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Now that's "realistic." Thanks Wolfgang  Did an Astrobin search for Seestar S50. Some pretty impressive images but they have a ways to go. Sounds like most users are more or less having fun when really using their big rigs. Mike |
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Mike H: With bigger OTA smartscopes like the upcoming Celestron Origin (with a 6 inch aperture f/2.2 RASA OTA and claimed potential to upgrade later to a different/newer camera, but also a much bigger than Seestar $4,000 USD price tag), and also with dead simple to use AI now coming into serious astrophotography processing software (eg Blurxterminator/Noisexterminator/Graxpert) that may happen to some extent, but it doesn't bother me even though I also have big, high precision, complex, and expensive rigs. That's change, and if it widens the world of astrophotography more easily to many more people that's fine in my book. And real enthusiasts will still find ways to produce more special images I'm sure. |
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Well said Morrienz. I'll never lose the thrill of setting up my complicated system with top quality optics and mount and sitting next the rig under dark skies in my little observatory  |
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Mike H: Technology usually has a positive aspect on improving manual tasks. In my line of work when I started engineering I learned how to design integrated circuits. A "big" chip back then had 1000 gates and almost everything was done by hand. About 10 years into that career, everything I learned literally became a mouse click on a button. Today if what you wanted to learn was to do it the old way that was a negative. Now designers are creating chips with literally billions of gates. Doing that the way I initially learned to do design is impossible. Can't be done. Today's engineers embrace the change and I did too. You need to move forward. I see the Seestar not replacing astrophotography but certainly augmenting it and allowing more people to enjoy it. I see that as a net positive. More people moving the craft forward is not bad but good. More people enjoying it is positive. Sure, we've all seen M42 on FB with "Party" colors. So what. That doesn't take away from any of my work. If anything it perhaps puts more incentive on me to learn to be even better. Sorry but if I tried to incentive my grandkids into astrophotography by first explaining they needed to learn a gazillion things first from mount types, cameras, filters, yada yada yada their eyes will glaze over and say forget it. I show them now what I get in 5 minutes with my Seestar and their interest is peaked. They want to learn more. They want to learn how I do it. I see nothing but positive things. That people don't image the way they did 50 years ago, 25 years ago or 1 year ago is just not a big deal. Move on and embrace new things for what they can do and use what you know with what you have and go forward. |
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 IC434 When I started astrophotography I was building my own telescopes, clock drive mounts and hypergas my own film. I'm 71 years old and I love my SeeStar. This photo is the result of total freeware and my skills. The freeware used: Siril to stack and process, AstrodenoisePy for Denoise, Fitswork and standard Google photo app to tweak the colors. The exposure originally was 40 minutes and didn't look anywhere as good as the above. I bought this scope for I had back surgery and it is the only way I can continue my passion. Enjoy your rig, you sound a little younger than myself. |
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Not sure if you were referring to me but if your were... good call. I'll be 71 in about a month. ;-). I too have a bad back, terrible knees and all of the other joys of being "mature". No worries. Lately acquired 2 SW mounts because as much as I liked my EQ6R-Pro it is WAY to heavy for me to be portable. My AM5 and NYX are the bomb and so much lighter and they both allow me to continue enjoy my astrophotography without killing myself. My Seestar is great and like you it's a snap to set up. No weight at all and I can have a great time just taking my small projects and still get great enjoyment. CS! |
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My hats off to you both for finding ways to continue your passion. Your B33 is really nice. Great job! Mike |
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I love post like this. ZWO have simply made looking at the sky's for beginners. There are always the elites who think there way better than every one else. Bottom line ZWO have developed something that is going to revolutionlise astrophotography and make it fun for all to learn. I personally love this little package its fun. I use mine in conjuction with my newly built observatory with all the bells and whistles. Dinosaurs need to get into the new century. let's face it who else us actively developing new ideas for this rabbit hole hobby. |
