ZWO Seestar 50

[PeterCPC]

On 09/05/2024 at 18:52, DaveL59 said:

That's a great option, just ordered a K&F one in 49mm as that'll go straight onto the filter adaptor I already have and probably more durable, plus I could pop it onto one of my camera lenses if I ever feel the need to have a play with that instead 🙂 

Could I ask which filter adapter holds the K & F filter?

[DaveL59]

3 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

Could I ask which filter adapter holds the K & F filter?

It's one that @powerlord (Stu) on here was selling a while ago, takes a 48mm thread so I fitted a 48-49mm step-up ring then the filter onto that to enable a 49mm lens hood etc.

All fits neatly, tho of course you can't park the S50 with that all fitted, not that I would anyway as I swap a lens cap onto it before parking and shutting it down.

[Dr Strange]

A few of mine. Pelican was 10 minutes of 10 second subs processed on my phone and was about 5 minutes of jiggery pokery. The rest are unmodified. Landscape was of a mountain top about 33 km away. I find the SeeStar absolutely brilliant! It made AP fun again! Instead of spending hours collecting subs then even more hours post processing them I spend about 5-15 minutes on a target, get decent images for a UDD $500 setup, and can enjoy what I imaged quickly.

Edited May 16 by Dr Strange

[DaveL59]

Not tried any landscape shots with mine yet, tho I do wonder how a circular polariser filter would do on such shots. Then again, weather here plus the distance to a scene like that one from where I'm based... 🙂 

[Dr Strange]

Just now, DaveL59 said:

Not tried any landscape shots with mine yet, tho I do wonder how a circular polariser filter would do on such shots. Then again, weather here plus the distance to a scene like that one from where I'm based... 🙂 

It is actually pretty fun to do! I would highly recommend it. It is small enough that it pops comfortably in the boot and you can take it on outings with you.  Not sure what a polarizing filter would do though. and weather can add a nice bit of detail to any images. Even clouds are a good get with it...

[DaveL59]

3 minutes ago, Dr Strange said:

It is actually pretty fun to do! I would highly recommend it. It is small enough that it pops comfortably in the boot and you can take it on outings with you.  Not sure what a polarizing filter would do though. and weather can add a nice bit of detail to any images. Even clouds are a good get with it...

Yeah each time I've carried it when over to family's it's clouded over or rained, typical british weather 😄 

A C-PL filter would give the sky more blue colour and cut some glare, much the same as with general photographic use, tho if it'd affect anything on the S50 I can't say (focus etc). If I ever get the opportunity I'll give it a go sometime out of curiosity, tho I'd more usually expect to be lugging the DSLR rather than the S50 for scenes if I get the time.

[Dr Strange]

5 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

Yeah each time I've carried it when over to family's it's clouded over or rained, typical british weather 😄 

A C-PL filter would give the sky more blue colour and cut some glare, much the same as with general photographic use, tho if it'd affect anything on the S50 I can't say (focus etc). If I ever get the opportunity I'll give it a go sometime out of curiosity, tho I'd more usually expect to be lugging the DSLR rather than the S50 for scenes if I get the time.

Cheers mate. Thank you for the info! I have a DSLR but rarely use it. For me, there are local mountain parks somewhat close and it is a novelty to use the SeeStar instead of the DSLR. 

[LDW1]

I tried this one the other nite but it is / was not positioned well for my backyard viewing ie NE at about 50°.  I did it also to make some aware that it is there, it will be a lot more accessable in a month or so.  I overblew it so that prospective viewers could see what it was about. It is part of a larger structure that you can glimpse above it.

 

Edited May 17 by LDW1
reduce photo size

[StevieDvd]

Some Seestar S50 images from this week:

The moon and a close up:

Arcturus (why not) and M44 Beehive cluster (looks like a join the dots puzzle)

This was a session from the front of the house with street lights and security lights aplenty., not my preferred location but the moon was at the front.

[LDW1]

I had a go last nite with a portion of the Pelican Nebula for 35 min, Bortle 6 skys  The sky was full of humidity with a half moon shinning bright  I just wanted something to do and practice does make perfect, sometimes.

 

Edited May 18 by LDW1
reduce photo size

[CCD-Freak]

1 hour ago, LDW1 said:

I had a go last nite with a portion of the Elephant Trunk Nebula for 35 min, Bortle 6 skys  The sky was full of humidity with a half moon shinning bright  I just wanted something to do and practice does make perfect, sometimes.

