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12 minutes ago, PatrickO said:

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

I am quite new to this too. I think that is a great image especially considering the moon is out. I think you have even caught a glimpse (bottom left) of IC4263 galaxy which is over 120 million light years away. That's pretty impressive. I have tried improving my image of M51 with siril and gimp but with limited success as processing the image can introduce artifacts (at least when i do it). So in my image of just under 3 hours worth of 20s shots, by trying to denoise and darken the background you can see I have lost IC4263 and there are also a number of saturated stars. Fortunately because I still have the subs I can try and improve on the final image . mmm thinking about it thats my next job!

Of interest I think you were getting fed up of cloudy nights a while back? It isn't easy in many parts of the UK. However I have found that post processing has the extra benefit that you can still engage in the hobby when it is cloudy or like now when we only have a few hours of darkness. I have also found myself wanting to find out more about galaxies, black holes etc so the imaging has opened up for me a wider interest in the universe.

One obvious thing in your image is the background gradient. The lazy Cuiv has talked about using the free GRAXpert to remove gradients - so you could experiment?

3 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

I cannot find one of those anywhere.

I think this is it if you look in the specs. I use the supplied usb cable and it works fine

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/goji-20000-mah-portable-power-bank-black-10237929.html

9 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

Can anyone recommend a portable power bank that will actually charge the Seestar when it's in use - loads will not.

I am using a goji g6p20bk21c - works perfectly keeps the seestar at 100% charge with dew heater on for hours. 

On 19/04/2024 at 11:21, Neil H said:

when I use my seestar most of the time I get messages like "stack failed star trails so binned" or not enough stars , any ideas why I get these ?

That is frustrating when it happens - Other things to think about - Compass calibration, Is tripod level, is the seestar screwed to the tripod reasonably well so there is no slip, are the stars focussed. If all of that is ok and there is no wind perhaps try imaging something lower in the sky to see if that helps.

Following on from Astrokeiths post.

On 19/04/2024 at 15:45, AstroKeith said:

Imaging near the Zenith produces massive image rotation. Even if the Seestar can compensate when stacking, the useable field of view reduces from a tall rectangle towards a square

 

The images below show the 20s images of M51 taken at 21.13 & 23.00 at the start and end of my session (1hr 45 mins) I have drawn a line between M51 and a star. From this and the stars at the edges of both images that EQ mode does prevent any rotation over this time period.  

45 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

I don't see much difference unless I stare for a while or maybe use a magnifying glass vs the hassles of using an EQ set up ! ZWO got it right and I think at a much better price, no wonder 98% of us have smiles on our faces, lol !

I agree,  on a small DSO rotation does not matter, you can just crop. But it might make a difference on larger objects and longer time frames. I am not promoting EQ and I agree it isn't needed to enjoy the Seestar. But I think it is interesting. The extra set up time is 3-5 mins (sighting polaris, 1 random plate solve followed by the horizon calibration. I have only used it twice. Will I continue to use it ? . . Probably. It is simple to use but time will tell. But yes, the joy of the Seestar is its ease of use and set up speed, so I would not continue to use EQ if either of these were affected.

21 hours ago, AstroKeith said:

Imaging near the Zenith produces massive image rotation. Even if the Seestar can compensate when stacking, the useable field of view reduces from a tall rectangle towards a square.

The image below has been black level adjusted to demonstrate - M51 was about 82 degrees altitude.

 

This is the advantage of the EQ mount. This is an uncropped stacked & processed image taken last night over 1.5hrs. (M51 was at 52 degrees at the start, 82 by the end).

37 minutes ago, Elp said:

I believe there's the note in EQ they'll be the opposite pole restriction of seeing targets below a certain altitude due to the physical orientation.

Yes, because Seestar is tilted then viewing towards the south becomes restricted as it thinks the horizon is much higher than it really is. I think polaris sinks lower in the sky as you move towards the equator in which case people living in lower latitudes will be more restricted as the seestar has to be tilted more to line up with Polaris.  I hope that's right

3 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

Is it possible to show your Seestar in EQ mode or if not possible then a description of how you do it?

I am following Cuiv's excellent video https://youtu.be/QlLiK-wcLqk

My set up is in the image. You should think about a more robust tripod as the seestar is heavy and might topple the std one. You need a wedge like the skywatcher i have which you adjust to point to polaris. I have taped on a bit of 15mm copper pipe and this works really well. I always use the power bank which would probably power the Seestar with the dew heater all night. 

