed, check settings and try again.". I've checked to make sure all specs were input correctly, adjusted the calibration steps from high to low and all in-between, no success. I even reinstalled my small guide scope and camera, still fails. I've found zero info to aid in fixing this. Any suggestions you can give? Once agian, thanks for making these videos, more than a few of them have helped me immensely.
Thanks for this great video Cody. Like many I struggle with guiding, but usually get similar results to yours in this video, so will be happy with that for now. I’ve only tried to dither once but also had issues so will try your settings and see how that goes. As I have a lot of un dithered subs can you stack those wth dithered, or wont that work, I use DSS or Pixinsight. Cheers John.
You can stack dithered and undithered subs, no problem. For me dithering is the easy part - and absolutely essential! My dithered images are much less noisy than undithered. Just make sure your pixel movement is appropriate to your image scale. Keep practicing and you’ll get it down. I still am improving guiding and trying to get things really tight, night in and night out.
I'm confused a bit from the outset. He has ASIAIR Pro, but polar aligned with his hand controller. Why? Also, my guide cam is connected via USB cable into the main cam, which is connected to the ASIAIR. Frees up a port on the ASIAIR. It works fine. Why doesn't he just connect the guide cam either to his main cam via USB or the ASIAIR?
I've just wanted what seems like a simple answer to connecting the ASIAIR Pro to my CGX-L. None of the experts at Celestron nor online vendor tech support said something as simple as: "Connect x cable from y to z. Now,I hope this hasn't been answered below, but if I connect an ST-4 from guide camera to guide port on the mount, how does the ASIAIR Pro know what is going on between the camera and the mount? If I go with USB from mini USB on HC to the USB port on the ASIAIR Pro, how does the activity of the guide camera get into ASIAIR?
For ST-4 guiding the ST-4 needs to be connected, and then the camera needs to be connected to the ASI Air via USB, so both ports on the guide camera are used. For USB guiding, the ASI Air communicates with the camera directly through the USB connection. This is a much better method! Simply attach the camera USB to the ASI Air, and then attach a USB cord from the ASI Air to the handcontroller. Ditching the ST-4 is the way to go!
Thank you for this very useful video (subscribed!). I would have a (probably stupid) question. Assuming a good PA (done by mean of ASIAir itself) and a good balance (verified with an unguided shot of 120s showing quite sharp stars), what could be the cause of RA graph quickly going out of range (>>8''), while Dec remain more or less jumpy ? Guide scope not perfectly in focus ? HandController cable pulling a bit during tracking (should I fix the HC on the RA body?) ? Bad Parameter ? Everything else works great ! My gears are: heq5, nikon d5500 + telelens (Tamron 150-600g2), asiair pro mounted on top of the camera (fixed on the hotshoe), asi120mm + 120mm f/4 ASI120 mini guide scope and camera (mounted on the edge of the camera by mean of a lateral L-braket rig). Thank you!
Hello everyone, I am new at Astrophotography, about a year ago I purchased a Celestron Nexstar 8in bundled with tripod and mount, I also purchased the bundle ASIair pro with the ASIair 120mm mini camera, I received that last year November, the ASIair pro does not power the mount the ASI294 camera, also it does not find the mount, I haveused the mount that came with the telescope and the Celestron AVX. I need help
Hey Cody, excellent video as usual. Quick question, the Auto Restore Calibration will keep the same calibration from night to night. In other words it will not recalibrate - right? The reason I am asking is I had on and have been successfully using for over month then I switched my guidescope and autoguiding does not work properly. It dawned on me that it never calibrated with the new scope. - Cheers Kurt
Yea that’s right. I have mine re-calibrate every night, but to each their own. You can also click on the top right on the guide screen and delete the calibration data. That will force it to re-calibrate on the next go.
@@AstroBlender Thanks for the quick response. I was going crazy last night and ended up putting the other guidescope back-on and then it did not work as it was not where I had it originally. Fortunately it was not that clear anyway. Cheers
Great video! I seem to be geteting an error during the calibration process that says "Unable to calibrate RA axis, star did not move enough". Did you have the same issue? Thanks!
Thank you! Great explanation. Why is correction in RA more important than Dec? Is dec tracking error mainly influenced by how level your mount is? On an iOptron SkyGuider Pro guiding adjustments are only done in RA.
Robert Bean If you’re perfectly polar aligned, you should have no error in DEC, whatsoever. Most people get really good polar alignment these days, so the Dec errors aren’t too much of a concern, especially for wide field. RA guiding really is just fine tuning the tracking rate; telling the mount to speed up or slow down to keep the guide star centered. RA is definitely most important. I hope this helps.
i tried your numbers 500/300/300 and they where a little too slow. my guiding calibration failed as the star didn't move enough. and i'm pretty sure it wasn't a dead pixel. Anyway, i increased the numbers up to 750/500/500 and corrected a mistake i made in my focal length of my guide scope and my guiding began to improve. Last night was pretty poor for guiding as there is still too much smoke in the air from our local forest fires. I reduced the aggressiveness of both axis and I do see an improvement. I'm going to keep playing with the numbers and see how much improvement I can come up with. ;o)
Hi there again, thank you as always. I wanted to seek your guidance, I read that the latest ASI Air Pro (Not sure how recent?) has new firmware and features. I am afraid to mess with the current version (but I did back up SD memory card). Is there a new firm ware version and best way to update? Thank you again. Your videos are always clear and informative.
Can your confirm your current setup? ST-4 cable goes from CGX mount (AutoGuide port) to the Guide Camera, then Guide Camera is connected via USB-3 to the ASIAIR PRO? Is there any way you could post a wiring diagram? Thanks!
