WiltsStarGazer

33 minutes ago, trailer said:

The first is a single RAW exposure. The second one is a video stack using the 4x zoom in the app 👍🏼

Wow.

3 minutes ago, trailer said:

Easter midday Sun-day.

Wow, nice close up, is it a stacked and processed video?

31 minutes ago, M40 said:

On the subject of wifi, here's something I've noticed. The last two times when the clouds gave me a break, I had both the seestar and a telescope with an asiair working. Both times I first set the asiair to work using a tablet and then got the seestar working with the phone. They were about 5m apart. Both times in order to connect to the seestar, I had to reboot the phone, the app just did not want to connect. The phone could see the seestar wifi network. Once connected, all good, but if I moved past the asiair,  the phone disconnected and so I had to reboot again when standing next to the seestar. Not a massive big deal just a tad irritating. Clearly the asiair blows the socks off the seestar wifi.

Just to add, this is not something I plan to do again. I found myself extremely busy doing this and being as how I just enjoy having the time to just look up or look at the image build up, it's going to be one or the other not both.....unless there is an easy way I've missed 🤔

If you at home, could you not put both into station mode and connect up to both via your home wifi and just switch between the two apps?

15 minutes ago, GasGiant said:

Bought one yesterday from FLO.

I came to realise I don't have the time, the money, or really the inclination to learn 'classic' astrophotography & that a quick fix S50 might fulfil that itch.   Looking forward to getting going with it.

Great thread 🤙

Exactly the same conclusion I came to, and I would add we haven't had the weather here in the South West!

I think the S50 is a fantastic product.

It is limited by not being equatorial and it's fixed orientation, small camera sensor.

But I have taken more and better images in the last three months, (even with all the rubbish weather we have had) than I have had with my,  admittedly budget , conventional rig in the last two years.

The ability to see a gap in the clouds and be out there imaging within minutes is something previously only people with permanent observatories could manage.

And most importantly, it has reignited my interest in this hobby.

24 minutes ago, John Wick said:

I paid £109 direct to DHL when they made contact about Duty and VAT etc From order direct from ZWO to UK delivery was 3 weeks, beginning of December

With current exchange rates, £392.67 for the Seestar plus £109.00 in duties makes it only £49 cheaper than delivered  price from FLO.

Mine was delivered in three days in the week before Christmas.

IMO it was worth the extra to deal with a trusted company in this country and not having to worry about sending it back to China if anything went wrong.

2 hours ago, Giles_B said:

Does the phone's Bluetooth work fine connecting to other devices? I.e. do you need to set Bluetooth permissions somewhere on the phone?

A workaround could be to set up 'base mode' on the Seestar using the iPad - base mode (in the Seestar WiFi menu,) connects to your home WiFi, and any device on the WiFi running the Seestar app should be able to find your Seestar.

Thanks for the reply, I can get the Bluetooth to identify the S50 but it refuses to pair, I have checked the settings and can't see any reason why it would not.

I will give the work around a go tonight.

Thanks.

Hi, having a problem getting my Motorola Moto 8 running Android 11 to Bluetooth connect to my Seestar S50, and as that is used to set up the initial connection, it won't connect on the Seestar's WiFi.

Must be a issue with the phone (or more likely the user) as the Seestar connected easily to my wife's iPad.

I have tried resetting both devices, turning off home WiFi, turning off mobile data.

Does anyone have any other suggestions please?

Preaching to the choir here but just had to say what fantastic service I had from FLO.

I was lucky enough to see they had 4 SeeStar S50's in stock on Monday evening,  I ordered one straight away and it was delivered Wednesday lunchtime!

Great service at anytime but amazing the week before Christmas.

Hello from over the border.

You have some excellent pictures on Astrobin.

Welcome, fantastic images!

Thank you for your replies, it did seen to be 'hot pixels'. 

I adjusted the settings on DSS and they disappeared.

I used those settings to stack the Orion Nebula I took last week.

Thank you again for your help.

Hi, 

does anyone know what these faint red blue and green  'L' shaped lines in the attached image are?

And more importantly how to get rid of them.

They are a uniform shape and size and all across the frame.

I don't seem to get these lines on single images, at least I can't see them. 

I have tried stacking through both Deep Sky Stacker and Sequator, and even used a different laptop but with the same result. 

The pictures were taken on a Canon EOS 450D through a Skywatcher 200P mounted on a EQ5 Pro.

The mirrors seem ok and I don't have any issues when visually observing.

Any help and advise gratefully received.