So compass calibrate the seestar.
Attach it to a reasonably level tripod
Sight polaris in the copper tube by manually adjusting the wedge.
Then use the app to point the Seestar somewhere overhead at some obvious stars and press the red photo button.
Seestar plate solves to work out what it is looking at and then does its 3 point calibration.
As soon as that has finished press cancel. That's it.

Then use the app as normal to select what you want to observe. 
Note: It is important to secure the shoe to the base of the seestar reasonably tight so that it does not loosen. This screw connection will be subjected to more torque because of the angle of the seestar. 

Hope that all makes sense.  

Last night I used my Seestar in EQ mode for the first time in my urban garden with a bright moon. Over 84 minutes Seestar saved 69 minutes worth of  20s shots. I removed 9 shots due to satellite tracks before stacking and I am pleased with the result. There was much less rotation as you can see from the uncropped image of M100 and NGC4312.  Setting it up was very easy.  I wonder if using it in eq mode would enable me to stack images from more than one session? The other advantage of using 20s rather than 10 is that stacking in Siril was much quicker presumably because there are 1/2 as many images to stack and each one must be brighter due to the longer exposure. 

WRT the discussion about seeing or imaging. For me there is room for both, While seestar is imaging objects which I have no hope of seeing thru my 200mm dob in my garden I can enjoy looking at planets the moon, clusters and the brighter DSOs or just enjoy stargazing. I have tried a more complicated imaging setup but I gave up as I do not have the patience to get them up and running.  The UK weather with its short windows of clear skies does not help either. So something that can be taking shots within 10 minutes is perfect for me.   

Thank you
- have you continued to use the SS in eq mode?
- If so have you noted any issues re wear on the gears so far?
- Also do you still use 10 sec shots and do you get less drop outs because of trails?

I have seen one or two posts about 'tilt' not sure what that is but someone suggested eq could make it worse. Following Cuivs post today I have a wedge and am keen to try this.
Sorry for all the questions!

On 08/03/2024 at 09:14, LaurenceT said:

What initially drew me to the Seestar was as an EAA replacement for my existing mini setup. I had been using the Evoguide 50ED EAA setup as described by Cuiv on YT. It was very quick and simple. All you needed was a mount like the Az GTi, an Evoguide 50ED and a Raspberry Pi with Stellarmate, I already had all these. All you had to do was level the scope and point north and away you went doing easy EAA. That was the theory anyway. To paraphrase Longfellow, when it was good it was very good, when it was bad it was horrid. So horrid in fact that after using it for the best part of last year I tore down the setup and gave up EAA, at least temporarily.

 

I hope you enjoy. I was interested in Cuiv's stuff too. I gave up trying astrophotog some years ago. I had a reasonable set up but it took so long to set up that by the time i got it working the lens was either dewed up or the clouds had arrived.  With my SS-50 I can be imaging within 10 mins of taking it outside. I am quite new to this and rotation is an issue especially with objects close to the zenith (star trails can also be an issue high up too). Certainly an hour is fine and you can go longer if you are prepared for a larger crop.

I would jump at the chance to have something as neat as the SS but with an EQ mount. I am sure such a scope will be along in a year or two. 

This image is of 12PPons-Brooks. It is v low in the sky. I cannot find it/see it with my 200mm reflector but the SS makes it all so easy. 702 stacked 10s shots taken over 2.5 hours from my light polluted garden. Processed in Siril which is a bit tricky because it is moving against the stars

.

On 21/12/2023 at 03:36, nicoscy said:

Mine refuses to connect in 5G but does not object to 2.4 at all. Probably some kind of bug…

When i first got mine I panicked when it could not find the seestar but then I realised it wasn't the Seestar but I was using an old tablet that did not have 5g! I am sure that is not your problem but it is worth mentioning. 

Lovely clear skies in SW england last evening. Really pleased with my Seestar image of NGC7331. The main galaxy is 40 million light years away. And the tiny ones above it and bottom left are thought to be 350 million light years away. Those poor photons must be exhausted. Amazed to pick them up in my light polluted urban garden.  Top marks to ZWO. The Seestar + dew heater was on for over 2 hours and with a power bank attached was still showing 80% charge at the end of the session.

Out of interest this image was taken over 102 minutes. What's the longest people have managed before rotation starts to screw things up? I have a feeling the the duration may depend on how high in the sky the object is?  

