THE SEESTAR S50 ISN'T ONLY FOR PRETTY PICTURES.

[paulastro]

Of course, pretty pics are the fun bit, but there's far more to it than that.

I bought mine partly to be able to have a near real time 'view' of things I had no chance of seeing in my 10 inch scope (and others) in my Bortle 5 skies.

I ventured out into the frosty weather last night with the S50 to see what it could do on the night of full Moon.

I took the pic below of The Owl PN, M97,  which wouldn't have been hadly visible in most of my scopes in the conditions.  I checked on Sky Safari to see what magnitudes of stars it would show.  I easily found some stars of the 17th mag, and there might have been fainter ones, I only checked a few.  More interesting was that I also found a couple of galaxies of the same magnitude.  The central star (16th mag in one source, 14th in another!) in the PN is also just about visible.

I then had a pleasant few minutes with the Cambridge Atlas of the Messier Objects which has some great info re M97 and some of the faint nearby galaxies.  

It's not like a telescopic view of course, and this area is still my forte.  However it is a great way of spending an evening when I'm not likely to have bothered getting a scope out.

I've plenty of projects in mind as well, for which the S50 is emminently suitable.  For the price it's a great buy and will extend the type of Astronomy I can do.  I wish it had been available fifty years ago!

 

Edited February 24 by paulastro

[StevieDvd]

I think you mean the Seestar S50 in your title.😑

[paulastro]

Thanks Stevie, I was wondering who would notice this first! 😊.  I'm a big fan of Starsense too 🙂.

[jjohnson3803]

I've wondered if it might be good for variable star observing.  Snap a pic, move on, repeat a few nights later, and compare.