ZWO Seestar 50

[Giles_B]

8 hours ago, LDW1 said:

If you are a WL / Ha astronomer you must know, I hope you know, that when viewing the sun especially in the afternoon when max heat is rising and a breeze has come up that solar seeing conditions can change by the minute especially when taking photos ie good one moment and pp the next. So why would taking them with the SS be any different, criticize all you want but make sure you know your solar ........... !   PS:  So when many  of these solar pics were taken who knows the conditions !

Sorry - I didn't want to sound churlish and it's obvious from the comments that's how it came across.

Yes the ability to visualise and image the Sun is a great addition and shows the versatility of the SeeStar, and it will add a lot of enjoyment - I certainly didn't want to damp anyone's fire. All I was really saying was the obvious - that WL is a nice addition to the scope, but that the real magic is in its ability to visualise DSOs.

[DaveL59]

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

 

I think I'll design one and get a batch sls printed to sell at cost on here like I did for eos clip in 1 1/4in filters. Give me a few weeks. They'll be much higher quality. I'll do a 2" filter adapter too. Watch this space.

Stu

I did hit buy on the ebay one, but if you do go ahead I'd be happy to buy  one and the filter adaptor if you do one of those too, might work well for if/when I give the tele lens add-on a go 🙂 

[DaveL59]

1 hour ago, Giles_B said:

Sorry - I didn't want to sound churlish and it's obvious from the comments that's how it came across.

Yes the ability to visualise and image the Sun is a great addition and shows the versatility of the SeeStar, and it will add a lot of enjoyment - I certainly didn't want to damp anyone's fire. All I was really saying was the obvious - that WL is a nice addition to the scope, but that the real magic is in its ability to visualise DSOs.

For me that's the main attraction also, I'm not wanting a further/larger scope and tired eyes makes trying to pick out the faint stuff harder these days. Add some Solar abilities and it fills all the gaps nicely at a decent price and will hopefully add interest for the daughter/grandkids since it'll be a lot easier looking at a screen together than taking turns at a manual alt/az scope.

[Giles_B]

1 hour ago, DaveL59 said:

I did hit buy on the ebay one, but if you do go ahead I'd be happy to buy  one and the filter adaptor if you do one of those too, might work well for if/when I give the tele lens add-on a go 🙂 

+1 on the filter adaptor!

[powerlord]

So rough costs - If I do a run of 30 of them, I can do em for 4 quid each + postage. So say another 4 for the adapter, and just sell as a set - bahtinov and 48mm adapter for a tenner posted.

the only issue is that I really need accurate size for the diameter for the aperture on the S50 to design them, as I don't have mine yet. It has to be accurate to the .1mm (i.e. with digital calipers). IF someone can give me that, AND ideally the depth of the hole before the lens, then I can design the parts and get them printed professionally in the next few weeks. If not, it will need to wait till I actually get my S50.

SLS printing in nylon will have the following benefits:

1. tougher part (nylon vs pla or abs of extrusion printing)

2. much higher accurancy of part (super sharp lines, etc)

3. almost professional injection molded finish (will be more matte, but in this application that's a positive)

4. very fine parts like the 48mm thread will be much more accurate than extrusion printing

I doubt I'd have difficulty shifting them all, and I'd just look to recover costs - that is my outlay for the printing, jiffy bags and posting.

[LDW1]

8 minutes ago, powerlord said:

So rough costs - If I do a run of 30 of them, I can do em for 4 quid each + postage. So say another 4 for the adapter, and just sell as a set - bahtinov and 48mm adapter for a tenner posted.

the only issue is that I really need accurate size for the diameter for the aperture on the S50 to design them, as I don't have mine yet. It has to be accurate to the .1mm (i.e. with digital calipers). IF someone can give me that, AND ideally the depth of the hole before the lens, then I can design the parts and get them printed professionally in the next few weeks. If not, it will need to wait till I actually get my S50.

SLS printing in nylon will have the following benefits:

1. tougher part (nylon vs pla or abs of extrusion printing)

2. much higher accurancy of part (super sharp lines, etc)

3. almost professional injection molded finish (will be more matte, but in this application that's a positive)

4. very fine parts like the 48mm thread will be much more accurate than extrusion printing

I doubt I'd have difficulty shifting them all, and I'd just look to recover costs - that is my outlay for the printing, jiffy bags and posting.

Whats the big hurry to get them out, isn't it easier, smarter to wait till many more get theirs and determine what you / they really need / want ? LOL !   PS:  Do you or anyone else think the world of the SS will end tomorrow or maybe its just plain old boredum, lol ?

Edited September 18, 2023 by LDW1

[DaveL59]

45 minutes ago, powerlord said:

So rough costs - If I do a run of 30 of them, I can do em for 4 quid each + postage. So say another 4 for the adapter, and just sell as a set - bahtinov and 48mm adapter for a tenner posted.

the only issue is that I really need accurate size for the diameter for the aperture on the S50 to design them, as I don't have mine yet. It has to be accurate to the .1mm (i.e. with digital calipers). IF someone can give me that, AND ideally the depth of the hole before the lens, then I can design the parts and get them printed professionally in the next few weeks. If not, it will need to wait till I actually get my S50.

