ASI Air Plus and ASI EAF focuser

[gregbradley]

I am building a new observatory and thought it would be a good time to upgrade cable management and electronic focusers.

ASI Air Plus seems to neaten up cable management with a single unit.

The EAF also seems like a good electronic focuser.

I'd love to hear real world use from users of these units.

Greg.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

I just picked up a ASIAIR Plus myself. I also have a ZWO ASI533MC Pro in the mail too. It all just looks so promising. I already have the ZWO guider kit and I suppose the EAF is the last piece if I choose to use it.

Look forward to reading to the feed back from more experienced users of this tech.

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Can't speak for the Air, but the EAF is fantastic. Once you account for any backlash in the focus mechanism, you can get good focus quickly and much easier than using the Mk I eyeball.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Love my ASIAIR PLUS, so much so I have moved to the ZWO ecosystem completely. Yes occasionally there are glitches, but over all does a fine job of taking much of the hassle out of astrophotography.

A plus is they seem to keep on continuous adding features.

When I got the ASIAIRplus it couldn’t do mosaics couldn’t help with rotating the camera to match, say, a previous session’s orientation.

All this you can now do.

Many of the reasons to keep using NINA on a mini pc are slowly disappearing- and cable management with the ASIAIR system is so much better without the need for a power box

New hardware keeps cropping up too- Rumours of a rotator are floating around don’t know how much substance there is.

As for the EAF, haven’t installed it yet but will be doing so shortly so can’t comment yet. By all accounts plays nicely with the ASIAIR

[Nikolas (Nik)]

I have the ASIAIR pro and the EAF and can't fault them Love the ease of use

[gregbradley]

Great responses, thanks very much.

It looks like it's a go.

Greg.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I can't comment on the Air, but I Have had a first gen EAF for some years (I bought it just after they were released) and I would happily buy another one. It just works. All I needed to do was work out a backlash compensation step count to take up both the backlash in the EAF (Minimal) and in my R&P focuser (Also minimal) and it lands in the same spot over and over again.

I had some power related issues but that turned out to be the rubbish solid inner conductor connectors on the cables you can get off the shelf instead of a spring contact, but the current EAF ditched the 12V connection for a USB only solution anyway.

[gbeal]

The AA+ and associated accessories are so well intertwined it makes sense to do as Narayan (and me of course), and go all into the ZWO system.
I have three EAF's on three separate scopes, and am looking at another.

Plate solving with the AA+ is so darn easy, I often say to my wife as I am capturing from the couch, "this feels like cheating".

[gregbradley]

Lots of positive feedback.

The main problem is probably where to find one.

One question though - how far away does the wifi still connect to your laptop and still work?
Can you operate it inside a house and control your setup about 25 metres away?

Greg.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

The main problem is probably where to find one.

Greg.

Got my AA+ from Testar. They have a few in stock.

[AdamJL]

I have an EAF/AA+ setup, and a mini-PC/Esatto setup.

I definitely prefer the PC/Esatto.. the Esatto is a much better focuser (you would hope so!) and NINA is just a joy to use. I prefer the NINA feature set as well.
Both setups are also cable-managed so they look almost identical in practise.

That said, I love the ability to use a tablet for the AA+, and it's just such a smaller package meaning less weight on your mount.

[gbeal]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Lots of positive feedback.

The main problem is probably where to find one.

One question though - how far away does the wifi still connect to your laptop and still work?
Can you operate it inside a house and control your setup about 25 metres away?

Greg.

I use "Station Mode", so the AA+ is connected to the house wifi, means I can be inside watching a movie or whatever while the red-gear is outside doing the hard yards.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Lots of positive feedback.

The main problem is probably where to find one.

One question though - how far away does the wifi still connect to your laptop and still work?
Can you operate it inside a house and control your setup about 25 metres away?

Greg.

Aaah that may be the weakest link. I sit in my lounge room and the rig is in the backyard - I’d say I am about 20 metres away. It does dropout from time to time. I have to move a little closer - say to the kitchen and it reconnects.

Of course it keeps imaging away once you have started a plan even if the wifi drops out.

People are using wifi extenders etc but while the dropouts are irritating I haven’t found it enough of an issue to be really bothered. Must say some people appear to get frustrated on the Facebook ASIAIR page.

PS I don’t use station mode, my home wifi is a very patchy for some reason even though I have an extender- works fine two houses down the street but not so good in my backyard.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Lots of positive feedback.

The main problem is probably where to find one.

One question though - how far away does the wifi still connect to your laptop and still work?
Can you operate it inside a house and control your setup about 25 metres away?

Greg.

Mobile phone or Tablet , it’s not designed for a laptop, though I believe there is a work around using Blue Stack,

However it so easy with a mobile device why would you want to use a laptop?

Besides you can connect more than one device to the same ASIAIR. Sometimes when I am at our club observing site I might leave the tablet behind - connected to the ASIAIR- and wander around the observing field keeping an eye on progress just on my phone

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

On the networking side, I'm using Bluestacks on the PC in my obsie and it works really well. I have two WiFi dongles on that PC - one connected to the ASIAIR Plus and the other connected to my home network. The ASIAIR connection is nice and strong, and the PC still has an internet connection. Seems to work well. The dongle that I connect to my home network has a high gain antenna for the added reach. I still use my iPad for PA at the scope though. If you're going to use Bluestacks, disconnect Bluestacks before you connect via iPad otherwise things get unreliable.

Separately, I've also managed to get the ASIAIR onto my local network in Station mode and have network mounted the internal drive of the ASIAIR onto my PC to drag files across / use Sharpcap in directory monitor mode for live stacking (I know...ASIAIR does that too, but Sharpcap is still better just now). The ASIAIR is a super capable machine though!

I've just ordered a second EAF for my other scope. They're a great unit for the price Greg and they run beautifully with the ASIAIR Plus. I love the autofocus routine on the ASIAIR. It kills Sharpcap IMO, as does the PA routine and Sharpcap is far from being shabby.

In terms of cable management, you're sure to find that things get very neat with the ASIAIR Plus mate. I was always on the edge of getting a Pegasus power box but am really glad that I held off. The ASIAIR does the job perfectly for me.

[SB (Chris)]

Hi Greg,
I have the ASIAIR Pro and Plus and two EAFs. EAFs work well. I like the fact that I can control everything from iPad and now the ASIAIR app runs on a Mac. Can even AirPlay to the TV! Can have multiple screens running at the same time showing Skysafari, ASIAIR App etc all connected to the gear on the mount.

Love the new framing and rotation assistant!

Chris