ZWO ASI Air Tutorial: Autoguiding & Dithering

This video demonstrates how to autoguide and dither your mount using the ZWO ASI Air operating system. It is actually a very simple process and couldn't be much easier! Dithering your images will allow your stacking software to remove unwanted noise, and autoguiding provides your mount with tracking updates during long exposure imaging to keep your image from blurring.

I've found the ASI Air to be the ultimate tool in portable imaging acquisition. Not having to take a laptop outside with me to autoguide, dither and acquire images has been very convenient and the results speak for themselves.

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[AstroBlender]

Update: The USB method now works very well with my Celestron CGX. I highly recommend ditching the ST-4 connection in favor of USB. With the USB route, you can plate-solve, meridian-flip, guide, and control your mount. It is much, much better!

[sammy]

I just got an asiair and I got everything working the first night out. However my autoguiding wasnt so great. This turorial answered alot of questions I had and improved my guiding the next time I went out. Thanks, subscribed

[javaruck]

Great video. I modified my guide and dither settings after watching this and noticed a significant improvement to both guiding and noise reduction.

[Zealor]

Clear and concise. I'll watch this one a couple times to take it all in. Bravo!

[f.s.]

Hi, great video and tutorial, helps m, e a lot as an beginner to set my ASIAIR+ with my equipment. Finally works good and I have a base to train for my first photos...greetings from Germany! Fritz

[dogdronesearchdd]

Great information I have been playing with the settings and I think I see a few mistakes.Thank you for explaining what each setting does and why you use those times .Of course it’s cloudy tonight I just got my guide scope focused last night.I can’t wait to change my settings!🙂

[johnnycanosoda]

Great video, Thank you for taking the time to explain this procedure. It's greatly appreciated. Please keep making videos...

[birreboi]

Good info on guiding and dithering. Finally, after months of waiting for stock and then delivery, I received the AISAIR Pro 2 days ago. Only have had one quick session with it last night so far. WiFi wasn't behaving itself too well, but some of that may be the position of the Air on my setup. I may need a WiFi extender. So first baddie about the Air - not great WiFi (hey, its just a Raspberry Pi!).

Being a cutdown version of PHD2, one does lack some things. For example, you cannot build a library of bad pixels, so one has to be careful and make sure you are guiding on an actual star. Cooling my ZWO 1600mm Pro went fine, except there is no warming it up at the end of a session to (supposedly) prevent any temperature shock.

The best thing was Polar Aligning, especially in the Southern Hemisphere where this can be a real pain! I have been using the QHY Polemaster, but used the AIR last night. I think I got my best alignment ever! Plate solving worked quickly and efficiently and subsequent goto's worked well. I am still awaiting delivery of a ZWO guide camera, so no guiding last night. But with 20x30 secs exposures, there was just about NO movement at all of my subject over that 10 minutes (maybe just a few pixels which was possibly the seeing conditions). So yeah, good balance and PA with the AIR did that trick (and of course a good mount).

All in all, not sure about the AIR yet. But like anything, there are good and bad points. Still, have only used it once (again with no guiding), so still plenty of opportunity for the AIR to shine ;-) Hope it does shine so I have less cables and no laptop outside.

[cutformllc]

I am watching this video in preparation to getting my ASI Air Pro delivered and so the main things I wanted to see is how everything gets connected and then how you go through the prompts to getting it reading everything correctly. I’m sure I will ultimately figure this stuff out when I get my equipment in but some of the mundane things you need to do would be a great video walkthrough.

[victormultanen]

such a nice explanation on the device featured in the video. Thank you very much for helping people to approach deep sky photography.

[TheHalvardn]

Thanks for a very well performed video and excellent narrative. I like also your breaks for in-depth explanations. For me, living in Sweden, the ambient temperature is often below zero (C), which means the ASIAIR no longer works. I have had to build a small wooden box to house it. I use a 5W bulb to keep the temperature up. During the summer it is usually too light to get any good photos, so astronomy is not made easy for us living in the north.

[ashpowell]

So the calibration steps and the duration corrections you spoke to, whats the symptom of them being too low or high? How do you know if 500ms is too low, for example?

[sonofoneintheuniverse]

This video is brilliant - spot on and that's it. Got exactly what I hoped for. 😊

[viksohal]

Thank You for this tutorial. Some good tips, particularly on the dithering and aggressiveness options for guiding axes.

[williamhetzel]

I'm about to begin autoguiding, and this video sure helped. Thanks.

[teashea]

very well done - nice production values - good explanations

[Cachefinder]

What a fantastic helpful video. Great work. Thanks a lot 👌🏼

[MarkoPola]

this was very helpful and clearly explained. thank you

[Kailombian]

A Big Thank You from Seattle. Fantastic Video👍🌠!

[michaelm.]

Thanks for all of your informational videos. I have an AT102ED and the ZWO ASIAIR Plus, I'm using a ZWO ASI 224 color and a SVBONY SV165 Mini Guide Scope 30mm F4 for guiding. My problem is that it loops and then goes into "calibration" but never starts guiding ?? What am I doing wrong ? for advice you might Ohio