That’s right, but I’ve actually ditched the ST4 completely now. I attach the guide camera to the asi air pro, and connect a usb cable from the asi air pro to the handcontroller. This gives you mount control, meridian flip, and is a better way to guide.
Hi! I have a problem, which I can’t resolve in guiding. My aggressiveness is really low recently, I mean, I’ve set both at 45% (dec) and 10% (ra); the graph still “oscillates”. Is that a sign that I am under/overcorrecting or it is something else? The guiding star keeps oscillating too. I live in a very lightpolluted sky(bortle 8/9) and my guiding stars are always very faint, that could be a possible reason? Thanks
Hi Cody, A great video, clear, and to the point. I was wondering however, when you did this video were you using the ASIair Pro OSX before 1.5? It seems that the 1.5 version has a major guiding flaw in particular in RA that essentially renders all your good hard work here worthless, until it's fixed! If you are using 1.5 and don't have the problem, have you found a work around for this issue? Thanks, and all the best. Al
@@AstroBlenderJust an FYI. Although I am a long time astronomy buff, I am very new to deep sky imaging, guiding, stacking, post processing, etc. As such, I rely on very unselfish people like yourself, sharing your knowledge, on You Tube to help get me up to speed. Your videos are IMHO among the very best I have found. I love how you don't skip steps. Like when you first learn Algebra. Thank You ! Having said that, after watching this video several times, and carefully following your steps, I was unable to get my auto guiding to work as is shown. My original conclusion was that there was either something missing in your video, or some flaw in your explanation. Fortunately the other night after carefully watching your video again, and following your direction, my auto guiding worked flawlessly. Unfortunately last night it was again a total mess again. A quick search on the ZWO forum site confirmed that this is a flaw in the current AISair Pro 1.5 firmware, affecting many users. My point here is that perhaps you should consider attaching some dated comment to this video mentioning this situation. I would hate to see others do as I originally did, and incorrectly conclude, the guiding problem is the result of a serious flaw in your video, and never consider it a possible ZWO issue. Just a thought. Al
Hi Cody, love your work. Apparently on old bug has resurfaced in 1.5. Try changing the slew rate in the app to 1x , default is 5x. ( TJ collony zwo Facebook).Hope this helps cgx uses.
@@martinalcock680 Most certainly one thing that seems to have helped me is your suggestion here. Since I made my above comment a month or two back, I have had a reasonably good deal of success with guiding. Mostly by following Cody's outstanding instructions from this video, paying close attention to details like Balance, PA, cable management etc, and using the 1.5.1 firmwear update. Yet still at times what had been very decent guiding, can suddenly just fall off the rails, for no obvious reason. It still seems that at this point, it is very risky to just "set it, and forget it". Last night in a 4 hour period of imaging 95% of the time, the guiding was very decent and it, and dithering, no problem. But three times I needed to do something to resolve a sudden problem. Had I just gone to bed assuming I could trust the guiding it would have probably been a ruined evening of imaging. Clearly there as still some issued here for ZWO to resolve.
whats funny is i have the exact same 2 cameras now that are being used in this Video LOL Kudo's to equipment chosen. what focal reducer do you use on this SCT?
You don't need to connect the AAP to the hand controller? That makes things way complicated. Use an EQMOD cable directly from AAP to the mount. Can just leave the hand controller completely out of the set up then.
@@Phillyo118 Maybe i'm confused. i have a printer port type cable that goes from my ASIAIR to the printer port on the EQ6-R Pro mount. I'm told this is a new feature on that mount. Is that an EQMOD cable? i don't think it is.
@@jamespavlock9615 Ahh you have one of the newer ones with the built in USB port. Yes you can connect that directly to the AAP or a laptop/pc directly.
Cody has the Celestron CGX mount. Even though it has a USB port, the ASIAIR does not support the CGX USB port. At least not that I nor many other frustrated CGX/AAP users have found. Cody, I would like to know if you had any issues you discovered getting your AAP to work with the CGX. Ive yet to get it to work and I seem to be one of many.
@@AstroBlender I thought as much and would miss that full control, My problem is i want to use SkySafari and ASI Air same time but each time I connect to mount one or the other disconnects. Previously with ASCOM, I could have both imagers, Stellarium/Skysafari all connected at the same time. so there is a trade-off there or I'm still doing something wrong.
Hi Cody, great videos on asipro, I was curious if you have run into same guiding problems a lot asipro owners seem to be having with the RA error being fine and then fluctuating to values like 5.09 and then back to .7, i am running version 1.5? Any suggestions would be helpful,
I note your focal length you set it that video however I thought that scope you be bigger? I have a 6Se and place in 1500mm as my focal length. Is this correct?
