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LaurenceT

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Everything posted by LaurenceT

  1. Thanks, I've just started taking flats and dark flats now, it's made a difference.
  2. I don't agree with your analysis, it's not a one trick pony as it can make images of many (but not all) different objects, it also doubles as a simple approach to EAA and outreach. Half decent images? Most of the images I have seen are exactly that, only half decent by the standards of general astrophotography but they are images nonetheless. A simple analogy would be my decades long hobby of bird photography. I would hope that the images I have taken are the result of good fieldcraft, knowledge of my subject and the ability to use the instruments I have available. I would be proud to present those images for the highest scrutiny. On the other hand if I am out and not specifically doing bird photography I may see something avian that interests me and I take a quick shot either with the camera I have or indeed a phone camera.. I class those as record shots and would present them as such. I would think that all of the Seestar images I have seen are presented as that, they are presented as "an image of X taken on my Seestar" just as I would present a record shot of a bird to other serious bird photographers. They are also not "Polaroids" because they give people the opportunity to enhance the images, something that is not given to users of Polaroid cameras.
  3. It won't replace the rig you've created which I imagine is quite complex and expensive but it can compliment it.
  4. The " holiday" thing was a major part of my pitch to my Domestic Financial Controller " the Az GTi is soooo noisy on a campsite".....
  5. Ed's probably still miffed he dropped somebody elses telescope the other day and totalled it, must have cost him dear😆.
  6. I have raised this point earlier today on a Facebook Seestar group about his comments concerning early adoption. There's always going to be a better model of anything coming along "later", we just have to wait for it. I'm 77 in a few days, just how long would our Ed like me to wait for that vastly improved model? As it happens I'm quite enjoying my Seestar, it took me about 5 minutes last night to set it up and show my grandchildren the wonders of the Orion nebula appearing on the TV screen thanks to iPad screen mirroring. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the Seestar this morning and found it had stacked and processed an image for me. It wasn't at all perfect, some of the stars looked a bit weird 😀 and there was some detail missing but with a very little basic work it brushed up quite well. I don't think my audience would have appreciated the "better" image produced by my ZS61! My only "objection" is the fixed FOV but if I really want to capture something different I can use my other fairly basic kit.
  7. After failing miserably to get the moon to show my family last night I decided to do what I'd read and put the Seestar through the hoops of levelling, compass calibration and selecting a known bright star and doing a 3 point alignment. It seemed to do the trick and found the moon instantly but they'd all gone to bed by then so I found the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules and gave it about 18 minutes before I jacked it in and went to bed. I could probably miss out the first two steps next time but I'll ceratinly do the 3 point alignment.
  8. I know, I bought one immediately before my wife finds out😎
  9. I've just put my thumb through the solar filter 🫢
  10. You could be right about the conditions but it didn't seem to affect my other setup. One thing that has baffled me is that the subs were labelled IRCUT files so I obviously failed to switch to the dual band filter, I had thought it was automatic when selecting a DSO, obviously not so no nebulosity!
  11. I'm still having a struggle with my new Seestar, last night when I suddenly realized there were stars to be seen I had a go at the Flame Nebula. I imaged for 1 hour but had so many rejections due to star trailing that I've only finished up with 5 minutes of subs. Just to make an unfair comparison I also quickly set up my lightweight wide field kit and got an hour on the same target losing only 2 frames due to clouds. I'll do some processing later.
  12. I haven't yet watched the video, maybe he mentions it but I've read that the sync button has disappeared because it's now being done automatically. Edit: yep, it's in the video! 😳
  13. First clear night at about 23.00 so I chanced my luck and tried some lunar. I've only had the Seestar a few days and managed to image the sun within a few hours of opening the box without problems. Last night was a different matter however, it simply couldn't find the moon even after levelling and compass calibration. So I tried selecting some random nebula which it slewed to immediately and did a 3 star calibration. I backed out of that and tried the moon and it found it perfectly so I took a few videos during which it tracked perfectly. I still have to work out the finer details of AF when the green box is not on the moon. The sky looks clear right now so I might try some more solar. Image is a 1 minute video processed in Pipp, AutoStakkert and Dxo Photolab 3. It had a green tinge so I converted it to mono in Nik.
  14. Looking at the specs of the Celestron I'm sure it would be a fantastic instrument.
  15. I think I'd be more inclined to buy 6 Seestars for that money and establish The Large Back Garden Seestar Array. Edit: Actually I wouldn't 😄
  16. First image, took all of 2 minutes after unboxing, clouds and sunspots are included apparently.
  17. It arrived this afternoon and it hasn't stopped talking to me! Took all of 2 minutes after unpacking to take this shot of the sun, clouds and sunspots included.
  18. I hope to use the Seestar to it's fullest capacity.
  19. Yep, that makes sense, particularly the last bit🤣. Thanks.
  20. 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. The Seestar will do all of that for me with the additional bonus of taking reference images as you point out or if so inclined go the whole hog and do serious post processing. I've been referring to Telescopius in the past couple of days and realise the shortcomings of the Seestar scope FOV (it's essentially an Evoguide 50ED anyway) and realise that for different targets I will still rely on my other imaging scopes which is fine. My Seestar is arriving today 🙂.
  21. The use of an equatorial wedge was denied by the Seestar users on Facebook that were claiming zero field rotation in integration times of 2 hours plus.
  22. I've been getting this a bit wrong, surprise surprise! It wasn't a single exposure at all but 2hrs 35mins of 369 stacked images but even so I would expect considerable field rotation seeing that reviewers have suggested less than 1 hour on any single subject to avoid rotation. Have I got the concept of Seestar field rotation wrong?
  23. Thanks, so would a single unstacked exposure of 2.5 hours show field rotation?
  24. I would have thought that the fact it is an alt az mount is the biggest factor in it's field rotation which makes it different from 'normal AP' which is done with an EQ mount. The Facebook comments seemed to suggest that ZWO have introduced something into the firmware which corrects for this.
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