ZWO Seestar 50

[Doug64]

Hi,

I've just copied the files on SS over to my laptop for the first time for further processing.  I took some raw/avi video of the moon to process.  When I view this footage on my tablet from within SS the video is nice and smooth

When i view the same raw footage on my laptop which is much better than SS snd the tablet the image/video is msde up of numerous small squares.

Is this normal, if not does anyone Know what's happening.

I've attached a couple of images to show what I mean

Thanks

Doug

 

[powerlord]

the avi needs to be debayered first. basically it records the data from the sensor 'raw'. It needs to be processed using the debayer pattern of the sensor to become proper colour data.

PIPP will do this on the PC if you download it.

[Doug64]

9 minutes ago, powerlord said:

the avi needs to be debayered first. basically it records the data from the sensor 'raw'. It needs to be processed using the debayer pattern of the sensor to become proper colour data.

PIPP will do this on the PC if you download it.

Thanks, will download PIPP and the other planetary software.  

[nicoscy]

1. Open in PIPP and save as .ser file

2. Open in AS3! and stack best frames

3. Use favorite editing software (your phone’s photos app will do nicely) to further edit the image.

[Geoff Lister]

Comet hunting just got easier. Yesterday (19th) morning just before dawn. Seestar to tablet via Seestar app and tablet to laptop via USB.

The image is straight from the Seestar, unprocessed. The comet shows a short tail, and galaxy IC3074 (magnitude 15.1) is just visible below-left of the comet. GoTo was done using the app's sky atlas, with the comet's name and position easy to find. The comet was mid-way between Leo & Virgo, at an altitude of about 40 degrees, and Clear Outside shows that 06:59 was after the end of nautical dark, so the background sky was starting to lighten.

I also managed 144P/Kushida from a different location, on the evening of the 15th.

Geoff

Edited January 20 by Geoff Lister
144P/Kushida detail added

[squipper]

Found the perfect shoulder  for carrying my S50

[Geoff Lister]

Nice bag. Where did you get it?

Geoff

[squipper]

It was £1.50 from a charity shop while on a coaching holiday down south

 

[squipper]

Tonights moon  first time i have processed  an image  with a  free 45 day trial with a full version of pixinsght

[Geoff Lister]

I was inspired by "squipper's" bag, so I modified the Seestar case to take the shoulder strap from my Dwarf  II's bag. I did not want the case to take the majority of the overall weight, so I used some black plastic ratchet strapping with a couple of fastenings from my "come-in-handy" box, 2 short (25mm) rawlplugs, 2 black-finish screws with washers, clear glue and some sticky film. I also added a strip of gaffer tape to reinforce the lid hinge.

 

The sticky film was used to hold the strap in place along the sides and base. The rawl plug and screw stops the strap from detatching. The rawl plug was designed to fit into a 6mm hole, but I drilled the hole at 5.5mm, put in some glue and pressed the rawlplug in. Once set, I added the screw and washer.

This is the inside of the box, just sbout showing how the rawlplug end expanded to grip the hole.

Geoff

[Giles_B]

Has anyone else tried using the Seestar on the same network as an Asiair? I did so last night and got some unwelcome results.

I've recently tooled up for Astrophotography, so I'm just learning the setup and grappling with polar alignment, gain, exposure times and all sorts of other new things. Last night I thought I'd try @powerlord's EQ setup for myself in addition to all these new things, so I had the Seestar sitting and turned on while I set up the Asiair (Pro) on the AP rig. Both were in base mode connected to my wifi repeater.

Half way through the Asiair PA process the Asiair app told me I had the mount in Alt-az mode and refused top go any further - which was odd because I have an EQ6 - which given I'm new to this I *thought* didn't have an alt-az mode but I wasn't 100% confident. Lots of faffing around with the EQ6 later, I had got nowhere. I just couldn't get the Asiair app to recognise the mount. At that stage the app flashed up that there was new firmware and asked me if I wanted to update. I was about to do so when I noticed that it was recognising the mount as a Seestar!

I shut everything down and rebooted the Asiair with the Seestar turned off. Everything was back to normal.

Once I'd got the AP rig set up and following a plan, I rebooted the Seestar and ran the Seestar app, which also worked fine. - although I was getting a bit late for experimenting with EQ Seestar by that time, so banked that for another day. Not quite sure what happend, but my guess is that the wifi on the seestar is so much better than the Asiair pro that the Asiair app preferentially connected to the Seestar - but I would have to experiment to confirm, and I'm not sure I'm keen to do so!

