ASIAIR v2.0 has been released: Page 12

ASIAIR v2.0 has been released

franco

w7ay as far as I know the DNS entry doesn't change once the Air has brought up the Ethernet connection. I can connect from my machine using the 'asiair' hostname without any issues.

franco

w7ay are you using a mesh network

No.

franco

w7ay

This is the IP address that avahi returns

= eno2 IPv4 ASIAIR Device Info local
hostname = [asiair.local]
address = [192.168.1.229]
port = [0]
txt = ["model=MacSamba"]

This is the DNS entry for asiair

$ host asiair
asiair.lan has address 192.168.1.230

This is how the Air is configured

eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.230 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.229 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255

w7ay

franco
eno2 IPv4 ASIAIR
hostname = [asiair.local]
address = [192.168.1.229]
This is the DNS entry for asiair
$ host asiair
asiair.lan has address 192.168.1.230

When I connect a Raspberry Pi 4 (my Indigo Sky) both through WiFi and through Ethernet, I also see indigosky appear on my router at two different IP addresses. (I.e., when I configured indigoksy to use Station Mode, and at the same time use hardwired Ethernet.)

I have been terminating the WiFi antenna port of two of my ASIAIR with 50 ohm terminators, and have not seen them appear on WiFi. On top of that, I also tell those two ASIAIR not to use station mode on WiFi.

My all-sky camera (first gen ASIAIR; but will be switching to INDIGO when I construct my next all-sky camera) is not connected through Ethernet, and only appears using WiFi Station mode.

So, all of my ASIAIR are currently exclusively using either WiFi-only, or LAN-only.

Is your ASIAIR by any chance connected using WiFi Station Mode and LAN at the same time? If so, I would tell ASIAIR not to use station mode, and see if your problem goes away.

Chen

franco

w7ay I have considered disabling wifi but really I really don't care that I have to occasionally use the IP address to connect. I quite like the option of being able to connect to the Air via my PC on either wifi or lan. I bring my mount - on which the Air is permanently attached - into my house each morning after a night's imaging and use rsync to copy files to my PC, without having to run the app on my phone - just annoying that the Pi doesn't have a real time clock, although I think the Rockchip based versions might.

But as rodrigol points out, my solution isn't a proper fix and maybe if we the great unwashed can understand the problem, it might prompt a solution from ZWO.

After your port scan comment it reminded me that the Air has the sun-answerbook port open when booted. I had to google to find out what this was but just maybe this is how the Air communicates the serial number to the mobile app. Strange that it doesn't use zeroconf to do this.

My ASIAir Pro is too slow to process planetary AVI files but there's no way I'm buying the Plus or the Mini. An ASIAir Max based on an 8 core Orange Pi with NVme ssd is what I'm hanging out for. I also think they should split it into 2 modules, the main unit attached to the mount and a (Pegasus like) power/USB unit connected to the scope. That way you could buy multiple power/USB modules but only one, powerful base unit.

w7ay

franco An ASIAir Max based on an 8 core Orange Pi with NVme ssd is what I'm hanging out for.

I am not waiting.

Some time ago, when the Mac Mini that has the Apple Silicon (M1) came out, I bought one to be able to experiment with the M1. (I am in my 70s, but I still play with algorithms for fun.) At the same time, I found that the Mini had enough processing power that I could replace my 2009 MacPro for most of my needs.

Fast forward to earlier last year -- Apple announced the Mac Studio. So I bought a 20 core version and stacked it with 128 GB of memory (no, not typo -- I could give AstroPixelProcessor 64 GB of RAM to use as buffer, for example :-). So, I could retire both the Mac Mini and the MacPro.

At that point, I ripped the AC power supply from the Mac Mini (which only need a single 12V source), and replaced it with a 12V buck/boost converter. Everything fits nicely into the original enclosure. The reason for the buck/boost is so that it can be powered by fluctuating battery power if needed.

So, I will be running Indigo on this Mini. It will have so much processing power that I won't need to upgrade my astronomy setup again. I had used a Mac laptop in the past, but never happy with leaving a display and keyboard out in freezing weather.

Plus, I can experiment with my own algorithms (actually currently working on simulating an algorithm which I recently came up with, that should work better guiding with strain wave geared mounts :-). This is also why I am eyeing the Pegasus mount as another test bed for the new algorithm, in addition to my RST-135. There is no way you can innovate when you are hobbled with an ASIAIR.

