ZWO Seestar 50

[powerlord]

1 hour ago, DaveL59 said:

never having tried long periods on one target, in fact had little chance to use mine with odd work hours and weather this month, might it perhaps be better to do as suggested in one of Cuiv's videos to obtain the longer integration times?

As in run a shorter capture 30-60 mins and repeat over several nights?

Of course anyone wanting to do that spanning the next couple weeks would need to consider the BST-GMT time change next weekend and adjust the start time accordingly.

yup that's a plan indeed.

Miraculously the forecast is for some clear skies tonight, so I'll stick it out there and try a few targets. was gonna go for eagle nebula and M51. With the eagle you've no choice for long integrations anyway as it's so low.

I'm trying to work out a way of sitting it on my house roof - it would get far better visibility to eagle at that height.. a sort of mount I could screw it onto attached to one of my upstairs windows when open or something...doubt I'll have that for tonight though. still I'll have a think if I can knock something up with the laser cutter and 3d printer...

With the 2 mounts in the observatory, and setting up an old EQ5 and canon 6d in the garden too - I'll be imaging with 4 rigs tonight to make best use of these limited clear skies.

[DaveL59]

3 minutes ago, powerlord said:

I'm trying to work out a way of sitting it on my house roof - it would get far better visibility to eagle at that height.. a sort of mount I could screw it onto attached to one of my upstairs windows when open or something...doubt I'll have that for tonight though. still I'll have a think if I can knock something up with the laser cutter and 3d printer...

 

Oh that sounds like it'd be "fun" to have it securely held and stable, esp if there's any slight breeze. an interesting idea tho. A lot of trust seems to be placed in 3D prints to hold loads, not sure I'd want the weight of the Seestar doing that at height tho and for me it wouldn't solve the large oak obstructing the SE-SW view 🙂 

I'll be working from 01:00-07:00 tonight so for me it'll be trying to take decent naps this afternoon so I have a few working grey cells ticking over during the critical bits of the works. Same next Saturday night with the time change, so won't be up to doing much with mine unless we get some clear sky during the midweek window.

 

[powerlord]

3 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

Oh that sounds like it'd be "fun" to have it securely held and stable, esp if there's any slight breeze. an interesting idea tho. A lot of trust seems to be placed in 3D prints to hold loads, not sure I'd want the weight of the Seestar doing that at height tho and for me it wouldn't solve the large oak obstructing the SE-SW view 🙂 

I'll be working from 01:00-07:00 tonight so for me it'll be trying to take decent naps this afternoon so I have a few working grey cells ticking over during the critical bits of the works. Same next Saturday night with the time change, so won't be up to doing much with mine unless we get some clear sky during the midweek window.

 

yeh, will take some thought - I've been designing 3d print stuff for 11 years now. As long as you know what you're doing they can do most structural job tbh. You just have to working within their stregnths. All my cameras lenses have 3d printed mounts/eaf mounts, all my guide scopes have 3d printed mounts. I mount my gopros and 360 cameras with 3d mounts on my paramotors, etc. I've build 3d printed parts for my cars, motorbikes, etc.

For the S50 - the key I think would be a sort of triangle enforced shaft of 2020 ali extrusion (black) with a locking piece (Red) , that you attached to the side of the house below the window with hinges, and rotated out and locks in place with S50 fitted. and when not, rotates back in to side of house out the way. Here's a rubbish fag packet sketch:

[M40]

I made something similar in a collapsible platform for the ss50 using stainless folding brackets. It works but I quickly realised that you need access to the tripod to level it. So I am not sure your arrangement will work unless you can reach the tripod with the swinging arm fully extended. 

To further your fag packet sketch, here is my fag packet build. When it finally stops raining, the plan is to swop the wood and the wooden platform for a steel plate with edging. 

[M40]

At last, a clear night 😱 first time I've seen the moon clearly since the ss50 landed, so...single shot screen grab. Be nice to compare with the dwarf if there are anybout there.

 

[powerlord]

30 mins of eagle nebula. All I get from my latitude. That's live stack from app.

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by powerlord

[powerlord]

Jfi, just found out that S50 publishes guest smb drive just like asiair. So u can get all fits, etc remotely - no need for usb.

Heres screenshot showing me accessing from my phone.

 

[powerlord]

Tadpole nebula live stack.

M33 live stack

[powerlord]

M81 live stack:

[M40]

That M81 is really nice 👌 

Out of interest, I tried the polarising filter on Jupiter last night, didn't work, all I got was reflection between the two filters unless I adjusted it to the extent that you could only see a faint grey dot. It might work with a spacer between the two filters but from my point of view, I am calling it a day with planets and the ss50. 

Best Jupiter I could get using the internal filter

Edited October 23, 2023 by M40

[RobertI]

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

M81 live stack:

What sort of total exposure time are you using on these recent images @powerlord?

[powerlord]

30 mins to an hour. though i think M81 was a bit longer, as I left it going till it was 5% battery left (that was after it had drained a 14ah powerbank that was attached to it)

Sorry, I turned off the logo at the bottom that shows that stuff - maybe should turn it on again.

I'll post the processed pics and integration times (each was a single live stack so will match) later today

[M40]

Has anybody been able to get the "mark" to show on the picture? I've tried it a few times now and it shows on the app but not on the captured image. Have I missed a tick box somewhere? 

