Went out with astro club blokes last night. Bad smoke haze. Very windy. The outing wasn't really to do serious stuff given the bad conditions. Just a Christmas / end of year gathering of like minded folk.
I spent most of the night pestering and watching a bloke who has owned the ASIAIR since they were first released.
Crikey! I am impressed! One thing to read the blurb about what it can do and see the screenshots ... but seeing someone who knows it well actually using it ... super impressive.
* Plonk down GEM tripod using normal smartphone compass.
* No need to level tripod (BTW I haven't levelled my tripod for ages - it is not necessary if you use any technique you like to polar align first and use a preset User Object - I can explain if you wish, but most people just do not believe me and it ends up being a waste of time explaining it all LOL)
* Put on the DEC/RA head and counterweights.
* Put on "pre-assembled" OTA. OTA 'assembled' but covered when at home. By 'assembled' I mean the OTA has motorised focuser, filter wheel, main imaging camera, small guidescope and guide camera all inserted and with all cables already connected to ASIAIR. ASIAIR is attached to the underside of the OTA dovetail. So at site just picks OTA up 'assembled' from car and attach onto the DEC/RA head. There's one loose cable hanging from the ASIAIR which plugs it into the mount itself
Takes him about as long as it took you to read this far in my post!
* Grabs his iPad, taps the asiair app and is instantly on wifi to the ASIAIR. Now begins the wonderful stuff ....
*Tap polar alignment icon. Same routine as SharpCap/Polemaster. Platesolves to 'see' where the scope is pointing, then automatically slews 90 degree's in RA, does another platesolve, then gives him X and Y degrees/minutes/secs away from the pole. Adjusts ALT and AZ bolts watching the X and Y Alt Az error reduce on the screen display until a few arcsecs within the pole. Like SharpCap/Polemaster it takes about two minutes to get within a few arcsecs of the pole.
Next...
* No need for star alignment ...
* Tap Target/Objects list icon and off it slews. If you install Sky Safari on the ASIAIR it fully integrates with that (better search facilities, object info and so on). This bloke doesnt use SkySafari, he just uses the built in ASIAIR object list.
* Beeps to say it is on target (which it isn't because we haven't done any star alignment and the mount wasnt level). So tap the Platesolve icon. Within about 15 seconds it platesolves (all standard with the ASIAIR - no extra downloads nor installs required), then accurately corrects/slews to the object based on that platesolve. On screen is displays a quick high gain exposure auto stretched for you to check you are there. Everytime we did this it was bang on the target object! Truly impressive and very quick!
He said there is a "Sync" button which if you press, it effectively does star alignments on-the-fly as you goto more and more targets. But he says he does not bother doing the Sync, finding the platesolve / automatic slew correction is so accurate and so easy taking just 15 seconds or so ... that he does not bother to ever Sync.
So, first object should always be star so we can check focus! So this bloke does AP so his workflow is ...
* Tap Filter Wheel icon (it'll take any ZWO motorised wheel), selects the appropriated filter, and taps the focus icon. It uses FWHM graph and fully remote controlled ZWO focuser to focus. By the way ... tip from another bloke there is he 3D printed a black filter sized insert and puts into the sequence run bit of ASIAIR to alternate filter X and the black filter during the imaging run. IE a darkframe alternating with lightframe automatically when doing AP. (Reminder to self - I need to ask Tony to try printing a small filter sized Bahtinov mask and see if it works ok?)
* Now focused he taps the Autoguide icon. The usual thing, tap to select a guidestar, it calibrates and then starts guiding displaying the DEC RA graph. The AIR app supports dithering to get rid of satellite trails etc
* Finally taps imaging sequence icon and starts the imaging run.
And of course the full camera controls are there like cooler temp, gain, exp times etc etc
He was up and imaging in about 10 minutes. But, that was with all the kit for AP! For VA where we (usually) dont guide, nor use more than one filter we'd be up and running in an even shorter timeframe ..... BUT ... THEY NEED TO GET STACKING WORKING FOR VA! So a bit of a wait for ZWO. I reckon a portable GEM VA rig could be fully setup and landing bang on target in about 3 minutes. No drivers to install ... Plug and Play straight out of the box ... fully remote control so you can be indoors with scope outside .... and with your tablet streaming on your home network to your wide screen HD TV. But of course just ZWO cameras! LOL
Seeing an expert user use it was pretty darn cool!