21 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Ah yeah, I had thought about popping a PL201 QR plate on the S50 but then while I expect it'd latch OK I didn't want to chance it. I had a spare EQ5 tripod so getting the puck and using that was an easy decision. Not tried any of my photo tripods so far, old metal Velbon and a NatGeo carbon but I doubt they'd be more stable than the Eq5 one anyway.

You just need one that has a 3/8 thread and probably many do if you remove the tripod head itself. Alternatively find an old surveyors tripod and adapt it to suit, perhaps.

Thank you. You are right a good suggestion  - I can detach the top section - leaving a 3/8 thread for the seestar - ideally i should add a rubber washer . The only risk I guess is that the seestar is quite heavy - if you kick over on its small tripod probably no harm done - but if you do the same with it on a larger pod ?????  however the wider base should mitigate along with something reflective on the tripod or scope. I see some recommend the CAVIX LP64 for levelling - any thoughts?  

On 28/11/2023 at 13:25, DaveL59 said:

the EQ5 ally tripod is nice and stable. I added some day-glo tape to the S50 so I get some idea where it's aiming given there's an oak that blots out the SE-W aspect.

I have been using the small tripod but it is too low, easy to knock and vulnerable. I have tried my manfrotto camera tripod but the small adaptor that attaches to the camera or scope and then clicks into the tripod is fiddly and I worry about dropping the seestar. I like the day glo tape idea. The scope being black does not help. Any suggestions about good (reasonably priced) tripods that work well with it appreciated  

On 27/11/2023 at 22:54, Ande said:

Firstly, I usually get it to point at one of the brighter stars, Vega or similar, in order to get a decent focus. It will struggle to locate it and will try to plate solve. Then it will moan about not seeing enough stars. It’ll keep taking pictures, then take the full 30 seconds to try to get it’s bearings.  It will invariably fail, and keep repeating the process several times before reporting it’s inability to complete the task. Eventually, I’ll get the star centred, then it will fail to focus, so I have to do it manually with the aid of a Bhatinov mask.  Once it’s finally in focus, and pointing where it should be, I’ll choose a target. It’ll eventually find it, and then start imaging. However, it is discarding more frames than it is keeping. Far more…. It can take an hour to give me 5-6 minutes of data.  Every 6 or 7 passes it will inform me of star trails, but most of the interim pictures are ignored anyway, so it’s a moot point.  And every now and then it’ll moan that it can’t see any stars during imaging. It’s done this when looking at the Pleiades so I’m not at all sympathetic. Especially when I can see it clearly with my 61 year old eyes.

When I got mine - it was doing something similar - in that it struggled to find anything, I was getting quite frustrated. I realised that the default focus setting was way out and the seestar could not find focus from there. The solution was to manually focus then once in focus take the focus reading and make that the default. Since then it has worked superbly. I do calibrate the compass each session just in case. it only takes a minute.  May be completely unrelated to your issue.

33 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Since the Seestar makes both the pre-stacked FITS and the separate FITS files available, has anyone made a direct comparison to see if stacking the files oneself confers any advantage?

I have just started staving individual fits. In my short time with the Seestar I have taken about 20 images of DSOs. Twice the Seestar stack has introduced rogue shots. 1 of the triangulum galaxy where 2 satellite trails were included (I am ok with those they are interesting) and once with the bubble nebula (when the seeing was bad) see my image a few posts above. That made me think how would I feel if I was 30 minutes into a great image when Seestar stacks a rogue. That would be frustrating. So by saving the original fits, if that happens, it will be easy to fix.

However, while stacking is a piece of cake in Siril. Due to bad weather I have only been able to stack twice and no my finished product is not better than Seestar's as on both occasions Seestar did not stack any rogues. So the main reason to save then for me is as a precaution (and I am nerdy and enjoy playing with software like siril)

1 hour ago, Giles_B said:

I'm stacking in sirilic which gives easy control over the stacking parameters. The master dark is the wrong orientation and needs to be rotated 90 degrees or it won't stack. I didn't find the master dark made a difference anyway. I'm finding making improvements with sirilic and siril a fine art . . . . 

