ASIAIR Pro with Celestron Nexstar Evolution and SkySafari Pro: any experience ?

itarrow

I am planning to buy an ASIAIR PRO, but I am not sure I understand how the combination of my Nexstar Evolution alt-az mount, Sky Safari Pro (which I use connected to my Celestron to goto) and a fresh new ASIAIR Pro would work.

Should I keep using Sky Safari Pro to guide, and then use the ASIAIR PRO just for imaging and live stacking, or should I get rid of Sky Safari Pro and use just the ASIAIR PRO to guide and imagining ?

So here I am asking: is there anyone with this combination (Nexstar Evolution + Sky Safari Pro + ASIAIR Pro) ? If yes, which is the most effective way you found to control your scope and with which combination ?

BTW my scope it’s a 9.25 and as a camera I have a 294.

NorthernNeck1

I used my ASIAir Pro happily with my Evolution mount, and also with the iPhone version of Sky Safari. As with any ASIAir product, there is a rather Byzantine series of steps involved to make everything speak the same language, but I had no trouble for a year with virtually the set-up you are describing. At some point, I also eliminated the Sky Safari angle and simply used the lovely plate solving feature and the ability to control the GoTo function of the alt-az mount to handle everything.

The upgrade to a CGX mount has resulted in no ability to do any astrophotography whatsoever, as I've been having some trouble restoring the ASIAir operating system following some interactions with tech support. A story for another day, but I think your setup should work quite nicely, assuming that ASIAir still supports that mount. (You should probably obtain a representation from ZWO on that point in advance of making any moves.)

itarrow

NorthernNeck1 thanks for your feedback: so it means you didn’t had problems with the Asiair Pro guiding an alt-az mount as the Nexstar Evolution, that was my concern as I have read that only EQ mounts are supported… bah… or was it because you had the Asiair guiding through Sky Safari ?

Anyway it would be good to have a list of “natively” supported mounts, in any case better wait other replies (or ZWO itself)

Tech@ZWO

itarrow I have read that only EQ mounts are supported

No, supported in both eq and alt-az config.
Yes, you can get rid of Sky Safari.

itarrow

@tech@zwo#48884 Thanks ! Is there any doc or tutorial explaining how to best connect to a Nexstar Evolution, both directly (using Asiair Pro guidance) or through Sky Safari ? Had a look to the Asiair Pro manual but it doesn’t go in detail obviously.

Tech@ZWO

itarrow
I think you can refer to this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haQj-kiE5ec

paulhummerman

@tech@zwo#48910 - I think the question was about using Asiair with an alt-az mount, not a GEM.