Releases
Make sure that your software is up-to-date
In order to install the latest software, follow these steps:
(1) Download the latest software version on your PC or mobile device.
(2) Connect StarAid to the same PC or mobile device. Use WiFi or the supplied USB cable.
(3) Open the Web App via one of the following URLs:
http://169.254.54.1
http://192.168.55.1
http://my.staraid
(4) Click on the menu icon (three bars) in the upper-left corner.
(5) Select Software update (or Settings -> Software update on older versions).
(6) Update the device with the downloaded swu file by following the instructions in the App: Click here, or drag and drop a software update image file to this area.
(7) Wait for the software update to complete.
That’s it!
StarAid Revolution Hardware Revisions
Releases and known issues
2021-10-31 – Software release v1.9.2
Changelog
- Splitter: Show a notification when the splitter is not connected (in which case, the mount does not respond to commands!)
- Settings/GeoLocation: Fixed an issue where the E/W/N/S buttons didn’t work properly and entering a custom location failed
- Settings/Optics: Ability to select and enter your main telescope and imaging camera details for follow-up new functionality
- LiveView: Fixes issues where various controls would sometimes “jump around”
2021-10-19 – Software release v1.9.0
Changelog
- Sky Recognition: Improved algorithm that performs image stacking and works more robustly under very dark or light polluted skies. Works from twilight onwards.
- API: First release to support the new 3rd party REST API to control your StarAid via your favorite apps or your own tools.
2021-04-06 – Software release v1.8.4
Changelog
- App: Improves the app layout on small screen devices like smartphones.
- Sky Recognition: Fixed instances where sky recognition wouldn’t start
- Sensor: On rare occasions the imaging sensor in RevB wouldn’t start that required a restart. This has been fixed.
- Geo-location bug: Fixed an issue where Safari / iOS users couldn’t enter geographical coordinates manually
2021-03-30 – Software release v1.8.2
Changelog
App: Fixes an issue where sometimes polar alignment screen would jump to “adjustment” immediately
2021-03-29 – Software release v1.8.0
Changelog
Polar alignment: Brand new Circle-based Method of Polar Alignment.
Instead of waiting a few minutes to gather Drift Data, this one simply takes a couple of snaps of the sky and you’re ready to align your mount!
As usual, no clear view of the celestial pole is required. It works equally well on simple Star Trackers as high-end observatory-class mounts.
With this new Circle Method you manually move your mount along its RA axis to 3 or more arbitrarily spaced points. You will immediately know your mount’s polar align error to a couple of arc-minutes accuracy. This version lets you choose between the new Circle Method, the classic single-spot Drift Method and an option to just adjust your mount as you see fit.
Start-up: Fixes start-up guiding for some mounts.
Reset to Defaults: Depress the recessed reset button marked ‘R’ with a paperclip for 3 seconds on Revision B to revert all settings to the default.
Object guiding: Updated comet catalog.
2020-07-20 – Software release v1.6.7
Changelog
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Web app: The sliders are now working on those rare hybrid tablet / notebooks.
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Polar alignment: We saved everyone a button press! The app now automatically advances to the adjustment page once the polar alignment measurement completes.
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Object guiding: Updated comet catalogue.
2020-05-21 – Software release v1.6.4
Changelog
Calibration and guiding: Fixes calibration and guide issues for some Sky-Watcher mounts. We verified the fix on the EQ6 and EQ6R, but expect the fix to work for more mounts in the family.
2020-05-17 – Software release v1.6.2
Changelog
Telescope alignment: Normally Sky Recognition shows the coordinates that the guidescope is pointed at. But isn’t it more useful to get the coordinates your main telescope is pointing at? Now you can! Aligning StarAid to your main telescope is as simple as centring an isolated, bright star or planet, and pressing a button. Once aligned, Sky Recognition will tell you exactly what your main telescope is pointed at.
Please note that telescope alignment automatically compensates for meridian flips on equatorial mounts. Please provide feedback if this causes issues for altazimuth mounts.Auto guiding: Guide calibration now gives a useful glimpse under the hood. No longer are you left in the dark… When calibration fails, actionable feedback is provided to help you troubleshoot the issue.
Auto guiding: Fixes for smaller device screens to prevent the Auto-calibration settings from being obscured by the guide controls.
Auto guiding: Fixes the displayed number of guide stars.
Mount support: In addition to the traditional Smart (fast) mount calibration strategy, StarAid now offers and a new Robust (slow) option. Some mounts are a little slower to react on the guide port. Setting the calibration strategy to Robust (slow), makes StarAid more patient with such mounts. Feel free to try it under Settings / Mount in the app if your mount has trouble calibrating.
Live view: All manual imaging controls are now more usefully grouped and easily accessible under Live view / Controls.
Polar alignment and Settings: Two buttons have been added to easily switch between North / South and East / West when manually entering your geolocation.
Restart: No need to pull the plug… You can now restart your StarAid from the app menu.
2020-04-23 – Software release v1.5.6
Changelog
- Hotfix for intermittent “connection lost” messages and unresponsive guider status page.
2020-04-19 – Software release v1.5.4
Changelog
- Calibration & Guiding: Get guiding faster! We improved the robustness of the calibration routines.
- New Calibration option: You have the option to disable automatic re-calibration if a lock is lost, or when you repoint your telescope. Feel free to try this option at the bottom of the guide page. See Options to speed up calibration for details.
2020-04-15 – Software release v1.5.2
Changelog
- Calibration & Guiding: Improved calibration and guiding through improved software compatibility with the latest splitter.
