M40

35 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

That's kinda why I was thinking of trying a x1.4/1.7/2 tele adaptor. It'd up the mag and as we know when adding a barlow, reduce the brightness of the target. Perhaps a polarizing filter might also?

I think tho the grandkids would've been wowed to just see that image but I figure it may be worth seeing if we can squeeze a touch more out of the base kit 😉 

Now there's an idea. I have a 2" polarizing filter, touch of blu tack later (definately not hot glue) and maybe give it a go.

31 minutes ago, Elp said:

Can you manually control the exposure as it needs to be dialled way back for planetary (talking ms not 10s)? Planetary also requires lucky imaging type acquisition due to atmospheric seeing disturbances.

Not as far as I know, there is a brightness selector but that didn't seem to do much, likely to be user error again. That was the best single shot I could get, even pulling out a single frame from a video did not improve it. It got worse if I autofocused on Jupiter so I focused on a star. There has to be some level of brightness control otherwise how will it work on the moon?  

From 13th September, M27, Dumbell nebula. 24 x 10 seconds, with integral LP filter. 1240 light years away, M27 was the first planetary nebula discovered. From hubblesite, oxygen is blue, hydrogen is green and combination of sulphur and nitrogen is red.

Playing again last night, I think this picture shows that the Seestar is not for planets, but at the same time, I dont think I have a picture with Jupiter and five moons 

I'm hoping a few accessories will find their way down the line, like a stackable filter arrangement of some sort. It has an inbuilt LP filter for nebula etc which is selectable from the app, so the ability to select your own external one would be a good move. 

11 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

So an adaptor ring and some hot glue might be needed then 😉 

Blu tack? 😉

Just to show it works, and it works quite well, nice and steady...

Only a small amount of cloud today so my second solar picture is far better than the first..

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

I see someone's already made a bahtinov mask for it and people have bought it from a common arena...

Not sure I can see why you would need one, it auto focuses quite well. It showed in the youtube comparison between the dwarf and the seestar, the dwarf is a manual focus device and it would be beneficial with that but not the seestar.

On 12/09/2023 at 13:33, DaveL59 said:

Just curiosity here, but the opening where the solar filter goes, anyone able to measure the diameter and is it threaded?

I know it ain't for planetary etc, but I wonder if that old Jessops fisheye/tele/macro lens I have (screws onto an existing camera lens) might give the S50 a little extra reach 

The solar filter is a push in jobby and having a close look, it is not threaded. S50a maybe 🤔 

57 minutes ago, Ags said:

Ah... so it cannot be used as a space telescope either 🙃

Well its a very good grab and go device so might be worth a try, what size is the overhead locker on a Soyuz?😉

Hello Shazzanne and welcome to the site. Ask away with any questions, there are lots of clever people on here that are only too willing to help.

7 hours ago, Louis D said:

Would it be possible to EQ mount it and then tell it you're at the north pole (for northern hemisphere users) to fool it into EQ mode?

It won't work as the device needs to be level. The app switches to the level adjustment screen if it determines it's required.

I think it was Cuiv where he used a usb power bank and it seemed to work well. He also noted that the batteries can be replaced.

No charger with the device but it does come with a usb lead. I just have a simple 230v plug with a usb output and plugged it into that. I can't see why if you have a 12v battery pack with usb output it wouldn't work but it took mine about 3 hours to go from maybe 30% to fully charged. Hope it helps 

From 9th September,  24 x 10 second  images, poor seeing. M31 galaxy with M110 above. Aprox 2.5million light years from Earth. M110 is a dwarf galaxy and a satelite of M31

New topic for a new device. Hopefully we will see lots of images as time goes by of what the Seestar is capable of and give others ideas of targets.

I think Stonecutters auto stacked image is great and an excellent example of what the ss50 can achieve using a purely eeva method.

Time to make a specific thread in the eeva report section of the site and I will be copying my poor M31 over, @Stonecutter if you could copy your ngc7000 over complete with date and number of shots that would be great.

Question for all... do you think a single shot solar picture equates to eeva? and should these be posted in the new topic? Personally, think yes as they will not be processed and are as live view as can be. All the best

Getting home quite late last night and slightly the worse for wear, I saw a gap in the clouds and thought why not.

Plonked it on the patio table, connected, no levelling, no calibration, no North alignment, lots of cloud cover so much so that I could just about see Jupiter through the mess, selected M31 and got this.....

24 x 10 second shots with no processing and a just a simple screen grab. I limited it to 4 minutes as it was just getting too cloudy. I have never taken a shot of M31 before as I do not have anything like a widefield setup so more than happy with this. 

One thing I did notice was the alignment of the sensor, the app did not appear to rotate but that could well have been user error, but the alignment of the sensor seems to line up with a mobile phone screen. Sooner or later I will try it on the tablet to see if it changes but you have to pat the people at ZWO on the back, this is a very clever and easy to use device 👌

That's the one that I have, maybe worth a quick line to flo to confirm it fits the eq5 tripod? 

I downloaded the app from Google play store, have a check in case your app needs updating.

Adding to the info...

The ss50 does have an internal dew heater selectable from the app

On scenery, I focused down to about 30 meters.

There is a basic tutorial within the app and you can download and access the app without it being connected to the ss50. There is a very useful video for beginners within tutorial section that is well worth a watch.

The ss50 sound can be muted from the app, this will be quite useful at night during auto focus

I have an azgti to heq5 tripod adapter, this can be used to mount the ss50 to the heq5 tripod. 

The two week cloud curse is working overtime, my apologies. I expected clouds at night but as I now can take solar pictures, its 100% clouds during day now. I am wondering if I take a few scenery pictures, will it start raining? 🤔 🤦‍♂️

100% cloud cover tonight, should have guessed 🤣

1 minute ago, LDW1 said:

So far it sounds a lot easier than the D2.

I got it up and running very quickly and as with most of us to date, the only knowledge being a few youtube videos. Very happy so far in just achieving one simple solar picture. One thing I found out very quickly is that I could hardly see the mobile because of the sun, so leaving the ss50 outside I continued to use it from inside house so I  know it has a range of at least 5 meters. This is likely not it's max range as that was not what I was trying to do so never looked at that.

When it was out of the box, it showed a battery level of three bars, this quickly dropped to two and stayed there while I was playing. When I started charging it was showing 1.5 bars and took just under three hours to fully charge.

18 minutes ago, Elp said:

Probably dusty or cloudy atomosphere. White light should be pin sharp.

The one question which I'm still waiting for confirmation, does it auto align just by placing it level on the tripod without having to orient it north.

Certainly cloudy when I took the picture. The calibration stuff I have had to do so far when the app told me to was.....

Pick the whole up and rotate until a green circle was complete

Level the whole by adjusting the legs. The app shows two circles, initially white, and by adjusting the legs, the two circles overlap and turn green when levelled. They give a value and I managed to get a value of 0.8 which it seemed happy with. After that it auto aligned with no.North alignment required.

35 minutes ago, Louis D said:

A couple of quick questions:

• What is the pixel resolution on each axis of the imaging chip?
• Any idea what's going on with all of the scatter in the solar image?
  • Do you think it is due to the solar filter, objective, or lack of internal stray light control?

Pixel resolution - I believe that it is based on the zwo asi462mc chip

Scatter - not sure what that is as it's the first solar image I have taken and it was a simple screen grab and crop from the phone with no stacking or processing.