From other videos, Sliman uses a focal reducer/corrector. Not sure what size scope he’s using but a 9.25” with 0.63x (or 0.7x if it’s an EdgeHD) reducer would give around 1500mm. Hope that helps
Cool lesson. Thank you for that. So in my eyes, you are the guy with the most experience I "know"😀. For that reason, I have to aske you a question: Last night I tried the ASI AIR Pro for the first time for a full sequence ( of Sh2-129, only OIII). Everything went well with the guiding. But: After the first sub, the dithering started and after dithering, the autoguider (with guide scope, not off axis and with EQMOD cable, not ST4) could't restore the guiding, evan if the guide star was in focus, had a nice Ari disc and bright). So the next sub didn't start. I turnded the guiding off and did lucky imaging with a bunch of short subs. Can you, please help me? ClearSkies, Christian
Hi So It looks like you are using the ASIAIR pro with a CGX mount. Correct? I have been experimenting with using the ASIAIR pro to image/ control my CGX mount I have the ASIAIR pro connected through the Nexstar+ Hand control USB port. Running the ASIAIR app on my Ipad Pro pad. Running V 1.5 Firmware 6.76 So far, for my setup, the ASIAIR can issue “ slew to “ commands that work with the CGX, but the cgx does not seem to respond to any type of jog commands. For Instance , when the ASIAIR pro is connected to the cgx , the jog Panel appears but the arrows will not make the CGX move. I have tried all different speed settings (1-9) with no results. This also means that when I try to Guide with the ASIAIR app, I can never get a successful calibration because the mount never responds to the jog commands given during the calibration phase. Also when issuing a “goto” object command, the mount will make the initial slew to the object selected , and ASIAIR will take a snapshot and do the plate solve, but it fails to make a final jog move after plate solve. Do you have any suggestions on how to get the ASIAIR jog to work with the CGX mount. Thanks for any help on this.
I currently have a celestron Advance GT mount that is connected to the asiair pro using the lynx astro USB cable(via handset) my work flow is level mount then rough polar align using my mount polar scope set index points on mount turn handset on follow instructions enter time date location when it asks for align just scroll and select quick align turn asiair on enable mount then its PA the mount with asiair it slew In RA after polar align I can select an object and the mount will move to it the camera will plate solve if not center it will adjust then guiding is what is in the video. My firmware on HC is 4.22 you can still download HC update software but stick it in Windows compat mode as Vista I found win xp and other wouldn't load the software.
Are you having any issues with your auto guide? Many people included me are having tons of problem since version 1.5 and 1.5.1. If you don't have problem are you still using the same settings as shown in this video?
@@AstroBlender My is the DEC, RA is fine. Zwo just released 1.5.3 beta , some people said it fix the problem, for me still not 100%. You’ll need TestFlight to install on IOS, not sure about Android. Btw, I am getting walking noise on my RASA if I don’t dither, are you see the same thing?
Update: The USB method now works very well with my Celestron CGX. I highly recommend ditching the ST-4 connection in favor of USB. With the USB route, you can plate-solve, meridian-flip, guide, and control your mount. It is much, much better!
Can’t you connect the air unit direct to mount and not hand controller using a Eqmod USB Console Cable?
I am so happy to hear your experience and updated endorsement! I like USB connection -- Dumb question though (I am still a beginner!) do you still connect guide scope directly to mount with ST4 cable AS WELL AS the USB cable to the computer (I do; but I am not sure if that is redundant--I use Computer to control mount----so much to still learn!)
@@brucelavin8486 nope.
Thanks for the update...if only I can get my hands on a ASI wifi now....oh bother...lol
@@johnnycanosoda Just got mine watched it travel from china to AK then to my door.
I just got an asiair and I got everything working the first night out. However my autoguiding wasnt so great. This turorial answered alot of questions I had and improved my guiding the next time I went out. Thanks, subscribed
Clear and concise. I'll watch this one a couple times to take it all in. Bravo!
Great video. I modified my guide and dither settings after watching this and noticed a significant improvement to both guiding and noise reduction.
Hi, great video and tutorial, helps m,e a lot as an beginner to set my ASIAIR+ with my equipment. Finally works good and I have a base to train for my first photos...greetings from Germany! Fritz
Great information I have been playing with the settings and I think I see a few mistakes.Thank you for explaining what each setting does and why you use those times .Of course it’s cloudy tonight I just got my guide scope focused last night.I can’t wait to change my settings!🙂
Great video, Thank you for taking the time to explain this procedure. It's greatly appreciated. Please keep making videos...
So the calibration steps and the duration corrections you spoke to, whats the symptom of them being too low or high? How do you know if 500ms is too low, for example?
such a nice explanation on the device featured in the video. Thank you very much for helping people to approach deep sky photography.
Victor Multanen Hi Victor, I’m glad you found it helpful!
I am watching this video in preparation to getting my ASI Air Pro delivered and so the main things I wanted to see is how everything gets connected and then how you go through the prompts to getting it reading everything correctly. I’m sure I will ultimately figure this stuff out when I get my equipment in but some of the mundane things you need to do would be a great video walkthrough.
Thank You for this tutorial. Some good tips, particularly on the dithering and aggressiveness options for guiding axes.
Good info on guiding and dithering. Finally, after months of waiting for stock and then delivery, I received the AISAIR Pro 2 days ago. Only have had one quick session with it last night so far. WiFi wasn't behaving itself too well, but some of that may be the position of the Air on my setup. I may need a WiFi extender. So first baddie about the Air - not great WiFi (hey, its just a Raspberry Pi!).
Being a cutdown version of PHD2, one does lack some things. For example, you cannot build a library of bad pixels, so one has to be careful and make sure you are guiding on an actual star. Cooling my ZWO 1600mm Pro went fine, except there is no warming it up at the end of a session to (supposedly) prevent any temperature shock.
The best thing was Polar Aligning, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where this can be a real pain! I have been using the QHY Polemaster, but used the AIR last night. I think I got my best alignment ever! Plate solving worked quickly and efficiently and subsequent goto's worked well. I am still awaiting delivery of a ZWO guide camera, so no guiding last night. But with 20x30 secs exposures, there was just about NO movement at all of my subject over that 10 minutes (maybe just a few pixels which was possibly the seeing conditions). So yeah, good balance and PA with the AIR did that trick (and of course a good mount).
All in all, not sure about the AIR yet. But like anything, there are good and bad points. Still, have only used it once (again with no guiding), so still plenty of opportunity for the AIR to shine ;-) Hope it does shine so I have less cables and no laptop outside.
