I am somewhat new to astrophotography, but have made a lot of progress in the past year, much of which I credit to the ASIAir+ that is part of my current imaging rig.
After waiting for the weather to improve and a favorable moon phase, last night seemed perfect to capture some images in Sagittarius and the surrounding region, before they are lost below the horizon.
I do some imaging from my backyard, but have a much better Bortle 3-4 site that is only a short drive from my home.
After setting up at this location, I connected to my ASIAir+ and was immediately notified of a firmware update, which was completed in a couple of minutes.
After a somewhat more difficult-than-normal polar alignment I though I would capture a sequence of images of M69 which was already quite low to the horizon.
When the mount (Celestron AVX) slewed to this location, it began a sequence of attempts to center M69 in the field of view, and eventually failed with the message "Too far" (or similar).
I then commanded the mount to the home position via the ASIAir, and noted that the RA axis did not move to the proper location based on the index marks on the mount, but was off by at least 10°.
After repeating the polar alignment, I thought that I would try to image an object closer to the pole, and settled on M52.
Again, it took several attempts to center the target, but eventually got there.
I started a live capture, and after the first exposure, noted that the download rate of the WiFi connection was extremely degraded, eventually dropping to less than 100K B/sec, before the connection dropped.
Following this, I was unable to reconnect my Android tablet to the ASIAir, until I finally reset the connection via the reset button.
To make a long story short, after going through this process several times, I was finally able to capture around 25 subs of this one target, and decided to pack up and go home.
Since last night, I have downloaded the latest version of the Android app to my tablet and connected to the ASIAir sitting on my desk and running on a local 12V supply, and still have the updated FW on the unit -- so far this looks OK, but I really have no way to test the WiFi file transfer and other functions until all of my gear is reassembled under the sky.
Debating on whether I will be able to try this from home tonight after all that went on previously, but if I do, I will post an update. Otherwise, my next opportunity to try this will be next week,
Charles
Valier, IL
