ASIAIR v3.0 has been released!

PMTeam@ZWO

We’re excited to announce that v3.0 is now officially available on the App Store and Google Play! Thanks to all users who helped in the beta period.

New Features
Telescope Network is now live
Remotely connect to and control your ASIAIR from anywhere, as long as it’s online. Monitor device status and imaging progress in real time for a more seamless remote astrophotography experience.
Redesigned Home Screen

Simplified Device Management: Connect, switch, and disconnect devices directly from the Home screen.
Imaging Status at a Glance: A new Imaging Status Card lets you monitor imaging progress, guiding status, and other key information in real time.
Easier Network Configuration: Access network settings directly from the Home screen for quicker setup and management.
Hidden Wi-Fi Support in Station Mode: Station Mode now supports connecting to hidden Wi-Fi networks for greater flexibility in complex network environments.

Improvements & Optimizations

Optimized the star detection algorithm for more consistent results across platforms.
Added current-position verification when switching CAA to Rotation Mode, helping prevent cable wrap issues.

⚠️ Important Prerequisites

iOS Device Requirements: iPhone and iPad system version ≥ 13; Mac computers require M1
or newer chips.
Full-Platform Firmware Update Notice: ASIAIR V3.0 involves major underlying firmware upgrades. A mandatory firmware update will be triggered upon entering the shooting page.
Please reserve sufficient time for device updates in advance.

The attachment shows how to use the new feature.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rWStSrOlw8IWwdROIiFXtNqj8f4ADvQw/view?usp=sharing

7u684p10

PMTeam@ZWO

Horrible update.. completely broke all of my devices. I cannot connect to any of my asiairs. I invested in 8 zwo cameras, 6 asiairs and locked into your ecosystem, but you do not make a major update into a smooth transition for us.

None of my asiairs connect, my phone sees the boxes and then fails to connect. And why can't we just opt out of this? Because you want us to pay for a subscription? Ive spent thousands on zwo gear and refuse to spend a penny on a subscription especially after this experience. Thank you for ruining a good night of astrophotography..

Moontanner

The sky cleared unexpectedly last night. The scope went outside and v3.0 got a reasonable Plan run on 3 targets.
Everything tested worked smoothly. No Bugs to report. 👍️ 👍️

PMTeam@ZWO Added current-position verification when switching CAA to Rotation Mode, helping prevent cable wrap issues.

I'm still unsure how this is meant to prevent cable wrap issues?

Alp'sky

PMTeam@ZWO I have my own remote observatory. Telescope Network works much better than I expected, and the connection is fast and stable.

One important feature is still missing. At the moment, FITS files can only be downloaded one by one. In my case, a 17 MB FITS file downloads in about 5 seconds, which is excellent. However, after a night of imaging I may have hundreds of FITS frames, and downloading them individually is not practical.

It would be great if I could download all FITS files from the current imaging session or select multiple files and download them together.

I can already download files through my VPN, but Telescope Network is much faster and much more convenient. Adding bulk download to Telescope Network would make it the perfect solution for remote observatories.

I also hope Telescope Network will remain a free feature in the future. If it becomes a paid service, I would probably continue using my VPN solution instead.

Thank you for the great work and for continuing to improve ASIAIR.

Moontanner

Calibration log for the first target last night:

4 minutes later after pausing and restarting the same plan. Same target. Same angle. Same filter. Same settings.

PMTeam@ZWO
I'm still waiting on a response from my email and app based bug reports. It's gotta be something simple that's running out of sequence. Any suggestions would be welcome so I could start using my CAA again.

caracol_uk

Thank you for all the work that has gone into releasing v3.0. I have updated to the new version today and I noticed there are a number of new options present in the "About" section. These are labelled as follows:

Turn off GoTo Auto-Center
RA Axis Rotation Distance
AF Test
Snap Mode
Turn off Meridian Limit

I haven't been able to find an explanation of what these options do. While some of these are probably self explanatory, it would be useful if you could provide some details.

Moontanner

caracol_uk

I'm not seeing any of those options after swapping over from the last beta build. Are you on Android, or IOS?
Also, which firmware is your device showing?
(I'm on Android).

PMTeam@ZWO

Moontanner

caracol_uk
Thank you for your interest and feedback!

The feature you mentioned is currently intended for internal testing only. It’s primarily used by our team for feature validation and evaluation, and is not an officially released feature available to all users.

Since it’s still under active development, some functionality, stability, and compatibility may not yet be fully validated. For this reason, we don’t recommend using it for regular imaging sessions at this time, as it may affect your overall experience.

Thank you again for your interest in ASIAIR and for your continued support!

caracol_uk

Moontanner I use the iOS version of the app on my phone and the Android version on my laptop using Bluestacks. The options I mentioned are shown in both, but they are on the "information" page, right down at the bottom underneath the experimental features. I'm not at home at the moment so can't check the version of firmware on my ASIAir, though it did update the firmware after I connected. Is it possible that you have the automatic update option turned off on your ASIAir and the firmware has not yet been updated, only the app?

Dsqh3WbQ

I personally am leary of updating to this new version. I'll avoid updating if possible or a least wait until usage results begin to trickle in. The telescope network sounds nifty, but if it can't run on a 10.0.0.XX ip address like the ASIAir already cannot in station mode, it is completely useless to me. I haven't seen anything anywhere saying it can be used on an ip address s I mentioned.

Luxo

I don't know where ZWO think they're taking ASIAir, but there's nothing useful/relevant to me in version 3.

If you want your rig to work reliably and get on with imaging stay with 2.5.2.