Birregurra Astronomy Yeah I was unsure when I first got mine too, but I love it now. It does have less features for guiding but that can always be updated later on.
My biggest beef with it is the wi-fi range. It’s terrible. They should have some external antennae added to the devices on a future rendition!
The PA feature is nice too, especially since the ASI Air and PoleMaster are almost the same price and that’s all the PoleMaster does. Not having to take my laptop outside and never having cable snags makes it all worth it to me.
This video is brilliant - spot on and that's it. Got exactly what I hoped for. 😊
Thanks for a very well performed video and excellent narrative. I like also your breaks for in-depth explanations. For me, living in Sweden, the ambient temperature is often below zero (C), which means the ASIAIR no longer works. I have had to build a small wooden box to house it. I use a 5W bulb to keep the temperature up. During the summer it is usually too light to get any good photos, so astronomy is not made easy for us living in the north.
How should you change guide calibration if you are pointing towards Zenith?
Thanks for all of your informational videos. I have an AT102ED and the ZWO ASIAIR Plus, I'm using a ZWO ASI 224 color and a SVBONY SV165 Mini Guide Scope 30mm F4 for guiding. My problem is that it loops and then goes into "calibration" but never starts guiding ?? What am I doing wrong ? lol.....thanks for advice you might have......Mike, Ohio
Thanks for the video. The cooling stats show that it is "cooling". Also the target is clearly set. But how do we know what is the current temperature of camera?
I'm about to begin autoguiding, and this video sure helped. Thanks.
Thanks for the update. In the 4 sessions I have used it, I have been struggling to get good guiding with my ASIAir Pro (mainly RA problems). I have blamed it on my somewhat poor seeing conditions but wasn't really sure. I have polar aligned to about 40" of total error (I think that is good enough??). I have tried adjusting the exposure and aggressiveness, but i still was getting a total RMS guiding error of about 2". I'm going to try changing the default calibration, Dec and RA times as you suggested. Hopefully this will help. Thanks again.
David Helster Polar alignment really can help out! I’ve try and get mine to 1-0” every session. I use the Polemaster or Air, and then use the Celestron ASPA to really tighten it up. ASPA is so easy to do when you’re basically already aligned! With practice you’ll get better. I’ve noticed every session my guiding starts improving. The area of the sky really affects things too. Guiding near the zenith is tough since the mount kind of just floats there and can get backlash.
1st you need to get a good PA, but then one has to consider the capability of your guide-scope system’s images scale and the quality of your mount. Then of course there is the question of what quality of seeing you actually have. You can check that with the Astrospheric App. It collects NASA and Canadian sky data to provide a forecast. What defaults are you referring to? In any event if you have something like a Zwo guide scope mini with only a 120mm your image scale is about 6 arc-seconds. That’s fine if you have a short focal length lens through which you quality of stars what show how bad your tracking it, but your guide scope system may always be very limited by the image scale.
ZWO doesn’t know what the default settings should be. I’ve tried Phd2’s defaults of 2500 and my guiding got much worse. I also use max durations around 400-650 and get veyr good results. Not only is Zwo’s Phd a ‘light’ version I be it is also a very old version of Phd. Ten years ago the Phd defaults were 300. When you system is working you will find the quality of guiding is certainly tied to the seeing conditions. Besides an average RMS guiding result you want the ratio of the DEC average and the RA average to be close to one. Otherwise you might get a very good total average but if the ratio is not close to one you may still produce ovoid stars. Note also if you are looking obliquely throught the atmosphere your guide star will often look terrible.
Finally when it comes to adjustments one needs to turn off; Correctiosn: Hide so the correction pulses are reveal. Watch are the pulse and aggression so strong your RA trace races past the axis to the other direction. If so back off one the adjustments so the graphs are naturally but quickly brought back to the axis.
If you are dithering your graph will look worse so for adjustments and checking your performance turn the dither off.
TheDesert IsPatient Great response! Unfortunately I can’t pin it because it’s a reply, but thanks for the input on how to improve guiding. This tutorial is mainly a how to get started, but you’re right, so much goes into it. It’s why I went with the ZWO 178MM for guiding. The small pixel size gives me pretty good sampling on the 210mm Guidescope. Thanks again-
Thanks to the both of you for responding. As someone who is new to astrophotography, I am amazed and thankful for the help the community provides. I didn't realize that 40" of polar alignment error was too much. I guess I got all excited by the ASIAir's green smily face telling me what a good job I did. My next time out I will spend more time getting my polar alignment more accurate. I will also adjust the calibration, RA and Dec times as you suggested in the video. If that doesn't work, I will try and connect with the full version of PHD2. My error is mostly RA and it bounces back and forth (even with aggression very low). I am using the ZWO ASI120MM mini guide camera (with the ZWO mini scope) and a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro mount. Thanks again.
Very informative video, thank you so much. Would you recommend any site to learn all about technical aspects of guiding ? I use an Asiair Plus, but the provided ZWO user guide is not updated at all.
I am coming in late so forgive my remedial questions. I am using a Celestron AVX mount. Everything works fine except for the guiding. I notice that you used to use the ST4. I assume that went from the guide camera to the mount? What about the connection to the ASIair? Could you give a brief explanation or guide me to any videos you did on the use of the ST4? Thank you !!!
Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I will learn from it. However, I have a question. Since a couple of months I use ASIair plus. I purchased it to control my EAF motorfocus. Last weekend I connected the first time ASIair with my Goto (with a USB cable). I have no guiding scope and camera yet. I simply performed a two star alignment plus three calibration stars manually on my Celestron mount as usual. After that I choosed the California nebula from the catalogue prompted by ASIair. The tube slewed into position and (new to me) the tube did two short moves in order to center the nebula. On my ASIair a message appeared that the object has been centered successfully. From then on, the tube was perfectly kept in position. One and half hour it showed no drift while live stacking. So, my question is: Does ASIair contain some "built-in" guiding features? Do you know about that by chance? Thanks for a short reply.
Great video! Can you advise on what range of minimum variation you try to achieve with guiding? + or - ? Thanks!
What a fantastic helpful video. Great work. Thanks a lot 👌🏼
Lord Helmchen You’re welcome, I’m glad you found it helpful.
Thanks for the excellent tutorial. After you complete the Autorun, how do you stack the images?
Hi, very nice video.
Than, you can guide with st4 cable (+usb cable from guide camera to asiair) or without st4 cable and only usb cable from guide camera to asiari, correct?thnks a lot!
A Big Thank You from Seattle. Fantastic Video👍🌠!
Kai Larrabee Thank you!
For a beginner visual + astrophotographer looking for a 8" or 9.25" aperture, which EQ mount + OTA + autoguider + camera would you recommend ? Celestron(AVS/CGEM etc + OTA + autoguider) or Skywatcher or AM5 ? Priority on easy learning curve, setup, decent accuracy, reasonable cost ?
Can you please help me? I've been looking all over the internet for information on this but really haven't found anthing. In your video you explain that you changed your Calibration step/Max DEC/MAX RA for better preformace... Can you please exlpain how you got to that? What each one does and why you would want to change the numbers? How to tell from guiding your not getting good results? Any help with this would be great!
Thank you so much for the insight! I would have figured it out eventually, but the video really helped clear up my guiding issues and saved me a lot of time. I do use the USB method and I really like it. However the ST4 cable is still in my wiring harness, just in case. the stars are pin point and my images are nice and sharp. Again thanks a bunch!
Hi, therefore you have 1 x usb cable from guide camera to asiari, and 1 x usb cable from asiair to mount?right?thnkx!!
@@fabrizioveneziano9003 Correct. I did take the ST4 cable out all together. I'm very happy with the way it runs.
@@fabrizioveneziano9003 Let me clarify.....the guide camera runs directly to the asiair. My asi eaf and the usb connection from my mount connect to a usb 2.0 hub that in turn connects to the asi air. I ran out of 2.0 ports on the air. If you do it that way don't use a 3.0 hub, it won't work.
Great video- looking forward to setting up my guiding this week and will be using this to help walk through it. Thanks!
Hi Cody, off topic but just a suggestion. I'd love to see how you do your post processing, what tools do you use and what workflows. Thanks for all you're doing to advance my understanding of this hobby!
Great suggestion! My processing is pretty basic, but I'll put it on the ever expanding video to do list.
this was very helpful and clearly explained. thank you
Marko Pola I’m glad you found it helpful!
Many thanks. Useful for newbies like me.
*Galacticus* I’m glad you found it helpful!
very well done - nice production values - good explanations
Have the guiding issues people were having with the ASIAirPro been corrected? I know it was affecting version 1.5.1. I have just acquired an Air Pro and all of my equipment is communicating but I haven’t had a clear night to try my guiding which incidentally will be the very first time I have guided in my life. I put it off forever but finally jumping on the wagon. If you or anyone out there can help a new guider like me, please do. Thanks!
Do you do mentor programs for beginners? Very interested as I am getting ready for 1st light.
Great video... I'm looking into picking one of these up as I can't get PHD2 to work for me... Thank you
These ASIair devices are basically a cheat code for astrophotography
I really enjoyed your video 😁. During your setup, did you have the auto restore calibration function turned on or off during your session? I hope you can advise. All the very best, Dougie from Scotland.
I always keep it off. I also keep off the recalibrate after meridian flip. If either of those are on, I get really terrible results.
@@AstroBlender that's awesome, thanks so much for your speedy reply 👍. I had it on last time and all the stars looked like tiny circles of light. Some people advised me that my scope was out of focus, but I thought it odd that only a few middle images were in focus and the ones at the start and finish of my session were not. Thanks so much for your advice. All the very best.
8:16 What would you recommend for a redcat?
An excellent tutorial; very clear along with explanations of commands and functions. Thanks very much!
Hi Cody, I had problems guiding near Polaris. I did my normal calibration routine near the Meridian and Celestial equator (Redcat 51, AM5 mount). I ended up with star trailing, double stars, and when I later "blinked" through the subs, the stars were rotating around Polaris. Can you think of anything I need to be aware of when imaging Polaris?
Very confused. It seems that the ST4 cable from guide camera to iOptron CEM26 mount will not allow a meridian flip. I am told by you and others a usb cable connection of some sort is required. However, I have never come across instructions on how to do this with my mount and ASI290 mm mini guide camera. There are two sockets in my hand controller, one goes directly to the ASIAIR and the other from the hand controller to the mount. I am at a loss on how to do this. Perhaps I don't need the ST4 cable from guide camera to the mount. Perhaps it does its guiding job and meridian flip just by being connected to the ASIAIR via the power connection from my main ZWO camera. My guide camera is recognized by ASIAIR when the ST4 cable is removed. Help please. Thanks.
Great video. It solved my problem with autoguiding. Thanks!
Good to hear!
Anyway you can do a video of post? (.fit to Lightroom, Photoshop, or PixInsight). I’m having an issue where all of my images are green and just look like crap coming off of the ASIAIR Pro. Maybe I’m missing a step...