SLS printing in nylon will have the following benefits:

1. tougher part (nylon vs pla or abs of extrusion printing)

2. much higher accurancy of part (super sharp lines, etc)

3. almost professional injection molded finish (will be more matte, but in this application that's a positive)

4. very fine parts like the 48mm thread will be much more accurate than extrusion printing

I doubt I'd have difficulty shifting them all, and I'd just look to recover costs - that is my outlay for the printing, jiffy bags and posting.

Don't have mine yet either so can't help with measurements, but you can mark me down for the pair if you're also looking to get a scope on numbers 🙂 What thread pitch would the 48mm have?

[powerlord]

1 hour ago, LDW1 said:

Whats the big hurry to get them out, isn't it easier, smarter to wait till many more get theirs and determine what you / they really need / want ? LOL !   PS:  Do you or anyone else think the world of the SS will end tomorrow or maybe its just plain old boredum, lol ?

i know what I want and need thanks (other than dimensions), but by all means wait, it's a free country.

[LDW1]

2 minutes ago, powerlord said:

i know what I want and need thanks (other than dimensions), but by all means wait, it's a free country.

Thank God it is !

[powerlord]

39 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Don't have mine yet either so can't help with measurements, but you can mark me down for the pair if you're also looking to get a scope on numbers 🙂 What thread pitch would the 48mm have?

48mm filters are .75mm thread pitch, same as 48mm tubes, etc.

It'll be interesting to see how things like the L-extreme/ultimate work out vs the far wider band internal ones. I know limited exp lengths, etc - but it will still be a nice experiment. And IR pass could be good with moon.

Whether a telephoto or wide angle could be designed on there depends on the optics I suppose - and they will only be push fit, so hanging some massive lens off the front ain't gonna work.

Another interesting one might be an Hb filter for sun ?

I'd champin' at the bit to design them to be honest, but will just have to wait. I ordered on day 2 (14th April), so according to latest pop up on zwo site mine will be shipped in next 2 weeks. So that's something at least.

I would love to see it hacked, but afaik the only person to have ever hacked any zwo stuff... is me (EAF), but it would be awesome with EQ and longer exposure times. 🙂

 

stu

Edited September 18, 2023 by powerlord

[DaveL59]

I only ordered recently so a fair old wait for me but at least the alpha and beta testing should be well out of the way by the time I get mine 😉

Agree re lobbing a wide/tele, weight may be a factor, will have to locate the one I had and see if its even worth a try. A bit of double-sided tape to hold the adaptor down might do the trick tho if not too long/heavy. More chance it'll confuse the smarts tho but for planets if you can manually target it may just add enough to wow the grandkids and encourage them to want to see more via a real scope/eyepiece.

[M40]

Yes please, stick me on that list Mr Powerlord 👌

 

The solar filter is a plastic push in device and it came up wwith slightly different measurements dependent on where I measured it so..... hope it works. Let me know if you would like a couple of pictures of the filter itself.

 

[powerlord]

34 minutes ago, M40 said:

Yes please, stick me on that list Mr Powerlord 👌

 

The solar filter is a plastic push in device and it came up wwith slightly different measurements dependent on where I measured it so..... hope it works. Let me know if you would like a couple of pictures of the filter itself.

 

good man, thanks for that - can you also give me the measurement of the diameter of the actual hole please ? As if the solar filter is 50mm then the hole must be bigger.

stu

[M40]

I measure the diameter of the hole at between 50.15 - 50.19. 

[powerlord]

Thanks , that makes sense and is consistent with a mildly tight push fit. Time to get designing !

%

[Elp]

Usually with 3D prints I design around 0.5mm a side smaller, but that's with PLA prints. Best to do a few templates and carry out a fit and function.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Elp

[powerlord]

sls is pretty accurate. I work with 0.1 tight/solid fit, 0.3 loose fit. So 0.2 is just right. And that's over the diameter. 0.5mm per side (i.e. 1mm for diameter) would be no use to man nor beast.

There's really no point in doing test prints for FDM when you are going to print SLS. And there's little point in doing SLS test print orders, because minimum order sizes means it costs the same to print 30 as it does to print 1.

stu

p.s. been doing 3d printing for 12 years now, so I know what I'm doing 🙂

 

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

Agree re lobbing a wide/tele, weight may be a factor, will have to locate the one I had and see if its even worth a try.

I have a bunch of fisheye, wide, and tele adapters from my videoing days.  A ~50mm rear threaded adapter is going to be a bit on the heavy side to cover such a large objective.  As such, a counterweight attached to the opposite side of the device would be necessary to avoid tracking issues.

As a suggestion, the old Nikon TC-E15ED has 50mm rear threads, quality ED glass (no added violet fringing that I've seen in high-res test images), and weighs 275g (9.6 oz).  It might be a good candidate to try.  They go for about $20 to $35 plus tax on ebay stateside, a bit more in the UK.  It's my goto telephoto lens for my Canon VIXIA HF M41 with the appropriate step ring.  I get better image quality with it by backing off the 10x zoom a bit to 6x or 8x and letting it bring me to ~10x without as much violet fringing as the native 10x.

