powerlord

first is, tarted up is a wee crop to take off the rotated edges.

remember, this is just the jpg. not done anything with fits- as still imaging

and after a quick tart up of the jpg

30 mins on the elephant trunk. Just the 'as stacked' . With the lp filter. Trying iris nebula now with no lp filter.

13 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Do these scopes include build in filters?

yeh, they have a dark which it uses automatically at the start of each session, and a quite wide dual band. I think it was tested at around 30nm for each oiii and ha.

And in the box is a clip/push on solar filter.

stu

13 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

I'd noticed the save individual frames options when I quickly went thru setting mine up but then had to return to work mode so didn't get to investigate other options further. Hooking to your own WiFi sounds handy tho I'd have to add it into the permitted MAC's list etc. Was it 2.4 or 5 GHz band out of interest?

 

ooo, can't remember sorry

3 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Is that with the newer version looks sharper then previous

yeh, as I said earlier in thread the focus issue I had was solved updating the app from v1.7.1 from v1.8. pin sharp now.

Thought this might be useful for folk.

Here's a video from my phone, starting in regular 35mm equiv or so, zooming in with my phone a bit to the roof antenna in the distance, then swapping to the video shot with the seestar.

Aha! Found some features - hidden a bit. So - about shows changelog for v1.9.. which is weird since it's not available... however v1.8 added stuff so did previous versions.

station mode is there - and it's now connected to my observatory wifi - so I can now happily control it from my bedroom like the rest of the obsy mounts. Also manual focus is there, so thats good too. Plus an advanced options you can turn on to save all individual frames, so can stack yerself later or do multi sessions, etc - I assume this will also save the darks it takes... no flats are taken.. but if it's saving the frames now, no reason why I can't take my own - though without bias maybe not that useful ?

So, a bit cloudy tonight but not looking too bad till midnight at least so will try as many targets as I can - the wall, iris, elephant trunk, m33, crescent. might also have a go with an L-extreme vs the inbuild dual band and see if it's useable or just too dark.

Oh - tip wise - IF you want to shoot terrestrial video best quality, yer best option is to:

1. scenery mode, focus on target.

2. swap to moon mode and select video and raw (raw not an option in scenery mode).. and no option to save FIT or raw images in scenery mode either.

3. start videoing

Now you'll have the raw video (2MB per frame, 30MB/s vs about 1MB/s in H264 video it delivers to phone.

You then have to grab it off device (raw 8 bit avi), and can do what you want with it. As I'm on a mac, I have to use PIPP on windows to save out the individual frames as PNGs, then can use quicktime on the mac to create a lossless mov from the frames then I can edit in final cut pro, etc.. all a bit of a palaver and can't imagine I'm gonna do that very often, but if you happen to want to video a lesser-spotted squirrel warbler with your FF DSLR equivalent of a 1600mm lens (so pretty useful telephoto really), you'll want to shoot in raw to tease those details of the multi coloured plumage around it's 6 eyes, and sharpen those bright yellows in its furry legs...

51 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Just got mine and unboxed it. Anyone find that the tripod fitting has a slight play in it? Screwed up tight but there's a tiny movement if you rock the fitting/tripod in the screw/unscrew direction. No rock per se at least not that I noticed. Might not be much to worry about but would certainly affect its aim in a breeze I'd think.

Other than that, its charging. Power-up test went well, even spoke English so no settings to change for me and focused on the trees just fine 🙂

Edit: only disappointment is - no lens cap for when its parked. Will see if I have anything that'll fit as I prefer to keep lenses protected when not in use. Sure it'd be in its case stored but leaving it out charging and with kitties, good chance some hairs will find their way onto the lens. If not, once the 48mm filter attachment arrives I can likely use a spare low-profile 49mm camera lens cap.

Edit2: simple temp solution, using the mask that I'd ordered off the bay-of-e with the protective paper film that was covering the lens during shipping. Fits nicely and will happily park with it in place 🙂 

Ha, yeh that'll work.

The play in tripod is just the motor play. Azgti has the same. It doesn't affect anything.

does sunspots ok anyhoo.

I might offer to write them one. I wrote one for the OCAL collimator.

Oh also annoying - is that you can't set the wifi to join your home wifi. Hence, I can't sit upstairs cosily in my bed and control it like I can with my asiairs, etc but have to be in range of the seestar wifi.

yes, I know.. maybe this is an edge use case - but come on - it's basic stuff. there's no good reason why they have not done this. quite annoying. humph.

I've at least worked out if I focus on something in scenery mode, then select moon mode, I can shoot raw video which is stored on the S50 - still just 15fps but at least its raw avi - so I imagine if you wanted to shoot wildlife, that'd be the way to do it. stills are still rubbish jpgs though.

