I have recently purchased the ZWO ASIAIRPro and love it. It is so simple to use and has everything all in one place. Has dew heater functions and gets me polar aligned within a couple of minutes.
I use it to power my camera, guide camera, mount, dew heaters etc.
As Cheryl has mentioned it’s a great piece of kit
I own one also & highly recommend it
I also have a mini pc unit which works well but the ZWO pro just has everything inbuilt in compact unit ( well depending on your needs )
I purchased one direct from ZWO cost $430 delivered from China to Oz within 6 days
Have it use it love it. Buy it direct from ZWO to save yourself $170 off what they are asking for here retail. As for warranty they will only send it back to ZWO anyway
can control mount, camera, guide scope, auto focuser
comes with a 64 gb usb drive, enough for an imaging session
for my setup, asi 1600 mc, asi 120 mm, zwo auto focuser all plug
into the air and take there power from the AIR, so I only have one power cable dangling off the AIR, everything else is on the scope and nicely out of the way
The pro can control my AZEQ6 via the skywatcher WIFI module, so no cables from AIR to mount
No requirement for a laptop, everything runs off a lightweight tablet
Polar align only takes a few minutes
Auto focus only takes a few minutes
Can run an imaging sequence
Minuses
All cameras, focusers must be ZWO, though it will control a DSLR
Software is a bit limited but it does improve with each release, e.g.
v1.4 had no video controls, so only deep space
v1.4 had no autofocus for EAF
v1.5 has video capture
v1.5 has autofocus
The guiding is a limited version of PHd but it does work, though I have a few problems with it and v1.5 seems to have introduced some guiding bugs. However you can still connect up PHd if there are issues.
For me it is a godsend. I don't have a fixed site. With the AIR I can be setup, polar aligned, focused and guiding and taking photo's in 30 minutes
which is not bad given the price of the unit.
I have added a photo of my scope with all the things connected.
You can put Astroberry on it which will make it brand agnostic & there are some basic configuration files that will enable the DC hub too (although it’ll be a simple all-on or all-off 12V - no INDI drivers to have a variable voltage).
But using KStars/EKOS is a little more sophisticated than the ASI s/w.
You can put Astroberry on it which will make it brand agnostic & there are some basic configuration files that will enable the DC hub too (although it’ll be a simple all-on or all-off 12V - no INDI drivers to have a variable voltage).
But using KStars/EKOS is a little more sophisticated than the ASI s/w.
But you would need an external monitor and keyboard as I don't think it would run from a cheap tablet?
I setup and teardown away from my home each imaging session, so it's usefull for me to have the tablet as the controlling interface for all the equipment.
But you would need an external monitor and keyboard as I don't think it would run from a cheap tablet?
I setup and teardown away from my home each imaging session, so it's usefull for me to have the tablet as the controlling interface for all the equipment.
I have been looking on ebay , at 10.1 inch Android tablets, From what I understand, as long as there is more than 4 gig ram, it should work correctly,
is there anything else I need to have on the tablet?
I use one and I think they are a fantastic piece of kit. Before buying my astro camera I used it for guiding only and it works great. Once I added a decimated astro camera my old iPad mini couldn’t handle the downloads. My phone however ( iphone7s ) can still run the whole shooting match with no issues what so ever.
Lot’s of good advice here.....I don’t have a go-to mount, but use the StarAdventurer for AP. I find the ASIAir Pro is fantastic for polar aligning (only takes a few minutes) but the feature I like most is plate-solving. Helps me get on target really quickly which will be much more difficult without it, especially in heavy light pollution skies (I’m in North Sydney).
Hey Cheryl, can I ask please, what brand of Dew Heater are you using, I'm looking at products that have the 2.1 male plug I'm guessing, any insight would be welcome, kind regards, O
