Imaging session last night ASIAIR version 2.4 release.
Equipment: ASI AIR Pro, 6200MC camera, 220mini Guide Camera, EAF, EFW, CAA, and ioptron iEQ45 Pro mount.
1) ASI220 guide camera was guiding OK but stopped displaying stars above the guiding graph. Just a blank screen behind the guide display after 2 hours of imaging.
2) the rotator was set to 180 degrees mode but did a full 180 degree rotation during the meridian flip. The zero point in the ASIAIR showed a new zero point adding the extra 180 degrees from the rotation. This is a very dangerous software bug that needs to be fixed now, as the uncommanded 180 degree rotation could cause stress in cables and damage USB ports on very expensive cameras. I had about six inches of free cable so the rotation did not cause a bad cable wrap. The CAA is not working right and I leave it disabled going forward. Wasn’t the whole point of the new ASIAIR release to support the CAA? Please provide a button that says do not rotate the CAA with a meridian flip. I have to get up and go out now and watch my rig do a meridian flip because I can’t trust the CAA to unexpectedly start rotating.
3) standard plate solving is much slower than the 2.1.2 ASIAIR version I was previously running. After a goto my past ASIAIR version would say goto successful after 3-5 seconds. Now it takes 10-15 seconds. What ever you did to change plate solving is not working right.
4) the polar alignment routine is twitchy and not as stable as the previous version. Once I got closer than 30 arcseconds the target circle did not expand like it used to and show a higher resolution target. It just stays the same.
5) during one auto run session I lost communication with the EFW, EAF, and guide camera and had to manually re-enable them. My ASIAIR Pro would never lose communication with any devices after 3 years of solid performance on older versions of the ASIAIR software.
6)meridian flips no longer pause the guider, it just starts complaining about the telescope unexpectedly moving and stops guiding. It used to pause the guider.
Full frame image downloads worked fine and using the hard-wired Ethernet port to an external router had no issues.
Please fix these issues so we can have confidence that the ASIAIR works for unattended imaging.