Thanks

Just received my James Webb telescope, smaller than I thought and nobody told me I had to put it into space myself! ☹️
I'm sending it back for a refund!

Just thankful it was clear last night as I have my parents down to rural Wiltshire from a very light polluted Stevenage.

It was brilliant to show them Jupiter and Saturn and see the their delight at seeing those planets so clearly.

Wonderful to see you can still have childlike wonder aged 97 and 88!

I was out about 10p.m. last night looking at Saturn and Jupiter before destroying my night vision (even with a moon filter) on the full moon.

When I looked at Jupiter I could see three moons and a dot on the 'surface' of Jupiter, was that another moon transiting the planet or the shadow of one of the moons I could see?

It wasn't the GRS! 

On that topic, I have looked at Jupiter dozens of times and I still haven't been able to positively identify it.

The visibility was good last night and I have bortle 4 darkness here. I was using a 127 Mak with a 9mm poss eyepiece so the magnification should have been ok, I just can't pick it out.

Any tips to help see it?

Thanks

From my experience at Longleat, Woburn and Elveden Centre PARC's, they are all in tall forests and well lit but they are all sited in rural(ish) areas so you wouldn't have to go too far to find a dark side.

Thanks, this was taken with a non modified Canon d450 on a SW 200P and EQ5 Pro. 

6 X 2 minute exposures stacked with 2 X 2 minute darks in DSS then adjusted the contrast and cropped in Windows pictures.

Only just got the mount, (I've had the OTA for about a year, using it on a Skytee), Saturday night was the first night with it, learning to polar aline with a polar scope, saw the Ring Nebula and thought I'd have a go at photographing that if tomorrow is clear.

Just wish I'd remembered to turn my 5:50 am alarm off this morning!

My first DSO, quite pleased as I have no idea what I'm doing 😀, haven't even finished 'Make every proton count' yet.

Much to learn.

Thanks for the replies, basically you are both saying the orientation of the 'clock' in relation to the mount is irrelevant as long as you rotate the RA to the correct the orientation of the polar scope before polar aligning using an app?

Hi,

Just got a s/h EQ5 go-to mount and am trying to align the polar scope.

The guy I bought it from used a Pole Master camera for polar alignment and I thing he had removed the polar scope to use that.

The problem I am having, apart from having no manuals and being unable to find any online, is the target in is not in 'clock' position, i.e. 0 at the top 6 at the bottom, when the mount is in 'home' position, and therefore I can't see how I can polar align, and I not can't see a way to adjust it to what I think is the correct position.

Also the green 24 hour clock ring is very loose even though the polar scope is fully screwed in, is there something missing from the slot underneath, ( please see photos attached)?

I can understand adjusting the three screws to center the polar scope in the mount and I think I can work out actual polar alignment, there are enough videos on line for that but this has me stumped.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Thanks for the all the replies and suggestions.

Setting the drive mode to Continuous Shooting seems to have sorted it.

Who'd of thought setting it to the mode that said remote control would be the wrong one to use with a remote control!🙄

Thanks for the reply Peter, I did try that using the infrared remote control I have but it only takes a maximum of ten shots, after a two second delay, but you have to stand there to keep pressing the IR,.

Which I did for about four cycles then put my hand into my pocket to keep it a bit warm and then thought  'where is the lens cap' that I thought I put in that pocket?

You can guess where it was, after that I gave it up for the night🙄

Hi, 

I have a Canon 450D and a no name remote timer which I'm trying to do some wide field astro photography, just with the stock lens and a tripod, but the timer and the camera seen to be fighting each other.

I set the remote as per the many YouTube videos I've watched, no start delay, 20s exposure, 3s delay, 100 exposures.

I set the camera to manual settings, Bulb, 1600 iso, manual focus, and most importantly Self Timer/Remote.

This seems to me to be the problem, I press start on the remote and that starts the remote program but the camera starts off on a 10 second delay (as per the count down on the display) before it takes the first shot which puts the remote and the camera out of sinc.

Can anyone please tell me what I'm doing wrong, I've read the manual, (RTFM😁) and Googled it but can't find a way to stop the self timer delay.

I tried turning the shooting mode to single shot but it went to Self Timer/Remote when I plug the remote timer in.

Thanks in advance 

Anyone who paid for this webinar should check the bank statement as I have been changed twice for it.

Contacting Immediate Media tomorrow about a refund.

https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/virtual-lecture/

Thursday 25th March 7 p.m. GMT £10

Could be worth a tenner on a cloudy night.