The guiding frame rate on the ASIAIR v2.1 Beta (Build 9, Firmware 10.66) seems to have improved substantially from v2.0.
In v2.0 and earlier, an ASI178MM can barely do 2 FPS (just looping in the ASIAIR guide window) with a third generation ASIAIR, when the exposure time is set to 0.5 seconds and with 2x binning. With 1x binning, the best frame rate that can be achieved under v2.0 was 1 FPS, regardless of exposure durations.
With the 10.66 firmware in v2.1 Beta, the ASI178MM can finally do 2 FPS with a 0.5 second exposure and 1x bin. In fact, with 0.2 second exposure, the frame rate approaches 5.0 FPS even at 1x binning. The frame rate is not consistent at 5 FPS, but then, with 0.2 second exposure, that camera might not be able to pick up too many guide stars, anyway. 2 FPS is sufficient to keep an RST-135 mount happy.
This is not a real miracle. I am able to get over 7 FPS and pushing full 1x binned data frames over WiFi with a Raspberry Pi 4 running Indigo Sky. But at least in this aspect, ASIAIR v2.1 is now much better than v2.0.
Chen