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Regarding the original post, realistically I believe that the ZWO Seestar S50 has an interesting purpose for people that want to capture DSO's and some planetary, mainly the Moon and Sun and, perhaps, a little bit of Jupiter. All that within a small/modest budget. I would never pretend to compare the S50 with any normal rig for AP, but I would certainly compare some of the images that you can get with the S50 with a few obtained with larger rigs, and I believe that, sometimes, depending on the hability of the person that process them, the results are decent. I have done several mosaics with the S50 and they do work quite well. So, showing the heavens to people that want to know more, or school kids, it works, and it is really a good tool, also, perhaps, you need a few of them running at the same time to enhance the experience. Regarding the use of "crap", well, there is another thread here in AB, where the topic was, what is (or could be) a serious rig and, somebody says, clearly, that almost anything below 30.000 USD is below that minimum of seriousness. Accordingly, I do not have a serious rig, maybe I am around 20.000 USD by now, so still 10.000 USD short of that. BUT, I am lucky, because I do not consider myself an AP, only a person that enjoy very much the night sky and looking for small and differents beauties out there. Also I enjoy processing, as it is a good hobby, sometimes takes you to close to get artistic features of the capture and so on. All the previous can be done with an S50, if you are aware of its limitations. |
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Wow Gamaholjad, I certainly did not mean to come off as an "elitist" or a "dinosaur." I merely wondered what the limitations were for these new telescopes and was the fantastic image I saw possible. Since my question was answered and I've managed to make some angry with name calling, I'm done. May this forum post fade away. I'll be more careful what I post next time. |
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It will never outperform a quality astrophotography setup, but I still very much enjoy using the Seestar. I shoot for about an hour and do a speed process on the stacked fits file that it produces and it is usually better than I anticipated. My friend, Kai calls it fast food astrophotography, and I think that is spot on. I will take mine with me when I go to dark sites to shoot Milky Way shots and for outreach events. I also run it most nights that I image with my big rigs. I love the little Seestar! *** Type your reply here **Rob, I was thinking of picking one up to record the eclipse in April. I was thinking of filming it with the Seestar from beginning to end. In your opinion, do you think that it is capable of doing that? Thanks for your time. Michael* |
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Does anyone with experience of the Seestar think that it would be possible to film the upcoming eclipse from beginning to end? Thanks for any advice. Michael |
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Phil Hoppes:Mike H: *** Thanks, Phil. You just sold me on one. What a pity that you don't make a commission for sharing this. Clear skies. Michael |
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| At least my see star can track an object well for a while. I still can't get my sky watcher eq 35 to work right I have hold down the buttons on it to get it to track for a while. It nothing wrong with the motors it's in the hand controller or box. It will tell me after polar aligning and all that Jupiter is now above the horizon and all and it wont engage the motors in either sideral or solar mode but they will move if I hold them both down and I can only get the zwo software to stack at the most 68 frames at a time. I have only had a chance to take some pics in very light polluted skies with it so far if I get it out of town one night it will be a lot better. It did actually find and track m81 m82 here at the apartment complex and I was surprised it did find them because this place lit up like a Xmas tree. The photos weren't great but the only nebula I have seen at the complex is the Orion nebula and that's it because it so lit up here. At least it's tracking and working so if I can get night out out of town with at least I'll get something worthwhile taking pictures of and very portable and I can do some observing with my dobsonian while it tracks the object and get some decent pics with it. |
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Hi, I got a seestar50 by curiosity having already two astrophoto setups. I was favourably surprised and estonished. If such a telescope had been available on the market earlier I would have discovered astrophoto sooner. Of course, it will never compete with dedicated rig but you buy hit for the price of a televue eyepiece! And you can very easily processed the subframes with the software of your choice if you want to go beyond the autonomous Assisted mode. Here is my picture of M42 taken from a very light poluted area near Casablanca. https://www.astrobin.com/full/g2n9y3/0/ clear skies, Frédéric |