[powerlord]

Is it supposed to ? I just assumed it was the plate solve data/id like you get in asiair - for info overlay. not saved with image. If you have logo on, you get the title at the bottom which will tell you what it is (assuming it knows)

[Cosmic Geoff]

I had a session with the Seestar last night. At the end of the session I found it had disconnected itself from the smartphone and refused to connect.  By this point, the battery had mostly discharged (1 Led showing). IIRC there's an auto disconnect option in the menus - I'm not sure what that's supposed to do though.  

I noticed that the On/off button LED pulses slowly while the device is operating - I'm not sure what this is supposed to indicate.

I also note that according to the spec. the Seestar can draw up to 2 amps from a USB charging source.  Fortunately I have a 2 amp wall plug that I got with a Nexus tablet. It might be wise to be careful about what USB port you plug the device into while it's discharged.  The USB ports on my Celestron LIFEPO power tank are only rated at 1 amp, and I have no idea about the USB ports on my computers.

 

[DaveL59]

11 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

 

I noticed that the On/off button LED pulses slowly while the device is operating - I'm not sure what this is supposed to indicate.

 

It's just a gimicky "breathing" indication that the device is on and working, doesn't really signify anything other than that from what video reviews said. I guess perhaps it reduces the overall power used by an LED that's always on but probably insignificant with regards run-time.

[powerlord]

Right, this took a while, so probably last time I do it - but very useful for folk thinking about whether to get one I think. Here are all the images I shot last night - all 1600 pictures integrated!

On the left, the live stack as it appeared on phone and saved to gallery. On the right, integrated and processed on computer - also with name and total imaging time.

I've tried to crop only as much as I needed to. I think they are all respectable tbh, but you can certainly see that for best results, computer processing and manual manipulation required (for me, AstroPixelProcessor for stacking, Siril for colour calibration, Affinity Photo and NoiseX, StarX for editing).

But if I could have started out with an S50 3 years ago rather than the bits and bobs I did start out with, I think I'd have been very happy. About 70 mins seems to be enough to get a pretty good image of most things.

Edited October 23, 2023 by powerlord

[Giles_B]

These are great, and I particularly like M81 (although it's labelled M16 on your processed picture 😮)

What's the galaxy nearby visible on the top left corner of that M81 pic? The processing seems to have added detail to this over that visible on the SeeStar image - was that because the internal stacking cropped it out?

Got some clear sky last night, but I haven't got around to doing anything with the SeeStar pictures yet. Spent the evening switching between looking a Saturn with the dob, and getting a better sense of the early winter sky with the binoculars, and all the while SeeStar looked at DSOs in detail - a perfect astro night out!

[powerlord]

1 minute ago, Giles_B said:

These are great, and I particularly like M81 (although it's labelled M16 on your processed picture 😮)

What's the galaxy nearby visible on the top left corner of that M81 pic? The processing seems to have added detail to this over that visible on the SeeStar image - was that because the internal stacking cropped it out?

Got some clear sky last night, but I haven't got around to doing anything with the SeeStar pictures yet. Spent the evening switching between looking a Saturn with the dob, and getting a better sense of the early winter sky with the binoculars, and all the while SeeStar looked at DSOs in detail - a perfect astro night out!

Oops yeh sorry bout that.

Yes, I noticed that wee galaxy so made sure my crop kept it. You just just see the edge left in the phone crop.

I think M33 came out best personally. It even brought out some of the ha regions. I was going to do m82 too, but ran out of time.

[MalcolmP]

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

Right, this took a while, so probably last time I do it - but very useful for folk thinking about whether to get one I think. Here are all the images I shot last night - all 1600 pictures integrated!

Very nice work, thanks for showing ! Very impressive. And down to mag20/21 ish, all  we you need now is a SN to round it all off  
I think the mystery one is UGC 5247, remarkable if it is ( , still checking in Simbad , , )
 

Edited October 23, 2023 by MalcolmP

[powerlord]

22 minutes ago, MalcolmP said:

Very nice work, thanks for showing ! Very impressive. And down to mag20/21 ish, all  we you need now is a SN to round it all off  
I think the mystery one is UGC 5247, remarkable if it is ( , still checking in Simbad , , )
 

I reckon it's PGC 28225

Edited October 23, 2023 by powerlord

[MalcolmP]

31 minutes ago, powerlord said:

I reckon it's PGC 28225

I think same galaxy different cat.s

 and a whisper of UGC 5336 PGC 28757 just below (6o'clock) 81

[WinfieldDavid]

Seestar s50 1st images. Out of the scope the colors are a little weak. I used Lightroom to process these (except for the moon). No real issue yet, but only used it for 3 nights. No field rotation at 70 minutes. Have a week of rain and a cloudy sky, so these are all for now. I did crop the M27 a bit, so it wasn't quite this big.

[LDW1]

34 minutes ago, WinfieldDavid said:

Seestar s50 1st images. Out of the scope the colors are a little weak. I used Lightroom to process these (except for the moon). No real issue yet, but only used it for 3 nights. No field rotation at 70 minutes. Have a week of rain and a cloudy sky, so these are all for now. I did crop the M27 a bit, so it wasn't quite this big.

The nebulosity in the larger Pleides stars is unreal, I know its been edited but its still unreal ! Even with my NP101 conditions have to be just right with say a Morpheus ep.

Edited October 23, 2023 by LDW1

[WinfieldDavid]

Pleiades was 45 minutes. This was my 1st image and cut off the Seestar tag...I've been keeping the tags since. Shouldn't have done that.