Discovery of the M31 [OIII] emission arc
Recently, a major discovery by an international team of amateur astronomers and scientists has become a huge online hit, and this new discovery is just located in one of the
Discovery Astrophotography with ZWO ASTRO
ZWO released ASIAIR 1.0.8 with Dither
ZWO, the worldwide leading supplier of astrophotography equipment, announces the immediate availability of ASIAIR 1.0.8.
As a revolutionary product in DSO astrophotography, ASIAIR has been received popular recognition and highly praised by users since its release. Listening to our customer’s feedback and continuously improving the user experience is the philosophy that ZWO has always insisted on.
ASIAIR V1.0.8 comes with numerous improvements and new features as follows
- Dither
- No GPS location solution
- Support GoTo Zero Position on all mounts
- Support Takahashi Temma mount
We strongly recommend all all ASIAIR users to upgrade to this version.
1. What’s Dither
In astrophotography, to dither means to shift the pointing of the telescope slightly in random directions before take every single frame between exposures. This allows hot and cold pixels to be removed during the stacking process.
Let’s take a look at the masterpiece that “dithered” by Jerry Lodriguss.
The read noise will be obvious without dither, which lowers the image quality.
- Difference between dither and no dither
2. Dither Settings in ASIAIR
There are three settings:
Distance: defines how big to be moved with random direction on Guider in pixel unit.
Stability: defines the acceptable distance from the guiding start that to be considered as dithering end. The distance is in ArcSec.
Settle Time: defines how long to wait for guiding to be stable after dithering.
3. Dither Status in ASIAIR
Dither status in ASIAIR will be shown in the Guide Float Window and the Guiding Interface.
It shows the status of guiding and whole process of dither. After dither, it will be marked on the guide curve using the text “dither” (it will be marked with a yellow dot on the Android app)
On guiding interface, you can see the dither status as below.
Summary
Professional astronomers have a saying: “dither or die.” It may not be quite that dire for amateur astrophotography, but dithering will improve your images tremendously, increasing the all-important SNR and removing artifacts like hot pixels and satellite trails, as well as even compensating for temperature mismatches between darks and lights shot with a non-cooled COMS camera.
4. Other New Features
Manually input of GPS location
Some devices may not have GPS module, so ASIAIR could not calculate correctly. But now you can manually enter the latitude and longitude of your location.
5. GoTo Zero Position
Nowadays, all mounts that supported by ASIAIR can park Home.
6. Takahashi Temma mount support
In the next version 1.0.9, the DSLR will be supported.
Keep improving and innovating our products, providing better customer service is what we are always pursuing.)
More Posts
Taranjot Singh’s story with ZWO products- one of the Top 5 finalists in the prestigious Siena Creative Awards 2024
Taranjot Singh, an Indian origin Australian astrophotographer who is making waves on the international stage. Taranjot has been recognized as one of the Top 5 finalists in the prestigious Siena
The best solution of 55mm back focal length
The back focal length is advised by telescope manufacturers. Since most telescopes have a 55mm back focal length, we are here to provide detailed instructions for all ASI cooled cameras.Please
[ASI6200 Guide] 5 connection methods to get 55mm back focus length
How to connect ASI6200MM Pro to 2″ EFW/M54 filter drawer and OAG-L? How many solutions are there for ASI6200MM Pro to get 55mm back focus length? If you are still
[ASI2600 Guide] 4 Connection methods to get 55mm back focus length
People are asking the connect methods of ASI2600MM Pro: How to use it with the new 36mm EFW? How to reach the 55mm back focus distance? What accessories I need
Astrophotographer’s Story: Andrea Arbizzi
Hello Andrea Arbizzi，thanks for accepting our interview invitation. Congratulations on winning the ASIWEEK competition in week#42/2024！ Q1: At first, congratulation that your nice image won #ASIWEEK. Can you introduce yourself
12 Comments
Mr Shevill Mathers
I have just recently purchased the ASIAIR unit, how do I upgrade to the latest software please?
Regards and a Happy New Year to ZWO.
Katherine Tsai
Hi,
Thank you very much!
Happy New Year！
You could go to the app store to download the latest version of ASIAIR software.
Michael
How do I get my ASI120MM mini guide camera to guide my mount through the telescope setting? Right now I’m choosing “on camera ST-4” and it works fine. But, I think it would guide more accurately if it guided directly with my mount. When I choose my mount in the Telescope drop down menu (Celestron CGX), it connects fine. I can use the “go to” function, but when I open the guide screen, and ask it to loop, it tells me to “make connections”. Can you help? Am I connecting correctly? I disconnect the ST-4 cable from the mount. Should I connect the ASI120MM mini directly to ASIAIR instead of to my main camera (ASI1600MM pro)?
Thank you,
Regards,
Michael
Katherine Tsai
Please connect the guide camera in the Guide Settings first.
H2
Both LED staying red at all time is that normal ?
Katherine Tsai
Usually they will not staying red at the same time.
But when one of them is red, the other one may looks like it is red too, actually it does not light up.
Serge Baye
I have a 10Micron GM1000 HPS and a Ioptron CEM120 EC2. Once well set these mounts are reliable for unguided shots. So I am considering to stop guiding since I take up to 10 – 15 min unguided images up to 1 meter focal length. These shots are as good or sometimes better than guided ones.
Since this recent update it is possible to dither and it is a great step for this excellent and comprehensive app. But so far the dither option is linked to the auto guiding option.
My question : is there any chance to expect in a future update an option that will allow us dithering without guiding ? (Sequence Generator Pro and Maxim DL and other DSLR programs have this feature). It is important because without dither we get most of the time walking noise. Thx for your attention and very nice app.
best regards,
Serge
Katherine Tsai
Hi Serge,
We need to look into this problem.
Could you tell us opration steps? You can send an email to support(at)zwoptical.com
Freddo
I have a 10Micron GM1000 HPS mount on order and arriving soon, and like Serge I would also request that there could be dithering without guiding in ASIAIR as I hope to also do unguided long-exposure imaging. Once my mount arrives I would be happy to help test it if you do implement it. I think that basically the app would need to wait for an exposure to finish, then do a random direction dither move of the distance set in the app (using the current distance dither setting), every n exposures as set in the app’s dither settings, then wait the a specified period of time for the mount to settle (but not use the guiding to measure settling since this would be unguided imaging, just use the settle time that is already there as a setting), then trigger the next exposure to be taken, and so on. Do I have that right Serge?
ZWO ASI Camera
Yes ,you are right.
Jeff
Hi,
The focus routine will not run on mt AISAir Pro, I’m using a Nikon D700. Do you know when this will be rectified?
Regards,
Jeff
ZWO.Moson
We will convey your feedback to our devs, and they will fix this.