In my guiding display, I never see the red and blue curves. I just see a red and blue thin line at the very beginning. It never develops into a changing curve. The numbers on the right read RA: 597" and DEC 640". Im not sure what I'm doing wrong. Also. I tried the go to feature to slew to Saturn and it's not slewing anywhere close to it. Polar alignment worked fine but something is seriously not right.
Since it has been sometime since you made this video are there any significant changes you would make to your setup? I found your video very helpful. Thanks
I know this isn't really a Q&A section, but after successfully guiding my 8" sct on the first outing with the ASiair and my small 32mm guide scope off my Redcat, I received a new longer focal length guide scope and asi120mm camera.
Now, my guiding calibration will not complete and I get an error message "Calibrate failed, check settings and try again.". I've checked to make sure all specs were input correctly, adjusted the calibration steps from high to low and all in-between, no success. I even reinstalled my small guide scope and camera, still fails. I've found zero info to aid in fixing this.
Any suggestions you can give?
Once agian, thanks for making these videos, more than a few of them have helped me immensely.
Excellent work. Happy 2022
Great informative video. Thank you for giving up your time to provide us with such a useful reference.
Thanks for this great video Cody. Like many I struggle with guiding, but usually get similar results to yours in this video, so will be happy with that for now. I’ve only tried to dither once but also had issues so will try your settings and see how that goes. As I have a lot of un dithered subs can you stack those wth dithered, or wont that work, I use DSS or Pixinsight. Cheers John.
You can stack dithered and undithered subs, no problem. For me dithering is the easy part - and absolutely essential! My dithered images are much less noisy than undithered. Just make sure your pixel movement is appropriate to your image scale. Keep practicing and you’ll get it down. I still am improving guiding and trying to get things really tight, night in and night out.
I'm confused a bit from the outset. He has ASIAIR Pro, but polar aligned with his hand controller. Why?
Also, my guide cam is connected via USB cable into the main cam, which is connected to the ASIAIR. Frees up a port on the ASIAIR. It works fine. Why doesn't he just connect the guide cam either to his main cam via USB or the ASIAIR?
I've just wanted what seems like a simple answer to connecting the ASIAIR Pro to my CGX-L. None of the experts at Celestron nor online vendor tech support said something as simple as: "Connect x cable from y to z. Now,I hope this hasn't been answered below, but if I connect an ST-4 from guide camera to guide port on the mount, how does the ASIAIR Pro know what is going on between the camera and the mount? If I go with USB from mini USB on HC to the USB port on the ASIAIR Pro, how does the activity of the guide camera get into ASIAIR?
For ST-4 guiding the ST-4 needs to be connected, and then the camera needs to be connected to the ASI Air via USB, so both ports on the guide camera are used.
For USB guiding, the ASI Air communicates with the camera directly through the USB connection. This is a much better method! Simply attach the camera USB to the ASI Air, and then attach a USB cord from the ASI Air to the handcontroller. Ditching the ST-4 is the way to go!
I know silly comment, but how do you zoom in and out on the guiding screen to pick your star. I was not able to do this on my,
apple tablet. thanks
Thank you for this very useful video (subscribed!). I would have a (probably stupid) question. Assuming a good PA (done by mean of ASIAir itself) and a good balance (verified with an unguided shot of 120s showing quite sharp stars), what could be the cause of RA graph quickly going out of range (>>8''), while Dec remain more or less jumpy ?
Guide scope not perfectly in focus ? HandController cable pulling a bit during tracking (should I fix the HC on the RA body?) ? Bad Parameter ? Everything else works great !
My gears are: heq5, nikon d5500 + telelens (Tamron 150-600g2), asiair pro mounted on top of the camera (fixed on the hotshoe), asi120mm + 120mm f/4 ASI120 mini guide scope and camera (mounted on the edge of the camera by mean of a lateral L-braket rig).
Thank you!
why when i hit the guide button no menu appears on the right
Hello everyone, I am new at Astrophotography, about a year ago I purchased a Celestron Nexstar 8in bundled with tripod and mount, I also purchased the bundle ASIair pro with the ASIair 120mm mini camera, I received that last year November, the ASIair pro does not power the mount the ASI294 camera, also it does not find the mount, I haveused the mount that came with the telescope and the Celestron AVX. I need help
How does ASI-air/iPad compare with phd2/laptop? Basically same accuracy etc?
Excellent tutorial
And great image
Exelent infomation, thank you for the video
Hey Cody, excellent video as usual. Quick question, the Auto Restore Calibration will keep the same calibration from night to night. In other words it will not recalibrate - right? The reason I am asking is I had on and have been successfully using for over month then I switched my guidescope and autoguiding does not work properly. It dawned on me that it never calibrated with the new scope. - Cheers Kurt
Yea that’s right. I have mine re-calibrate every night, but to each their own. You can also click on the top right on the guide screen and delete the calibration data. That will force it to re-calibrate on the next go.
@@AstroBlender Thanks for the quick response. I was going crazy last night and ended up putting the other guidescope back-on and then it did not work as it was not where I had it originally. Fortunately it was not that clear anyway. Cheers
Do we complete a 3 star align on the mount first for goto? Or just polar align, manually fine your target and guide?
Can one connect a star sense camera to asiair pro??
Love these videos!
Check and verify but I think the temp is cooled down from ambient temp, no to -40oC.
Great video! I seem to be geteting an error during the calibration process that says "Unable to calibrate RA axis, star did not move enough". Did you have the same issue? Thanks!
Thank you! Great explanation. Why is correction in RA more important than Dec? Is dec tracking error mainly influenced by how level your mount is? On an iOptron SkyGuider Pro guiding adjustments are only done in RA.
