LaurenceT

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 😄

First image, took all of 2 minutes after unboxing, clouds and sunspots are included apparently.

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.

I hope to use the Seestar to it's fullest capacity.

Yep, that makes sense, particularly the last bit🤣. Thanks.

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 🙂.

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.

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?

Many thanks for that Kat

Thanks, so would a single unstacked exposure of 2.5 hours show field rotation?

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.

I've been thinking about getting one of these for a little while and I've been watching many YT videos. I've also joined a couple of Facebook user groups to read more. I've been aware of the problem of field rotation and had read in many reviews that because of this integration time of over an hour was not recommended. Yesterday I saw a Facebook post claiming 2.5 hours of integration time without field rotation. When I commented about field rotation I received these replies: "Seestar uses a Plate Solution to align and register the stars. Once aligned it adds the result to the stack. At least that is my understanding and it seems to work well over the 2 or 3 hour time span" "The SeeStar will automatically align the rotation of each image as it is stacked. The outcome will have a fully register object but the outside edges of the image will show skewing. It is more apparent when using the individual images and stacking them on a computer." Is this now the experience of other users? Anyway, I ordered one yesterday (not based on this information), hopefully will arrive tomorrow.

Thanks for the replies everyone and apologies for not responding sooner but I've been in Devon for a friends funeral. I'll spend tomorrow reading and digesting all that's been written here.

I discovered the disadvantage of a square sensor, no matter how I rotated the camera I couldn't get it to fit and then I had to crop it a small amount. I really should have used my Askar FMA 180 and got the Soul nebula as well. It was a first for me as I took some flats as well, don't know of they made any difference. Also I failed yet again in setting up guiding, seems to be a blank spot for me so all subs unguided. Also I never quite know how set the red colour, sometimes too light other times too intense! WO ZS61ii, SA GTi mount, Asiair Plus, L-Enhance filter, 150x60 second subs. Astropixelprocessor, Photoshop, Gimp.

Well done Lee, it's a lovely image. By coincidence tonight was the first time since coming to this hobby that I took the plunge and took my first flat frames!😀

Brilliant use of a vintage lens! What lens were you using? I've got a couple of older Canon FD lenses, my favourite being the 135mm F2.8. I know I could use this for astrophotography but because I already have an Askar FMA180 it doesn't seem worth it. However, having seen what you are doing has made me think again. All it needs is a few adapters (famous last words!).

Excellent image, I like the detail in the core not being blown out.

Kind of you but I've got a dead cert bet on Villa on Saturday. honest Guv.

All this talk about community and helping each other has given me the courage to ask one question. Can someone lend me a fiver until Saturday....................................? 🤣

Thanks for the replies but I've put the tube on my mount and although the total weight of the tube, camera, Asiair and guidescope/camera is within the 5KG limit I cannot balance it in the RA axis with the supplied counterweights. Rather than put strain on the mount I think I'll abandon the project and stick with my WO ZS61 as largest imaging scope. Once again thanks for the replies.

I want to use my somewhat ancient Orion ED80 for astrophotography but in order to achieve good balance I would like to position an Asiair and guidescope on top of the scope on a double bracket. I want to position this at the mid point of the tube rather than at the rear so I'm looking for a solution that possibly involves a bar connected to the rings that would allow a finder base to be attached. Be grateful for any ideas.

I came to this forum during lockdown when I abandoned wildlife photography in favour of a photography related hobby I could do in my garden. Being of advanced years the learning curve has been steep for my diminishing faculties and this forum has been an absolute anchor for me. There has been one standout and that has been the ethic of there being no stupid questions only stupid answers. I've never been afraid of asking about anything that has bamboozled me. The forum the other side of the pond is also useful but sometimes more acerbic in it's replies but so far nothing that has had me sobbing into my pillow 😅.

I had a very quick go at M42 the other night before it dived into the trees, just 14 x 60 seconds integration time. I noticed this large circular artefact in the image and it also appeared om my Bodes image later that night. Any ideas what it's due to? Edit: my wife took one look at it and said it looks like dust. A quick Google shows that it probably is dust. I'll run my setup past her first next time.

Love the mount but then I would do 😀. That looks to be quite a heavy load on the mount but of course appearances can be deceptive, how much does it weigh? I'm looking forward to reading how you get on with this and seeing some of your results. Edit: just seen what the scope is so it looks like it's well within limits.

Sounds a good idea. I've only just managed to do a lunar mosaic but I'm keen to find out how to do a deep sky mosaic.