I recently bought an ASIAir Mini believing it could do live plate solving, to correct tracking of long multi-shot exposures without a guide scope. I don't see any such ability in the latest ASIAir Android app, though google's AI summary says it can which hopefully isn't a hallucination. Can anyone tell me whether it is possible to do automatic or manual plate solving and sync during live or autorun modes, and if not, is there a demand for it? Sharpcap has been able to do it since last year.

    I have a HEQ5 Pro mount, C8 SCT with f/6.3 Focal Reducer and an ASI294MC Pro cooled to 0°C.

    I use Live Mode for Live Stacking for unguided EAA spending anywhere up to 30 minutes on a target using exposures up to 30 seconds.

    It works great.

    I have an ASIAIR Plus 32GB running firmware 2.1-10.74.

      Corsair Thanks sounds like a nice setup! I do short exposure EAA with a 6" dob and a 5" Mak on alt-az goto mounts, which need tracking correction every few minutes to keep targets centered on an ASI585MC.

      Sounds like plate-solving during live stacking isn't possible yet with ASIAir. Without it, I need to switch from Live to Preview mode, take a pic, plate-solve and sync/goto. Worse than that interruption is that my live stack gets blown away each time.

      ZWO does it already in the SeeStar S50, I just want to do the same with my bigger scopes.

        emalafeew So, for unguided, it comes down to your mount's ability to track a target.

        What mount are you using? Is it an alt/az mount?

        Also - just tagging @Tech@ZWO and @PMTeam@ZWO in this as they are the ZWO members.

        I would also recommend logging a support ticket: https://support.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/

        Thanks! I'm happy to do any beta testing if ZWO is interested in adding this feature.

        I have two alt-az mounts I'd like to do this with, a Skywatcher Virtuoso GTI and a Celestron NexStar SLT.

          emalafeew

          You realize that with Alt-Az mounts you will get field rotation. The ASIAIR will live stack using Alt-Az mounts but if you do a a large number of exposures, field rotation will occur. I do live stacking using an Alt-Az mount at public outreach events. Much easier to set up. Field rotation will develop after a while, and even worse strings of colored hot pixels will appear in the image especially in warmer weather where the camera cooler can't keep up with outside temperature. I did an image of the comet at the end of last month using live stacking, but I saved each frame and processed the frames in other software. Came out much better. The field rotation can be cropped out and other software seems to do a better job of processing the images.

          JohnD

            johnpd

            Thanks I assumed ASAir compensated for field rotation when live stacking. But no worries, I always restack in other software that does. My main concern is getting the frames. Nice comet!

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