Robert Bean If you’re perfectly polar aligned, you should have no error in DEC, whatsoever. Most people get really good polar alignment these days, so the Dec errors aren’t too much of a concern, especially for wide field. RA guiding really is just fine tuning the tracking rate; telling the mount to speed up or slow down to keep the guide star centered. RA is definitely most important. I hope this helps.
i tried your numbers 500/300/300 and they where a little too slow. my guiding calibration failed as the star didn't move enough. and i'm pretty sure it wasn't a dead pixel. Anyway, i increased the numbers up to 750/500/500 and corrected a mistake i made in my focal length of my guide scope and my guiding began to improve. Last night was pretty poor for guiding as there is still too much smoke in the air from our local forest fires. I reduced the aggressiveness of both axis and I do see an improvement. I'm going to keep playing with the numbers and see how much improvement I can come up with. ;o)
Not sure but you don't need the HC with the Aisair pro.
Hi there again, thank you as always. I wanted to seek your guidance, I read that the latest ASI Air Pro (Not sure how recent?) has new firmware and features. I am afraid to mess with the current version (but I did back up SD memory card). Is there a new firm ware version and best way to update? Thank you again. Your videos are always clear and informative.
My firmware updated automatically from my home wifi - now has multi star autoguiding
Excellent tutorial
Your videos are well done and very informative 👍🏼
Can your confirm your current setup? ST-4 cable goes from CGX mount (AutoGuide port) to the Guide Camera, then Guide Camera is connected via USB-3 to the ASIAIR PRO? Is there any way you could post a wiring diagram? Thanks!
That’s right, but I’ve actually ditched the ST4 completely now. I attach the guide camera to the asi air pro, and connect a usb cable from the asi air pro to the handcontroller. This gives you mount control, meridian flip, and is a better way to guide.
Hi! I have a problem, which I can’t resolve in guiding.
My aggressiveness is really low recently, I mean, I’ve set both at 45% (dec) and 10% (ra); the graph still “oscillates”.
Is that a sign that I am under/overcorrecting or it is something else? The guiding star keeps oscillating too.
I live in a very lightpolluted sky(bortle 8/9) and my guiding stars are always very faint, that could be a possible reason?
Thanks
2min exposures on a RASA?
Hi Cody, A great video, clear, and to the point. I was wondering however, when you did this video were you using the ASIair Pro OSX before 1.5? It seems that the 1.5 version has a major guiding flaw in particular in RA that essentially renders all your good hard work here worthless, until it's fixed! If you are using 1.5 and don't have the problem, have you found a work around for this issue? Thanks, and all the best. Al
Yeah my RA guiding has been terrible in 1.5
@@AstroBlenderJust an FYI. Although I am a long time astronomy buff, I am very new to deep sky imaging, guiding, stacking, post processing, etc. As such, I rely on very unselfish people like yourself, sharing your knowledge, on You Tube to help get me up to speed. Your videos are IMHO among the very best I have found. I love how you don't skip steps. Like when you first learn Algebra. Thank You !
Having said that, after watching this video several times, and carefully following your steps, I was unable to get my auto guiding to work as is shown. My original conclusion was that there was either something missing in your video, or some flaw in your explanation.
Fortunately the other night after carefully watching your video again, and following your direction, my auto guiding worked flawlessly. Unfortunately last night it was again a total mess again.
A quick search on the ZWO forum site confirmed that this is a flaw in the current AISair Pro 1.5 firmware, affecting many users.
My point here is that perhaps you should consider attaching some dated comment to this video mentioning this situation. I would hate to see others do as I originally did, and incorrectly conclude, the guiding problem is the result of a serious flaw in your video, and never consider it a possible ZWO issue. Just a thought. Al
Hi Cody, love your work. Apparently on old bug has resurfaced in 1.5. Try changing the slew rate in the app to 1x , default is 5x. ( TJ collony zwo Facebook).Hope this helps cgx uses.
@@martinalcock680 Most certainly one thing that seems to have helped me is your suggestion here. Since I made my above comment a month or two back, I have had a reasonably good deal of success with guiding. Mostly by following Cody's outstanding instructions from this video, paying close attention to details like Balance, PA, cable management etc, and using the 1.5.1 firmwear update. Yet still at times what had been very decent guiding, can suddenly just fall off the rails, for no obvious reason.
It still seems that at this point, it is very risky to just "set it, and forget it". Last night in a 4 hour period of imaging 95% of the time, the guiding was very decent and it, and dithering, no problem. But three times I needed to do something to resolve a sudden problem. Had I just gone to bed assuming I could trust the guiding it would have probably been a ruined evening of imaging. Clearly there as still some issued here for ZWO to resolve.
Thank you for this. Great vid!
Quite clear and useful. Thanks so much!
whats funny is i have the exact same 2 cameras now that are being used in this Video LOL Kudo's to equipment chosen. what focal reducer do you use on this SCT?
On the standard SCTs just the Celestron 0.63x reducer/Flattener. On the EdgeHD I use the Celestron 0.7x reducer.
@@AstroBlender I was told using a REducer / Corrector was wrong for my Meade 8' so I have one on order.
You don't need to connect the AAP to the hand controller? That makes things way complicated. Use an EQMOD cable directly from AAP to the mount. Can just leave the hand controller completely out of the set up then.
Indeed, if you have a EQR-6 Pro mount, you don't even need an EQMOD cable.
@@jamespavlock9615 how do you use EQmod without a cable?
@@Phillyo118 Maybe i'm confused. i have a printer port type cable that goes from my ASIAIR to the printer port on the EQ6-R Pro mount. I'm told this is a new feature on that mount. Is that an EQMOD cable? i don't think it is.