2020-04-15 – Software release v1.5.1
Changelog
- Calibration & Guiding: fixes calibration getting stuck for some users
2020-04-12 – Software release v1.5.0
Changelog
- Hassle free comet guiding: We were hard at work bringing you beta support for hassle-free comet guiding. You don’t need to actually see or guide on the comet itself. It works like this: Just center the comet in your telescope, select the comet from the new Object guiding menu, and start guiding! Feel free to try it with C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) or C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), which are fairly bright at the moment.
- Connectivity: Expect less frequent connection timeouts.
2020-03-31 – Software release v1.4.3
Changelog
- WiFi connectivity: Reverted automatic channel selection for WiFi. This improves connection stability for some mobile phones.
2020-03-15 – Software release v1.4.1
Changelog
- WiFi connectivity: We added automatic channel selection for WiFi. You can now expect a more robust connection between StarAid and your mobile device.
- Diagnostics: The StarAid Web App now provides clear feedback for unstable or lost connections.
- Downgrade robustness: We made sure that you can always safely downgrade to a previous software version.
2020-02-05 – Software release v1.3.3
Changelog
- Guiding: Fixes frequent re-scaling of guide graphs after sky recognition.
2020-01-20 – Software release v1.3.2
Changelog
- Polar Alignment: Give additional feedback during adjustment phase
- Polar Alignment: Fixes a bug introduced in v1.3.1 (please update)
2019-01-18 – Software release v1.3.1
Changelog
- Calibration: Fixes some (long-standing) issues resulting in calibration not working, or calibrating when it shouldn’t (during Polar Alignment).
- Settings: Fixes issue (since v1.3.0) where setting focal length didn’t have effect until after restart.
- Note: please update to v1.3.2 due to a regression in Polar Alignment adjustment phase.
2019-01-16 – Software release v1.3.0
Changelog
- Sky recognition: Solid improvements all over! Expect vastly improved reliability in sparse star fields, faster fixes in dense star fields, and the dreaded Sky Recognition “internal error” to be a thing of the past.
- Polar alignment: Becomes more robust with all the sky recognition improvements.
2019-12-28 – Software release v1.2.3
Changelog
- Polar Alignment: Our biggest update in a while! Expect improved repeatability and measurement options for the perfectionists: You get to decide whether you just want to start taking subs as quickly as possible, or get the best possible polar alignment.
- Settings: Manual geolocation entry received a well-deserved usability improvement.
2019-10-25 – Software release v1.2.2
Changelog
- Improved WiFi connection stability for iOS 13.x.
- Robust log downloading for iOS 13.x.
2019-10-24 – Software release v1.2.1
Changelog
- Dark-mode: Most of you voted for StarAid to embrace the dark-side in our September poll. Arranged it is! The App now provides a stylish black background with subtle hints of red, orange and grey where information needs to be presented. This long sought-after change totally respects your night vision.
- Captive Portal for Android: Some Android devices are so addicted to the Internet that they didn’t like communicating with StarAid. To get these devices to play nice, we gave StarAid Internet-colored camouflage. If your StarAid WiFi connection asks you to “sign-in” for Internet, please click on it and follow the displayed instructions.
- Sky Recognition Improvements: We dug really deep for the right parameters and improved the Sky Recognition performance and reliability. We will continue the improvements in the next release.
- Problem Reporting: When you see StarAid doing something you did not expect, you can now easily call on support from within the App. This helps you send us the right information so that we can solve things fast! Just click on the menu icon (three bars), then Support and follow the instructions.
2019-09-21 – Software release v1.1.0
Changelog
- Adds new feature: auto-exposure!
This feature removes the need to control shutter/gain yourself in order to get the live-view properly exposed.
Note: this only matters for the live-view. Autoguiding is in no way affected. - Live-view default gamma 1.0 and quality 80% to give a more natural image
- Software Update has been moved from the settings page to the panel menu
2019-08-29 – Software release v1.0.10
Changelog
- Support for legacy Losmandy DDS drive boxes found on the GM-8 and GM-11 mounts
Note: due to hardware differences, a new splitter is required. Please contact us for more information.
2019-07-30 – Software release v1.0.9
Changelog
- Stability improvements.
- Single-click raw FITS image download from Live View.
- Single-click support log download from Support page.
2019-07-27 – Software release v1.0.7
Changelog
- Improved Polar Alignment usability and reliability.
- Added raw FITS image download from Live View.
- Improved support diagnostics.
2019-07-02 – Software release v1.0.6
Changelog
- Improved star detection – typically 2 to 3 times more stars detected compared to previous versions.
- Improved Sky recognition under twilight conditions.
- Improved Polar alignment under twilight conditions.
- Support for single-axis (RE only) guiding.
2019-05-29 – Software release v1.0.5
Changelog
- Live view is activated only when auto-guiding is turned off. Sensor settings used in live-view do not affect auto-guiding when turned on again.
- Sky recognition improvements with better fixes with less stars (works better in dusk/dawn situations)
- Polar alignment support for southern hemisphere
- Polar alignment live correction feedback improved.
- Polar alignment (temporarily for this release) measurement time increased to 120s (fixed) to reduce the effect of the mount’s periodic error
- Sky recognition now stores the detected focal length of the guide optics in the settings menu under ‘optics’ for faster initial fix after power-on. If the optics change, the focal length setting can be manually adjusted, or, it is automatically reset after 3 recognition failures.
2019-05-10 – Known issue
Software version V1.0.0
- Description: Live-view too bright, unresponsive when used in daylight.
- Workaround: Press “stop” button before accessing the live view page. This stops the autoguider, which can be enabled afterwards with the “Guide/play” button.
- Planned fix: First upcoming software release.