What I am quite disappointed by is that there are MANY things users have requested here, and not a single one has been implemented. Most were practical, useful and sensible.

supertele

I had been using my remote telescope at SFRO without any issues, but after the latest update, I could no longer figure out how to reconnect to it.
For those of you who operate your equipment remotely, I'd recommend being a little more cautious before installing firmware or software updates. It's probably best to wait a while and make sure there are no unexpected issues before updating a remote system.

heyjp

supertele

I too have had good results running my remote scope at Starfront. Except for lack of local timezone support and no predictability of the CAA rotator (which are supposed to be fixed in v3.0.

I don’t use the “hidden” WiFi network approach for remote control. I setup a Tailscale vpn which has been working flawlessly accessing my remote scope and seems to be working with v3.

Jim in Boulder

supertele

How can I go back to the previous version?

Luxo

supertele
Reverting to earlier versions is covered in the missing manual.

magore

Just a comment on the state of feature priorities. It great to see some progress but you still can not do fundamental things like being able to search for a majority of the visible stars in the sky by name. Pick any constellation in the night sky and try to go to each star by name. Only a tiny tiny number exists in the catalog and this feature has been requested for years and years. (Why even have a suggestion page for catalog features if you don't even use it? ). How about being able to do an all sky polar align for any quadrant of the sky or hemisphere and also without fear of crossing the meridian all when the basic mathematics are so trivial?. These are truly basic function and far far more important then many of the features that are being worked on. I own lots of zwo hardware - two asiairs, two cooled cameras, two guider cameras, a planetary camera, two filter wheels, two focusers, and am5 and tc40. Yet I have been forced to buy a mini pc and dive into nina just to be able do fundamentally basic tasks like this. You have great products! But please spend some more time on basic usability features first. Sorry for my rant. Thanks for listening

SKG95T28

magore I understand you! I just receave my ASIAIR Plus, I havent use it outside whit my telescope and I allready aide it! The SeeStar S50 it's much better to use. Exemple : No video timelapse in video for the sun in ASIAIR. The interface is very hard to use in general (not user frandly at all).
I look to lurn to use N.I.N.A. and buy a mini PC. An application for cell Android (not IOs) just begin to control the N.I.N.A. but not completly (to follow...).

magore

I have been imagining the Sadr region tonight and it's going well without issue meridian flip and guiding is working well.

Larry.Cable

Luxo tried a variety of the tools you suggest to access/reinstall prior versions of ASIAir; iMazing "isnt", and ipatool would be great (to reinstall on mac silicon) if logging in using it actually resulted in a 2FA code being generated - just FYI.

🙁...

Moontanner

caracol_uk
Interesting. I've definitely updated the firmware after installing the 3.0 app and even went back to the last beta build to see if I'd missed them there.
The firmware actually rolled back to 1439 vs 1442 from the last beta I tested last night. The higher version had the extra CAA tab with a Flat Panel section which has vanished now.

I guess I'll give it a couple of days and check back to see if you get an answer from ZWO.
Thanks for the info.

caracol_uk

Moontanner I'm home now and have just checked mine. Looks like we're both running the same version. I'm using the ASIAir Plus, in case that makes a difference.

Moontanner

caracol_uk
Thanks. I'm running the update on an ASIAIR Plus also.
Maybe you snagged a slightly different download when first released, or the rest of my equipment means I don't get those options.

It's interesting that ZWO hasn't mentioned anything yet.

Luxo

Moontanner

If you look closely there are two versions - ZWO has released 3.0.0 (14.39) so all users with auto update on will get that, while the beta has been moved on to 3.1_0727 (14.42) - which has the two CAA tabs.

"RA Axis Rotation Distance" is interesting, from theory 60 or 90 degrees should work really well compared to the default value.

"AF Test" and "Snap mode"... no idea what those do - possibly for DSLRs - but I guess someone will find out.

"Turn off mount meridian limits" is a disaster waiting to happen, though I can understand why some might want it eg. fork mounts (no flip) or imaging circumpolar objects from a high latitude.

Green

And it’s a piece of shit !!,, 2 hours trying to do what I did before the upgrade on a rare clear night…..
PISSED OFF DOESNT START TONDESCRIBE MY FRUSTRATION… I knew I should t upgrade and in a moment of stupidity did

Moontanner

Luxo
Yep. I was testing the 3.1 beta when they released the official 3.0. Aside from a slight guide calibration glitch, it nailed a whole plan and seemed to upload images much faster.
ZWO responded to my bug report straight away and said to roll back to 3.0 official.

I'm interested to know if anyone else has the extra options on the About screen? This is the only mention of them I've heard so far.
The Play store 3.0 download is also smaller than the same download through the ZWO site, but I still don't get those options with either version.

"Turn off GoTo Auto-Centre" Sounds like it was designed with you in mind, Luxo. It sounds like a handy feature for when the goto auto centre routine doesn't work, but your mount knows exactly where it's pointing.

caracol_uk

Luxo "RA Axis Rotation Distance" could be very useful indeed if that relates to the polar alignment process. From my observatory I only have a view of the pole star with the mount positioned with the counterweight down. After the 60 degree anti-clockwise rotating the pole star is obstructed by the observatory roof. I currently get around that by starting the PA process with the mount rotated clockwise by 60 degrees.

As for "Turn off mount meridian limits", I agree, that would have to be used very cautiously. Personally, it could be quite useful as my Losmandy G811 can image about 2 hours past the meridian with the pier extension. As I usually start imaging a couple of hours before the meridian, that would often mean I could avoid a meridian flip entirely.

R0k9pZfT

Annoying bug already. I never go into the focus menu, but today I did. After using it and the zoom option, the zoom button won't go away in Preview. If you tap it, the background image goes away and nothing else happens. Bug report submitted.