[DaveL59]

7 minutes ago, Louis D said:

I have a bunch of fisheye, wide, and tele adapters from my videoing days.  A ~50mm rear threaded adapter is going to be a bit on the heavy side to cover such a large objective.  As such, a counterweight attached to the opposite side of the device would be necessary to avoid tracking issues.

As a suggestion, the old Nikon TC-E15ED has 50mm rear threads, quality ED glass (no added violet fringing that I've seen in high-res test images), and weighs 275g (9.6 oz).  It might be a good candidate to try.  They go for about $20 to $35 plus tax on ebay stateside, a bit more in the UK.  It's my goto telephoto lens for my Canon VIXIA HF M41 with the appropriate step ring.  I get better image quality with it by backing off the 10x zoom a bit to 6x or 8x and letting it bring me to ~10x without as much violet fringing as the native 10x.

A sound suggestion, thanks 🙂

I will eventually locate my old ones, can't recall the brand that was now but was fair at the time, tho the Nikon with ED glass would likely outclass it. If the experiment with the one I have works then I'd consider getting an 'upgrade'. I'm figuring some adhesive velcro tape on the back of the moving assembly would allow a small weight to be attached when needed to aid with balance.

[Louis D]

41 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

A sound suggestion, thanks 🙂

I will eventually locate my old ones, can't recall the brand that was now but was fair at the time, tho the Nikon with ED glass would likely outclass it. If the experiment with the one I have works then I'd consider getting an 'upgrade'. I'm figuring some adhesive velcro tape on the back of the moving assembly would allow a small weight to be attached when needed to aid with balance.

Some gaffer's tape would probably work to affix the tele adapter in place since the imager housing is push-fit.

Given the long focal length of the taking lens, finding a wide angle adapter that might work will be difficult.  It would require what was referred to as a "zoom through" adapter that didn't lose much image quality as the lens was zoomed toward the telephoto end.  Even then, most fall apart at around 6x which would be about 260mm FL in 35mm equivalent.  The problem is that you're only using the central part of the adapter when zoomed in, and that is not the intended use case.  Generally, things get blurry with lots of chromatic aberrations.

[powerlord]

Here's the first draft of the 2 parts - bahtinov, and 2" filter adapter

[powerlord]

First test print. Dimensions of threads need tweaking. Tricky to find accurate sizing for the inner and outer diameters of an m48 0.75 thread.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

I received the SS50 a few days ago and on Friday I was able to take it on a dark skies weekend and give it its 'first light'. 

First impressions are that it is extremely easy to use, except that the app is not that easy to use, and in total darkness it is impossible to see where the little black device is pointing itself - whether somebody is stood in front of it, or if it is pointing at a tree. 

The aiming process (entirely automatic) is not that quick and can take a minute or more while the device plate-solves and re-aims.   One has to initiate the actual stacked image taking manually.   Once taken, the images look good on the smartphone and if you have setup with icloud will copy to your image processing computer without further intervention.

Here, I found that an increase in contrast brings up nebulae in the iphone image nicely.

Images are also stored in the SS50 itself and this is a different story. First, these are not the same images as sent to the smartphone. There is a low-resolution jpg which is essentially a thumbnail, and a high-resolution FITS file.

A big GOTCHA here for anyone who is used to using Sharpcap for live-stacking and saving a file.  This is apparently a different variety of FITs file and needs to be stacked in Deep Sky Stacker or Siril, before processing in (e.g.) GIMP.   It took me a while to realise this, following a search online. So I downloaded and installed Siril, and tried to follow an instructional video for processing SS50 FITS that I found on Youtube.

Turns out after further head-scratching that this involves a script file that has to be downloaded separately because it's not in my Siril.  Could not find script, and gave up.

TBF I'm not impressed with this.  It's really easy for any newbie to use this device, but if you want to process the saved images, you are expected to instantly transform into Image Processing Expert?

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Here, I found that an increase in contrast brings up nebulae in the iphone image nicely.

It seems odd that a device intended to make it easier to see faint objects wouldn't automatically increase contrast in transferred images for immediate viewing.  Is the idea to make you still feel like you're looking at a faint object through the eyepiece?  I would think sophisticated image processing software could bring up the contrast without ruining the image.  Perhaps that will follow as an app to download and run on the phone's sophisticated CPU and GPU.

Using a screen grab of the Wizard nebula from the next post's video, I did a quick edit.

I performed levels correction , saturation boost, and mild sharpening in PSE 2.0 followed by a mild noise reduction in Noiseware.  All tools are 20+ years old, so it shouldn't be too hard to have these filters available in real time in some app.  Before is on the left, after is on the right.  I think it makes it a whole lot easier to see the nebula.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Louis D
Added example image edit

[DaveL59]

Does seem that if you want to, some post processing can improve the results. Just released vid shows him using pixinsight for example

Not sure I'll be going this far with it, more likely to just use as EEVA and perhaps play a little once in a while if I feel the urge to.