@@jamespavlock9615 Ahh you have one of the newer ones with the built in USB port. Yes you can connect that directly to the AAP or a laptop/pc directly.
Cody has the Celestron CGX mount. Even though it has a USB port, the ASIAIR does not support the CGX USB port. At least not that I nor many other frustrated CGX/AAP users have found.
Cody, I would like to know if you had any issues you discovered getting your AAP to work with the CGX. Ive yet to get it to work and I seem to be one of many.
Thank you .
The video I was really needing. Thank you
if your using the ST4 Port how do you choose a target what is controlling the telescope?
The hand controller. It’s why you shouldn’t guide with ST-4. USB gives you full control.
@@AstroBlender I thought as much and would miss that full control, My problem is i want to use SkySafari and ASI Air same time but each time I connect to mount one or the other disconnects. Previously with ASCOM, I could have both imagers, Stellarium/Skysafari all connected at the same time. so there is a trade-off there or I'm still doing something wrong.
My ASIAIR guide stars look "soft" and not exact and sharp... are you seeing this?
No, you probably need to refocus your Guidescope.
Hi Cody, great videos on asipro, I was curious if you have run into same guiding problems a lot asipro owners seem to be having with the RA error being fine and then fluctuating to values like 5.09 and then back to .7, i am running version 1.5? Any suggestions would be helpful,
Yes, the solution in 1.5.1 is to set the slew rate to 1x in preview mode. It helps!
I note your focal length you set it that video however I thought that scope you be bigger? I have a 6Se and place in 1500mm as my focal length. Is this correct?
From other videos, Sliman uses a focal reducer/corrector. Not sure what size scope he’s using but a 9.25” with 0.63x (or 0.7x if it’s an EdgeHD) reducer would give around 1500mm. Hope that helps
Nice video, I have a question, can I use the ASI air without WiFi in the field?
Yes, by default you can connect to it’s own wireless SSID with your phone or tablet.
Cool lesson. Thank you for that. So in my eyes, you are the guy with the most experience I "know"😀. For that reason, I have to aske you a question:
Last night I tried the ASI AIR Pro for the first time for a full sequence ( of Sh2-129, only OIII). Everything went well with the guiding.
But: After the first sub, the dithering started and after dithering, the autoguider (with guide scope, not off axis and with EQMOD cable, not ST4) could't restore the guiding, evan if the guide star was in focus, had a nice Ari disc and bright).
So the next sub didn't start.
I turnded the guiding off and did lucky imaging with a bunch of short subs.
Can you, please help me?
ClearSkies,
Christian
Thank, very clear explanation.
Thank you so much for your time 😊 it's precious 🙏
this is defo my this years Christmas present xD
Hi
So It looks like you are using the ASIAIR pro with a CGX mount. Correct?
I have been experimenting with using the ASIAIR pro to image/ control my CGX mount
I have the ASIAIR pro connected through the Nexstar+ Hand control USB port.
Running the ASIAIR app on my Ipad Pro pad.
Running V 1.5 Firmware 6.76
So far, for my setup, the ASIAIR can issue “ slew to “ commands that work with the CGX, but the cgx does not seem to respond to any type of jog commands.
For Instance , when the ASIAIR pro is connected to the cgx , the jog Panel appears but the arrows will not make the CGX move.
I have tried all different speed settings (1-9) with no results.
This also means that when I try to Guide with the ASIAIR app, I can never get a successful calibration because the mount never responds to the jog commands given during the calibration phase.
Also when issuing a “goto” object command, the mount will make the initial slew to the object selected , and ASIAIR will take a snapshot and do the plate solve, but it fails to make a final jog move after plate solve.
Do you have any suggestions on how to get the ASIAIR jog to work with the CGX mount.
Thanks for any help on this.
I currently have a celestron Advance GT mount that is connected to the asiair pro using the lynx astro USB cable(via handset) my work flow is level mount then rough polar align using my mount polar scope set index points on mount turn handset on follow instructions enter time date location when it asks for align just scroll and select quick align turn asiair on enable mount then its PA the mount with asiair it slew In RA after polar align I can select an object and the mount will move to it the camera will plate solve if not center it will adjust then guiding is what is in the video.
My firmware on HC is 4.22 you can still download HC update software but stick it in Windows compat mode as Vista I found win xp and other wouldn't load the software.
Does your OrionStarshoot autoguider work on ASI AIR? or you had to buy ZWO camera for autoguiding to make it work with ASI AIR?
The ASI Air is only compatible with ZWO products (apart from some DSLRs) so I made that change to all ZWO.
Thank you 😊
Are you having any issues with your auto guide? Many people included me are having tons of problem since version 1.5 and 1.5.1. If you don't have problem are you still using the same settings as shown in this video?
Yeah, my guiding kind of sucks right now. My dec is fine, but my RA is super inconsistent. I’ve been trying to get it fixed.
@@AstroBlender My is the DEC, RA is fine. Zwo just released 1.5.3 beta , some people said it fix the problem, for me still not 100%. You’ll need TestFlight to install on IOS, not sure about Android.
Btw, I am getting walking noise on my RASA if I don’t dither, are you see the same thing?
Do you have to leave the asi air app running on your phone/tablet all night or can your device go to sleep and still work?
Mark Reed Once you set up your session you can turn off your phone/tablet and the ASI Air will do the rest.
Grazie x questo video👍
Hi,
I am living in Southern Hemisphere.
Could we use this kit with a stock camera on the regular star tracker to do Polar alignment?
Cheers
Cheers..