Testing report of ASIAIR v2.3.1 beta on ASIAIR Pro, AM5 mount, CAA, ASI6200MM, 7x2 EFW, ASI462MM guide camera:
Polar alignment would never complete. The ASIAIR would start OK then plate solving failure, partial image downloads from the 6200MM and eventually no image down loads from the 6200MM camera. Two power cycles to try again and no help. Had to install my Mele 4C and use the 3-point polar alignment in NINA. The changes to the polar alignment error circles in the ASIAIR is not good as the small 4’ circle is useless. Please go back to the previous error circle scheme. No improvements here just issues. I really love the polar alignment routine on previous ASIAIR software.
The ASIAIR CAA support is buggy. The 180 degree limit is confusing and lack of a settable virtual zero position makes the CAA hard to use. I would never run the imaging rig unattended as the CAA integration is prototype-ish.
I continued the imaging run using NINA and the ASCOM CAA driver. Everything just worked. The CAA ASCOM driver has more features I would like to see in the ASIAIR. The ASCOM driver works well but it needs more refinement of limits. I don’t see any reason to have a rotator that is capable of 360 degree rotation. The CAA did introduce additional sensor tilt in my system. I will probably return my CAA and go another way for a rotator with more mature ASCOM support and a mechanical accuracy with little to no backlash and no sensor tilt. The CAA angular backlash is concerning and I don’t see how we can claim the positioning accuracy of 0.1 degrees with that backlash. Please add a feature that the CAA can have a user settable backlash compensation value. When I moved the CAA 90 degrees and back NINA reported a 0.3 degree difference in camera position angle.
I am excited to have a ZWO CAA in my imaging work-flow but we are not there yet.