Just read the 'manual'. God that is terrible. How can they have spent all that time and effort on a product, but produce that - unbelievable. Absolutely abysmal.

LDW1: can't manually focus.

Anyway, raised a case with ZWO, they got back to me - turns out v1.8 of app is out, but not in play store yet - I downloaded from their website direct, and its fixed it! yeh!

So - daylight use wise a few observations:

1. didn't realise sensor is mounted in portrait mode. weird choice.

2. how to get to save on S50? or does it just save astro fits to s50 ? all scenery shots just saving to phone - nothing on s50 when I connect to computer.

3. quality of video and jpgs is rubbish. focus is there now, but jpgs are compressed to within an inch of their life as are the 15fps 1080x1920 portrait videos. They could be much higher quality. Also - surely the sensor can shoot 30fps ? I get maybe not trasmitting to phone but why not save on S50? seems a rubbbish decision. I mean, I know terrestrial use is an edge case, but still, they have really handicapped what it could do here

Looks like might be some stars visible tonight, so will give it a go at night and see how it performs - might try an optolong L-extreme on it too.

stu

Well, I'm afraid I have got to report a complete lack of success with autofocus on terrestrial targets.

every single time, the autofocus routine goes past the focus point - you will see in the video one frame of sharply focused video as it moves backwards, then it moves forwards again and overshoots it. everytime.

I have yet to manage to focus a single subject even after several attempts. I tried the wall as it is flat, thinking maybe it was having trouble with certain targets - sloping roofs, the antenna, etc - but it is not that  - it just misses the focus point every single time.

I've not had a chance to see if this is the same with night targets yet, but it does not bode well. I'm hoping this is a software fix, or else I am going to be feeling the pain of ordering direct from ZWO.... argggg

Here's a video showing me several times pressing the autofocus.. you will see a sngle 'sharp' frame every routine before it 'finishes' somewhere totally different.

30 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

It's put together in APP which is very clever with the geometry.

 

The printer's running as I type.  My largest option is 'extended A3' but I'm thinking of joining two A3s together. I no longer have a friendly neighbourhood printer with a roll paper machine, unfortunately. He's retired.

Olly

I was thinking more a professional print - gotta be worth it!

that is truly one to be proud of. I'd love to see the full resolution version. You should get it printed 300cm wide or something for a wall!

stu

mine just arrived !! woohoo (and my designed filters fit!)

stu

and my first trial run of SLS printed parts for the S50 have arrived too! And they are a perfect fit! whahee.

selling these on the sales forum for cost if interested.

Yeh baby. Direct from China. Ordered day after was announced. Not bad for 300 quid. very nice solid quality. solar fiter included. And now can try out the bahtinov mask and 2" filter holder I've designed, got professionally SLS printed and are apparently getting delivered later today too!! I luv it when a plan comes together 🙂

Stu

There's always the moon ? Otherwise, better alignment, max out that iso and much shorter exposures. Biases to get rid of hot pixels, flats to help with detail. Bahtinov to ace focus. And post your results. 👍

forget about darks - don't need em. flats and bias would have been better. I imagine your darks are screwing up your lights.

I use APP not DSS, but I've seen this issue before especially with DSLRs - where the reference frames once calibrated into the lights, screw them all up.

In APP, all but 5 frames integrated, but the subs are all over the place - it doesn't seem to have been tracking much or at all tbh. I mean I know its az, but I'd still expect M31 to stay in the middle ?

The integrated result was just a blur though so it was a false positive. But just have a look at the subs and you can see they are very streaky and moving about everywhere really.

I'd suggest trying again and this time:

1. take flats

2. take bias.

3. don't bother with darks.

4. try to make sure your tracking is keeping target centred, and if you are getting star trails, reduce the exposure until you don't, and take more subs. you can't really shoot a target off centre with az, as it's going to be rotating, so will just end up off the frame - so make sure your target is dead centre.

stu

7 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

The more I try the Seestar, it makes me ask "Why can't all GoTo scopes be like this?"  Sure, it would be expensive to kit an 8" SCT with all these features (maybe via a separate intelligent finderscope), but if amateurs with deeper pockets were offered a scope outfit that did all this automation and had a visual port, I suspect the response would be "F**k yes, sign me up now!" 

try an asiair Geoff if you've not already. It pretty much does the same, but with your own kit.

stu

post a few here - you have an audience of knowledgeable folk (not including myself here!)

The second time I've tried this different palette - Ha mono, with blue for brightest 25%. Oiii mono, and orange/yellow for top 25-50%.

This time I've left the stars as they came out of the L-utlimate.

Shot with Stellamira 90ED with 0.8x reducer/flattener and asi2600 last night - 6 1/2 hours of 10 min subs.

Very little Oiii so just adding a touch of colour into it really.

Edited in affinity photo.

stu