Thank you. I was following this video. https://youtu.be/8iL2bzewBrQ Two things I noted. When he converts the FITS, he selects De-bayer at 1'.47". When I tried that it said my FITS were in the wrong format. I wonder if that was why it said my dark had different channels to my lights?   But as you say perhaps not worth worrying about. I also tried out the free GraXpert on an image with a lot of background gradient, following a review by Cuiv. the Lazy Geek, - with very good results

Had a brief spell on the bubble nebula last night - the image was coming on nicely but after 15 mins a couple of bad frames were added so I aborted. This gave me the impetus to collect individual frames and try stacking in Siril. I only managed 8 mins before the clouds came. Siril stacked 8 mins but after I removed the poor frames I ended up stacking 6.5 mins. I think it might be worth doing to avoid losing a session because of a few poor frames but  I am new to Siril and I am struggling to improve on Seestars final stack. I can often improve the clarity of the DSO but at the expense of background noise (I am in light polluted sky). I know 6 or 8 minutes isnt long enough especially where I live,  although given the short time I had it is amazing what Seestar can do.

Are others doing this? Is the master dark any use? I tried to include it in the stack but was told that it had the wrong number of channels. Any suggestions welcome

22 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

I'd have thought the limiting factor would be the optical train, you can't make it wider with a firmware update so it'd have to be support for mosaic which some have hinted may be coming on review vids.

This is a comment from ZWO back in June

"With the 1/2.8″ IMX 462 sensor size and a focal length of 250mm, M31 will not be fully fit in the photo. Panorama mode with mosaic capture is included in our roadmap. Our goal is to implement this exciting feature in future iterations of the app, providing users with the ability to create stunning panoramic images."

9 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

My first try with the seestars last night , between clouds . Any editing was done on the phone so not very professional but an enjoyable hour overall . One thing I observed was how long I actually spent outside with the S50 .. it was quite chilly and a strong breeze was an annoying pest but I still preferred being outside for the majority of the captures rather than inside viewing on the tablet

It was 4am Sunday morning for me.  I am fortunate in having a 'summerhouse/shed' in the garden so at least I can have a seat and take a break from the wind. But I got my Skywatcher 200p dob out once the Seestar was up and running - I recently picked up a 20mm 2 inch ep. and the views of the moon & open clusters such as the Perseus double cluster & Pleiades were absolutely stunning through it - I see what people mean when they say a wide angle 2 inch is like looking through a porthole. I love the Seestar and the results it gives, but it is a very different feeling to what I get viewing something live through a scope.

Thank you for the images. Hopefully we will get a software update that will enable us to get wider views of larger objects such as M45 and M31 and enable us the get M81 & 82 easily on one image . I think such an update arrived for the Dwarf so it should be possible?

Later on Sunday I spent many hours with Siril and Gimp working with my stacked FIT files of M42 and M82 from the Seestar, but I can't say that I managed to improve on the Seestar's images. It does an amazing job.

4 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

My old Android tablet refused to download the Android app, let alone connect to the Seestar.  But with my iphone 7, I followed the basic instructions, set the permissions asked for and had no trouble at all.  It also updates the software when within range of the house wifi (to which the phone is connected) with no issues.

You shouldn't hesitate to order the Seestar because of connectivity issues.  Many Android users have clearly connected successfully.  If you are obliged to buy a smartphone for the purpose, used iphones are very affordable.

Hi it might be worth repeating from my entry on p31 here that my android 9 phone downloaded the app fine but it could not save images of the sun or scenery to the phone as it had not created the seestar folder in DCIM so I gave up with it. don't know if that was because of the old android 9 or the phone, a motorola. I have the app working on my lenovo tab running android 10. Although I read on the net that many tablets which do not take a sim use GPS for their compass rather than a compass sensor. So the app thinks my tablet does not have a compass. This prevents me pointing the tablet at the sky in the sky atlas, but it does not stop me doing anything else so I have taken brief images of M31, M45 and M33 without issues. It is worth noting that the app works much faster and without any issues on my iphone 12. But I use that phone for goto on my 8 dob with PSalign Pro, while the Seestar is doing its thing hands free. The other thing to note with some older phones is they might not have 5G wifi and Seestar defaults to this. That can be overcome by connecting with a 5G compatible phone and changing the wifi settings of the seestar to 2.4g. then an older phone will see it and connect.  

9 minutes ago, Giles_B said:

I think I have a natural tendency to get into the geeky stuff.

+1 here. What normal person would want to spend hours standing around in the dark, perhaps cold staring at distant bits of fuzz in the sky. - and that was just the start after that came the masses of kit, spending lots of money, partners wondering why he or she is more attracted to fuzz than me. 🙂

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

I think ur right. Too old android. 

Thank you powerlord and everyone else who responded. This morning I put the app onto my tablet running android 11 and it works perfectly with images sent automatically to the gallery via DCIM/com.zwo.seestar.

Problem solved. Cheers.