 

Isn't that part of IC5070 Pelican Nebula ?   IC1396 Elephant Trunk looks different. 

Not a bad image for only 35 minutes under Bortle 6 skies  (^8

[LDW1]

18 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

Isn't that part of IC5070 Pelican Nebula ?   IC1396 Elephant Trunk looks different. 

Not a bad image for only 35 minutes under Bortle 6 skies  (^8

Sorry you are correct, I had a try at the Elephant as well but it was a no go.  I will change that, lol.

[CCD-Freak]

1 hour ago, LDW1 said:

Sorry you are correct, I had a try at the Elephant as well but it was a no go.  I will change that, lol.

No problem.....Truth be known I have done the same thing.  8^P  8^)

 

Edited May 18 by CCD-Freak

[PatrickO]

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

[cimh]

12 minutes ago, PatrickO said:

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

I am quite new to this too. I think that is a great image especially considering the moon is out. I think you have even caught a glimpse (bottom left) of IC4263 galaxy which is over 120 million light years away. That's pretty impressive. I have tried improving my image of M51 with siril and gimp but with limited success as processing the image can introduce artifacts (at least when i do it). So in my image of just under 3 hours worth of 20s shots, by trying to denoise and darken the background you can see I have lost IC4263 and there are also a number of saturated stars. Fortunately because I still have the subs I can try and improve on the final image . mmm thinking about it thats my next job!

Of interest I think you were getting fed up of cloudy nights a while back? It isn't easy in many parts of the UK. However I have found that post processing has the extra benefit that you can still engage in the hobby when it is cloudy or like now when we only have a few hours of darkness. I have also found myself wanting to find out more about galaxies, black holes etc so the imaging has opened up for me a wider interest in the universe.

One obvious thing in your image is the background gradient. The lazy Cuiv has talked about using the free GRAXpert to remove gradients - so you could experiment?

 

 

 

  

[LDW1]

1 hour ago, PatrickO said:

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

What I do on every dso take after about 2-3 minutes when it starts to show detail is I hit the Adjust button on the right side and I use the Contrast and Brightness sliders to get what I like, very rarely the Saturation slider. I might do that several times as it progresses along. I do this every time, every nite.

[trailer]

The sun this afternoon and still a fair bit of sunspot activity. This is a 20 second .avi stacked and with the ND1000000 filter

.

Edited May 20 by trailer

[mozzauk]

A few of my Seestar  images, and only had it a week, and used twice thanks to the free cloud cover that came with the purchase  

Very happy as well so far..

[Elp]

3 hours ago, PatrickO said:

I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

With "normal AP" workflow what I'd do is stack in Siril with calibration frames, make the image starless so you can stretch the galaxy more, do some type of deconvolution on the galaxy to sharpen it up a bit, colour corrections, then combine the stars back in, a few more things. It looks fine as is, but 6 hours I think there might be a bit more data within.

[LDW1]

4 hours ago, PatrickO said:

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

And make sure you do an Auto Focus at the same time.

[Appiantiqua]

On 20/05/2024 at 17:48, PatrickO said:

 M51 taken with the Seestar from my garden. About 6 hours of 10 second subs. Not ideal conditions as there was a bright three quarter moon.

This is just the unedited jpeg. I'd be very interested in your advice on what editing would make the best of it.

 

For the 28 minutes stacking picture, i've just use the "contrast" function of the Seestar app (Stacking process): level 18-20

The other image was edited with Siril (i'm not yet confortable with this software but after some attempts, maybe it's working for M 51 ...

[Appiantiqua]

New photos from last night (moon almost full & some clouds ...)

[Gfamily]

A few mentions of issues with getting it level on this thread. 

Not sure if it's been mentioned previously, but I found a tripod leveller on eBay that make it much easier than trying to fiddle with the mini tripod

A little more than £20 on eBay - very straightforward

Edited 3 hours ago by Gfamily

[Cosmic Geoff]

I don't level my Seestar manually.  With the appropriate settings it will do a three point alignment and sort itself out at the start of the session.

[LaurenceT]

2 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

I don't level my Seestar manually.  With the appropriate settings it will do a three point alignment and sort itself out at the start of the session.

Mine regularly asks for levelling, I wonder what your settings are that mean you escape the message.