Chen

franco

w7ay I am not waiting.

To be honest, neither am I because I know it will not happen.

I'm no spring chicken myself but I still have to work to pay for my hobby (insert smiley faced emoji here because I can't bring myself to do it).

My first telescope was an ETX90 which I bought at the turn of the century. I only bought it because it had computerised goto. It was pretty crappy and put me off astronomy for 20 years. I did manage to capture some black and white moon images using a pinhole camera and a video capture card with a RF input but that was about as exciting as it got.

A few years ago we had the Christmas star thing going on with Jupier and Saturn and I suddenly remembered I had a telescope in a box somewhere. It was till as crappy as I remembered it but it did kindle something in me that got me to where I am today.

I like the idea of being outside looking at stars but in reality I like doing astronomy from my sofa more..

w7ay

franco My first telescope was an ETX90 which I bought at the turn of the century.

My first (in 1963-64 time frame) was a 5" Newtonian that I had ground the mirror myself. I was in high school then; couldn't afford any better :-).

I had "borrowed" my dad's Nikon S (a rangefinder camera that is an unabashed copycat of the Zeiss Ikon Contax). The Nikon S had a removable lens. So I hand held that lensless body, and placed it at the prime focus, and got some blurry photo of the Moon in Tri-X. That was my first introduction to "astrophotography."

(That is why today, my mind still translates "Nikon" to "Nippon Ikon" :-).

Chen

Astrop

When the asiair works its fantastic, when it doesn't it kind of destroys the joy. Sometimes I do visual but due to light pollution I'm kind of forced into the imaging side of things.

Obs30

w7ay

A little update on the ASIAIR Mini. I have used it now a couple of times in the field at freezing temperatures. It works actually pretty well. I had it installed outside and about 10 to 15 meters away from a warm and comfy room. The connection is very stable and the data transfer is good enough for me. I am using the ASI294MC Pro camera. The ASIAIR Mini also served as a hotspot for the Avalon StarGO2 Pro RPi4, whose wifi is not great.

The reason why I had low data rates before was that I did not enable the 5GHz WiFi. The default setting on start-up/out-of-the-box is the 2.4 GHz network. With the 5 GHz WiFi and not being too far away during setting-up the mount (less than 10m), focusing works well and downloading preview images is fully acceptable.

I ran 10s-subs live-stacking and the WiFi was fast enough for real time “live imaging”. For 5s-subs, there was some lag. For longer than 10s exposure subs, there is absolutely no issue in my case. This comet is way too fast for longer subs ;-). Unbelievable.

I agree, it is the low-cost entry version into the ZWO eco-system. For more advanced set-ups, obviously, the ASIAIR Plus is far superior, especially with the Ethernet and USB-3 connections.

BTW, the USB-C connector provides very fast data transfer after the AP session to another PC/Mac.

Technically, the ASIAIR Mini is a little bit of a mixed bag, but for the price it does a great and decent job.

Astrop

The mini does stutter slightly with a slight delay compared to my pro when plate solving for example.

I also had an issue one night when I deleted my previous nights images it stated "disk is full" whenever I tried to start a plan, autorun or preview. No method of resetting it worked, even power out, so the issue cancelled that nights session. Strangely enough it worked again the next day. You have more options with the older system removable micro SD card as you can keep a backup with you if anything goes wrong.

The micro SD card is also the fastest way of copying data to your computer if you use an internal SD card reader. So, utilisation of emmc in my experience was a backward step.

Obs30

Astrop
I have not used the planning mode yet. Autorun a couple of times only. Otherwise live imaging with setting the option „save all images“. Then I do the actual stacking afterwards in either APP or Affinity Photo 2. Thank you for the heads up on deleting previous sessions.

Yes, there is some minor stuttering in the data transfer sometimes, but not too bad in my case.

Usually, I connect a 1TB SSD („old“ Samsung T5) via USB to the ASIAIRs. The last time I forgot to take it along and saved onto the internal memory and transferred data later on via the USB-C. SD cart is a great option, too, but I have not used it on the mini yet. The external SSD is my preferred option. I attached velcro to the SSD and the ASIAIR for easy attachment.

w7ay

Astrop The micro SD card is also the fastest way of copying data to your computer if you use an internal SD card reader. So, utilisation of emmc in my experience was a backward step.

The eMMC should have better read/write speeds if you are doing "lucky imaging" for planetary.