Anyway all's well that ends well, but I diud almost either write Asiair firmware to the Seestar (or maybe the other way around??) - which could have been catastrophic, so I thought it might be worth sharing my experience as a warning to others planning on sharing a wifi connection, at least with an Asiair plus!

[squipper]

GL That's  a good idea 

[powerlord]

3 hours ago, Giles_B said:

Has anyone else tried using the Seestar on the same network as an Asiair? I did so last night and got some unwelcome results.

I've recently tooled up for Astrophotography, so I'm just learning the setup and grappling with polar alignment, gain, exposure times and all sorts of other new things. Last night I thought I'd try @powerlord's EQ setup for myself in addition to all these new things, so I had the Seestar sitting and turned on while I set up the Asiair (Pro) on the AP rig. Both were in base mode connected to my wifi repeater.

Half way through the Asiair PA process the Asiair app told me I had the mount in Alt-az mode and refused top go any further - which was odd because I have an EQ6 - which given I'm new to this I *thought* didn't have an alt-az mode but I wasn't 100% confident. Lots of faffing around with the EQ6 later, I had got nowhere. I just couldn't get the Asiair app to recognise the mount. At that stage the app flashed up that there was new firmware and asked me if I wanted to update. I was about to do so when I noticed that it was recognising the mount as a Seestar!

I shut everything down and rebooted the Asiair with the Seestar turned off. Everything was back to normal.

Once I'd got the AP rig set up and following a plan, I rebooted the Seestar and ran the Seestar app, which also worked fine. - although I was getting a bit late for experimenting with EQ Seestar by that time, so banked that for another day. Not quite sure what happend, but my guess is that the wifi on the seestar is so much better than the Asiair pro that the Asiair app preferentially connected to the Seestar - but I would have to experiment to confirm, and I'm not sure I'm keen to do so!

Anyway all's well that ends well, but I diud almost either write Asiair firmware to the Seestar (or maybe the other way around??) - which could have been catastrophic, so I thought it might be worth sharing my experience as a warning to others planning on sharing a wifi connection, at least with an Asiair plus!

Hmm, I've not had them on the same night. But I suspect its not wifi strength, you say you have them in base mode. More likely both are broadcasting with mDNS with ports that are common across both devices and the asiair app thinks the seestar is an asiair. Have you got the latest apps ? If so, I'd suggest raising bug with ZWO (you can do it straight from the asiair app).

[Giles_B]

Thanks for the prompt. A bug report is a good idea - not being able to access the Asiair while the Seestar is running could get to be a pain. I'll get onto it tonight,

[Elp]

21 minutes ago, Giles_B said:

I'll get onto it tonight,

Are you using the same controlling device to control both? (IE same phone or tablet?).

[Giles_B]

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Are you using the same controlling device to control both? (IE same phone or tablet?).

Yes., same tablet, but the Seestar app was closed and not running. The Asiair app got hijacked by the Seestar!

[Elp]

1 hour ago, Giles_B said:

Yes., same tablet, but the Seestar app was closed and not running. The Asiair app got hijacked by the Seestar!

Android instructions (iOS may be similar): to make sure the app is truly closed, go to settings, apps, click on the relevant app, press the force close button. You'll get a notification stating it may fail to operate properly if forced closed but continue. Any open app closed like this is truly closed and not running in the background unless it has installed specific background activity access or permissions.

Then open the other app you want to use.

I had this issue when using more than one asiair at the same time using the same phone to control all of them. You can't just switch WiFi or device, the app has to be forced closed otherwise it gets confused as to what mount is connected and you'll inadvertently stop one from running. So if I'm using one phone, I have to exit the app, open my open apps and swipe the asiair app closed, then go into android settings and force close the asiair app. Then I can connect via WiFi to the other air, open the asiair app and see what the other setup is doing. I do this multiple times throughout a session and it works no issue, it is easier having a second controlling device so you don't need to keep switching like this. This issue has been in the asiair app for a long while and likely been transferred to the Seestar app too by the sound of it.

Edited January 24 by Elp

[powerlord]

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Android instructions (iOS may be similar): to make sure the app is truly closed, go to settings, apps, click on the relevant app, press the force close button. You'll get a notification stating it may fail to operate properly if forced closed but continue. Any open app closed like this is truly closed and not running in the background unless it has installed specific background activity access or permissions.

