Hint: planetarium in ASIAIR Beta v1.9

w7ay

If you have downloaded iOS Testflight of ASIAIR v1.9 (firmware 9.18) (build 2, released Jan 28, 2022) on an iPad, entered the planetarium display from the Preview window, and could not find a way to return to the Preview window, try tapping near the top left corner of the planetarium display.

There is no button (at least on a 12.9" iPad pro in Dark Mode) like the minimizing arrows in the Guide window, so just blindly tap around that corner of the planetarium display until you return to the Preview window (ROTFL).

Chen

w7ay

Reported, and received email reply that it will be fixed in next update.

Chen

Byrdsfan1948

w7ay HAHA Chen, Thanks for that tid bit. I'll wait. As you say ROTFL. Just can't male this stuff up!!! Besides by this evening I'll have plenty of snow to remove to keep me busy :-))))) Al

johnpd

Whoa!!! This is a real live planetarium program like SkySafari or other like apps?

JohnD

w7ay

johnpd Whoa!!! This is a real live planetarium program like SkySafari or other like apps?

Nope, no precise data (very few stars also), just copies of images in their DSO images that is already in their object database, drawn to some topographical projection in the screen.

SkySafari (which I also don't use) at least has latitude and longitude lines.

Really just for the selfie types who are impressed with fancy images instead of useful information to learn about astronomy. SkySafari is at least useful for offline studying.

Chen

w7ay

Byrdsfan1948 Just can't male this stuff up!!! Besides by this evening I'll have plenty of snow to remove to keep me busy :-)))))

It took 3 email round trips, with having to send precise model of my iPad and a screen shot. They finally said they will test it on an iPad!

I think it may have to do with the aspect ratio of the iPad vs the aspect ratio of an iPhone. The exit button may be beyond the left edge of the screen.

Anyway, not worth the bother, it is just a "look, shiny" item for the millennial types. Not even latitude and longitude lines on the display, and certainly with very few stars showing.

Chen

AstroDude42

ZWO just posted on IG that they‘re out of office for Chinese New Year Holiday until 7th of Feb. Might take a while until the next update. 😉

Olli

w7ay

AstroDude42 Might take a while until the next update.

Well, this problem is just cosmetics, as long as you know where to tap.

In any case, I don't have clear enough skies to be worth going out in sub freezing temperatures, to make real tests of v1.9. I think the TestFlight comments alluded to "version 2." Perhaps they intend to release the v1.9 beta as v2.0. Bug fixes are more important than comics, in any case.

My all sky camera shows stars even when fog is heavy outside, with abysmal transparency, so I have to still check by looking out the widow :-). I also really need an extra camera with a different plate scale mounted vertically to measure HFD of stars (the all sky camera is too undersampled to measure HFD). Sometimes, the turbulence is also not worth going outside. I pretty much do other stuff (like software and optical projects) in our winter.

Chen

w7ay

In case you are too chicken to install ASIAIR Beta (I don't blame you :-), this is what the planetarium looks like (ASIAIR v1.9 Beta build 3, Firmware 9.21, just released on Testflight an hour ago in the US West coast), with the main camera set to 3mm and ASI178 (my all-sky camera):

Notice the red N and S labels approximately at 4 o'clock and 10 o'clock.

Still no button to tap to exit this display :-). Top left corner tapping still working, though.

This is my real view , north is top center, Polaris is usually just out of the FOV (hey, this is Oregon, many very tall trees in my lot):

The letterings that you see is the reflection of sunlight off the lens markings, reflected back from the plexiglass dome (you can see two sets of numbers [12MP 3.2mm etc,etc ], due to the thickness of the dome).

Notice how low the Sun is (1pm here) for my 45.6º latitude).

Oh yeah, that icon (Ursa Major and Cassiopia) under the Tools button is how you open the planetarium display.

Chen

Kring

Awesome, I wasn’t expecting this feature - This sounds like a great ease of use feature over the current objects catalog which is quirky to navigate. Is searching for objects more friendly? E.g. catalogs, spacing between IC405 vs IC 405, searching for friendly names like Orion?

BTW Chen, you are in the inner-most beta-circle of a few select testers; the majority of us in testflight beta’s for ASIAir don’t get it until around build 4 or 5. As of now, it’s not available.

w7ay

Kring BTW Chen, you are in the inner-most beta-circle of a few select testers

Yeah, I don't know how I got that, because I never asked for it.

Notice the lightning bolt on my user icon in this forum? I didn't ask for that either. It lets me remove posts that are flagged by others to be spam (or restore the posts that are mistakenly or maliciously marked as spam when they are obviously not). I have otherwise never removed any posts even when I think they are completely fake news. I let Zeus handle that kind of arbitrary decisions :-).

Chen

w7ay

This is the view last night (the earlier Build 2 of the ASIAIR beta). Ursa Major at top, Leo at bottom.

Chen

w7ay

More funny stuff. I updated a second generation ASIAIR (the all sky camera used a first generation ASIAIR) and after everything was running, I plugged in a USB memory stick. This is what showed up:

The second generation ASIAIR of course does not have any eMMC. And it said 0 GB out of 0 GB.

When I rebooted that ASIAIR with the USB memory already plugged in, the memory showed up correctly as a U disk, with the correct memory size.

Chen

astrosatch

There is test version of asiair 2.0 on FB. By the looks of it there are only app changes and doesn't update firmware, so if there is problem you can easily revert to official 1.8.3 version. What is the reason for this move and have two versions (1.9 and 2.0) for testing?