To transfer the data to the computer, you can always use ASIAIR app's Image Management to copy it to some USB storage, like a memory stick. And then "sneaker net" the USB storage to your computer.

If WiFi connection is good, you can also use the Samba server in ASIAIR to transfer the files. Or, through a USB PC port -- I don't have a mini, so I don't know if such a port exists.

But, be sure to delete the files using Image Management instead of sending it the trash from the computer, otherwise you also need to expunge them from the eMMC -- if you don't expunge, it will keep eating into storage space even though it does not appear anymore in ASIAIR's Image Management :-). The fourth generation RockChip version of the ASIAIR "plus" still has a Samba server, so I am pretty sure it is on the ASIAIR mini also.

One of the most economical way to do astrophotography today is to use a raw Raspberry Pi 4, and load Indigo Sky (free) in it. And if you really don't want to spend any extra money (with the more user friendly macOS suites from Indigo), just control the Raspberry Pi with the http server (i.e., a web interface for Indigo) -- which even has a sky map in the mount interface. The web interface also has pretty much everything else such as dome control and camera rotators; but if you can afford a dome, you can also afford to spend more money on the software :-)

Chen

Astrop

I do planetary with an RPI and astroberry. No such issue writing to an micro SD card taking tens of thousands of images a session.

I always delete images via the asiair app image management, I wouldn't expect a new mini to develop a fault so soon after starting using it.

The mini has a usb C port which you can use to power it or transfer images after a session, it is still slower than copying from a micro SD card directly.

Mks5

Astrop did you get any issues solved?

I also have random mount pointing issues, sometimes my Dec axis will spin the scope a full 360 when trying to align.

Also guiding, same - it will do 2 steps then complain its not done enough steps! When guiding I'm getting a few good subs where it'll guide around 0.6, but then the Dec will shoot off the graph for no reason, its almost like the Dec is doing a dither, result is double stars. Did you get any of this sorted?

Astrop

Mks5 I've been having the same or similar issues to you. Haven't sorted yet but will hopefully be clear tonight so will try again. It's especially annoying as I have limited time to image what I am at the moment, to have to also deal with issues which shouldn't and have not existed prior to the latest update.

w7ay

Mks5 sometimes my Dec axis will spin the scope a full 360 when trying to align.

If that is related to Polar Alignment, you need to make sure the slew rates of your mount are set to their factory defaults. The ASIAIR uses the ratio of two of the slew speeds to complete that "60º slew." If the ratio is wrong, the mount can end up moving only a tiny amount, or moves a gigantic amount.

Chen

w7ay

Mks5 Also guiding, same - it will do 2 steps then complain its not done enough steps!

This is cause by having too large a Calibration Step size in the Guide Settings. Reduce it until PHD2 make around 12 steps to complete its 25 pixels of movement.

In your case, if it only makes two steps, start by changing the Calibration Step size to 1/6 of the current value and then fine tune from there.

Chen

Mks5

Astrop yup, I'm gonna roll back to 1.9 for tonight, Ive only had 5 clear nights since November, if I don't get orion imaged soon it'll be behind the trees and gone for another year.

Mks5

I've rolled back to 1.9 and oddly I'm having the same problem, West step etc only going to 7, then when guiding the Dec leaps off the graph. All my settings that I'd altered in V2.0 were transferred into 1.9 - wondering if that's part of the problem. Gonna try the new beta, may as well...

Mks5

w7ay thanks, I was using the value of 2000 for the three settings, as I'd used in the previous versions with no issues, so I'm not sure why I'd need to change them - my gear is the same?

I've altered the calibration step a few times so it does more than 2 - 7 steps, now doing 18, that's not a problem I can understand that, however, I'm still having the Dec trace jump off the graph.

I have the other max Dec and max RA both still at 2000. Again, this was the same setting as before I upgraded to 2.0 so do I need to alter those as well?

The other thing I'm noticing, the green square and the two lines in 1.9 returned to the place they started, i.e. centered on the star - this isn't the case when I'm trying in 2.0, (or 2.1 as I'm now trying that) pic attached

Any other settings suggestions would be welcomed.

I did try rolling back to 1.9 but the issue was still there, which, oddly were also the settings I was fiddling around with in 2.0, not the default I would have expected from a clean install, which makes me think there is some remnant file which remains when I deleted 2.0, anyone know if this is the case?

Here is the Dec randomly jumping off the graph:

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