Then open the other app you want to use.

I had this issue when using more than one asiair at the same time using the same phone to control all of them. You can't just switch WiFi or device, the app has to be forced closed otherwise it gets confused as to what mount is connected and you'll inadvertently stop one from running. So if I'm using one phone, I have to exit the app, open my open apps and swipe the asiair app closed, then go into android settings and force close the asiair app. Then I can connect via WiFi to the other air, open the asiair app and see what the other setup is doing. I do this multiple times throughout a session and it works no issue, it is easier having a second controlling device so you don't need to keep switching like this. This issue has been in the asiair app for a long while and likely been transferred to the Seestar app too by the sound of it.

This will also work if one tablet, multiple asiairs:

- use asiair 'switch' to connect to different asiair.

- at this point it is dodgy - it will show stuff like mounts not connnected even though they are, etc.

- close app (I've never needed to force close, just go to app view, and swipe it off)

- open app again. it is now good and connect to the other asiair, all stuff showing connected etc

-use as required.

- same process again to switch to another one

As you say, it's really worth having a device per asiair (or per seestar) - android devices are cheap as chips and any old phone or tablet tends to be better than the switch and close and open and switch and close mallarky.

[Giles_B]

Thanks for that - it  sounds like it needs some experimentation before reporting a bug. I'm all for having as few devices as possible (despite having telescopes falling out of every cupboard in the house!), so switching rather than separate devices appeals to me, but I would need to get everything set up without interference - I mean, it took me forty minutes to polar align using the asiair given all the mucking about with losing the mount, and that was no fun at all.

I will try the force close method. My recollection could be faulty, but I don't think I'd opened the SeeStar app at this stage. However, I know apps can have a nasty habit of hanging around in the memory even so - and it could be that it was doing so from the last time I opened the app, which would have been a day or two before - I'll try the setup again when we ever get clear sky. 

[Elp]

You can try the device switching during the day no need to wait until night. I usually test anything that doesn't need stars during the day, much less frustration free.

[jweaver100]

I have a few questions which someone might be able to help me with.

1. Should you get a reminder to 'level' the telescope everytime? Or do you just have to remember to go into settings each time to do it - Considering its mandatory (I assume) I am surprised there is no reminder if its not done, or an easy indication that its way out of level

2. Whilst trying to find the option to level it, I opted for the wrong one and re-calibrated the level sensors.. Probably when it wasn't level.. How best to fix this? I am guessing just getting out my spirit level and creating a flat surface which is totally level, and then re-calibrating again?

3. And finally.. is there any way to raise the scope so you can get to the lens without using the app? Every time I use it I have shut it down and forgotten to put my lens cap on.. And the only way I find to do it is reconnect.. Go into Scenery and manually bring the scope up.. I am surprised that it doesn't raise itself to horizontal when its switched on.. I guess this is probably because you might be connecting to it to get files off and this would be undesirable.. But i would like to think there is anohter way.. Like a double press of the power button or something like that..

 

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[PeterCPC]

1. I think that you will only get a reminder to level if it is out of level over the allowable amount.

2. Sounds about right to me.

3. Don't think you can do that. I would like to know.

[Geoff Lister]

1 minute ago, PeterCPC said:

1. I think that you will only get a reminder to level if it is out of level over the allowable amount.

2. Sounds about right to me.

3. Don't think you can do that. I would like to know.

1 The updated app does a 3-location plate-solve to remove the need for a level mount. I made up a crude EQ wedge, with 3 pieces of wood, and the app gave me the the slope angle - in my case 38.5 degrees. There was no warning about a need to level.

2 Agreed, but probably not critical, except for solar/lunar.

3 I stick mine back in the case to reduce dust pickup.

[jweaver100]

3 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

1. I think that you will only get a reminder to level if it is out of level over the allowable amount.

 

I tried it today with on of the legs shorter, so it was WAY off.. And didn't get a reminder.

So I guess you just have to remember.

[Geoff Lister]

With the new update, the level does not seem to matter. When you do a goto for the first target, the mount scans 3 positions in the sky, plate solves for each, and it seems to work out its error correction constants. It then takes a few dark frames and goes to the desired target. It plate solves again to centre on the target. This calibration data is used for susequent gotos, so speeding up captures.

Geoff