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Mike H: If it encourages new folk into the hobby at ground level then it's a fantastic thing , I'm sure too many youngsters read the kind of elitist cr*p that you're advocating , i.e you need thousands of pounds/dollars worth of telescope , thousands of the same on a mount , many thousands more on filters , camera etc , many hundreds more on software , a plethora of PHDs and many decades of studying , practising etc , etc before you can even think about taking images of the night sky. |
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It's good to see confirmation of the quality of image you get from a $500 device - just as I would have expected. Nothing special or unexpected and plenty of subjective assessment - as we see everywhere  The S50 seems like an interesting EAA supplement for a visual observer - is anyone using it this way? |
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Steve Ward:Mike H: *Thanks, Steve! |
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Frédéric Ruciak: *WOW 😲!! That's amazing, Frederic! Thanks for sharing this with us. |
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| Hi All, I picked up a Seestar S50 last November to use as a tool for my astronomy club's outreach events. It's a hit of course as many can see the target evolve on a smart phone or tablet while you talk about the object being shown. I've also used it at home for longer captures and this in turn has taken me into the realm of post processing. I'm a total advocate of such scopes as they introduce new folks to the wonders of the universe. The combination ease of use and performance to price point is second to none IMO. Here is an 11 minute capture of M42. Siril and PS post processed: M42 - Seestar S50 - 11 mins |
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Mike H: Thanks for starting this discussion Mike H. I know you are disappointed at the tone of a handful of the replies, as I am too, from both sides, but I think it was great that you raised this topic, and sitting around the handful of aggressive replies are I think plenty of other good, polite, and useful replies, so you get a big thank you from me. I really enjoy my Seestar, and my Dwarf II, mainly to have fun with while one my big expensive rigs such as my Corrected Dall Kirkham OTA on a 10Micron mount is capturing data, or on their own while travelling/out at friends' places, or on nights when the weather is dodgy/changeable and the smartscopes are just so much easier/simpler to use. |
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| Few people have the money to buy the more expensive equipment used here to take astro photos and the smaller smart telescopes make it realistic for the average person to get into some type of astrophotography. How many can afford to buy several thousand dollars worth or tens of dollars worth of equipment these days? These smaller smart telescopes are a good entry level telescope to start with astrophotography. They can't compete with planewave telescopes but they aren't as frustrating to begin astrophotography with. It like how an 8 or 6 inch dobsonian is a good choice for entry level observing instead of a much more expensive set up like sct or apo refractor. The best photos on here are great but few people can get pics on here like the ones that get image of the day due to lack of experience and money to buy more expensive equipment. |
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| I have had my Seestar for a couple of months now and have been very surprised with the results. I bought it for a trial…so to speak. If I didn't like it, I would resell it on EBay or CN. I do that a lot with other kinds of gear like music stuff. Buy it, try it, sell it if it doesn't work for me. I’m keeping it. The 50mm aperture and ALT-AZ mount are limitations, but it is surprising what it can still do. These are a couple of my Seestar images. https://www.astrobin.com/nf2enl/ https://www.astrobin.com/lg9wy9/ It clearly can't compete with some of my higher end scopes, but for the size, $, and simplicity…it's pretty amazing. It is also a good choice for first time folks who don't want to spend a lot of time learning to use lots of different gear and dealing with wiring. I do some talks at local schools on astronomy (as part of our local clubs outreach program). It’s always a great example of something simple we can take outside, during the visit, and get a good image of the Sun. I will be interesting to see what comes next…with a new improved…more expanded model. |
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Lee: I use it as EAA constantly. I do not worry about keeping every frame for post processing as the intention is to just visually see the objects as quickly as possible. This is especially beneficial when sharing with friends, family and star parties. I do take the final stacked image and will clean up in simple post processing. By no means nowhere near dedicated AP but sure gets people interested in astronomy and that is what counts the most. |
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