Let me start by saying I am a big fan of your cameras and have owned at least a half a dozen of them over the years. That said, your ASIAIR Pro product really let me down last night. By every indication the latest release of the IOS app and firmware (version 1.51, firmware 6.92) have made my Vixen SXP/ Starbook 10 mount unusable with the ASIAIR Pro.
Last night seeing was poor but not any worse than many nights I imaged in before. My polar alignment and telescope/ mount balance were good as I was able to take unguided 1-minute exposures with my Meade 70mm Quadruplet telescope and ASI183GT camera, but guiding was another matter.
Problem #1 - Calibration: As it was going through this process, West-to-East then North-to-South, while doing the latter, the star’s West/ East position drifted noticeably. The calibration steps were jumpy in that some steps would move the guide star by large amounts while others very little, and even sometimes a bit in the wrong direction.
Problem #2 - Guiding: Calibration would not stabilize and I would get “timed out” messages from the IOS app. Also, the guide star would often be lost even though your software picked it out as a suitable guide star. My images were horrible. 1-minute exposures had streaky stars and in all directions. Also, the guiding routine cause the mount to be so jumpy that stars were multiply exposed (they looked like multiple stars). Once guiding was turned off, I could once again get good looking stars with 1-minute exposures.
I have to conclude that the later ASIAIR Pro software and firmware were not properly tested with my type of mount otherwise this very prominent bug would have been caught and dealt with by your development staff.
I will now go back to using Nebulosity/ PHD2 and a USB cable to image and guide with my equipment. Please let me know when you’ve corrected this problem with the Vixen/ Starbook10 gear so I can return to using the ASIAIR pro again. It’s a wonderful product, it has changed the way I apply and enjoy my astro-imaging hobby, but it’s still a bit of a work in progress as bugs of varying severity occasionally appear, but this last bug has blown me out of the water.
Sincerely,
Avi Wolf