ZWO Seestar S50 Chat n Share

[thorny ether]

Only 5 mins first light from seestar

[surreal nova]

welcome to the club

[nocturne torrent]

We need a basic seestar forum now for the s30 and s50 combined.

[pseudo harness]

rename this to zwo seestar chat n share

[rugged shale]

After the Pleiades went behind a telegraph pole last night I started capturing California. This is about 30 minutes.

The big flaw with mosaic mode is that you can’t seem to continue or do things over several sessions, which I rely on

[rain wagon]

That is where stacking in siril or PI comes in

[rugged shale]

If I do another few hours on California tonight it will start in the middle again instead of putting more detail around the edge

[rain wagon]

That is just how mosaic works sadly

tho if u go long enough you will get some good data on the edge

[rugged shale]

I think I’m saving individual frames so I should be able to rescue the Pleiades too. But again, will need several sessions. Normally I like at least 2 hours for a single frame or I find the noise is too high to work with.

[wary finch]

Last night I managed to get 1 hour of exposure last night so in total about 2 and half hours of integration

Stacked and processed in Siril, GraXpert, and Cosmic Clarity

[final plume]

Can any smart telescope do the Milky way pix?

[surreal nova]

dwarf 3

[final plume]

That's the only one?

[pseudo harness]

Doesn't the s30 also have a wide angle

[surreal nova]

it does

not sure if its for milky way though

yeah it cant

[dusk fiber]

8 nights on M31, 2 nights on M42.. S50 Bortle 6 Workflow in Files names

Pre Mosaic update. LOTS of time

[kind nimbus]

That's amazing

[tardy warren]

I used the recent denoising feature on a lot of my photos, and this is what I got

What do yall think?

[pseudo harness]

Pleiades nebulae look too circular and m27 is green but other than that very good

[surreal nova]

seems like the "intelligent" denoising thought the flares around the pleiades were dso

it also looks like it doesn't really brighten signal when removing the noise

[little lichen]

the green is from the LP filter

simple green removal can fix

[dusk fiber]

INR and google photo edits on single Mosaic.. Bortle 6

These are the Before straight out of SS, for reference

Sorry those were the Before Google photo edits

After INR only

[quiet pendant]

well done!

[rain wagon]

So... Do I take my seestar with me to Japan?

It'll be B8/9 but... Veil nebula 🤣

It's very hard to get in Australia

[pseudo harness]

yes

[abstract blaze]

14 degrees

[supple otter]

Guys I’m going to morroco soon (b2), I’ll share seestar pics

[rain wagon]

Surely share the data too hehe

If you want to :)

[supple otter]

Yesss I’m excited!!

[surreal nova]

not sure if this is final or not

M1 Crab Nebula

[deep island]

https://tenor.com/view/noice-nice-click-gif-8843762

[little lichen]

first amount of data on cone nebula with the seestar s50

need more data

[atomic flame]

Insane

[jolly aurora]

How much data?

[little lichen]

1 hour and 30 minutes

[jolly aurora]

My reprocessed tadpoles. Added Hubble Palette

[fickle hollow]

wait thats the new one?

compared to this?

[surreal nova]

i pray not

i thought the same thing

[jolly aurora]

Yes

[little lichen]

got m78

taken on the seestar

[fickle hollow]

the old one is dramatically better lol

that amount of stretching just makes it all a blobby mess (in the new one)

[jolly aurora]

Honestly the reason I redid it is because you can hardly see it

[fickle hollow]

I can see it fine personally, plus the darkness kinda masks all the problems

how much int was in the image?

[jolly aurora]

205x10s exposures

If I made the background darker on the hubble image would it make it better?

[stable tulip]

M81, around an hour and a half

[quiet pendant]

looks amazing!

[little lichen]

curious to see how this will go on the seestar

hoping for smaller spikes

[rugged shale]

Unless you use it in eq mode you’ll probably just get a smear due to field rotation

[little lichen]

it shouldnt though, i have a 4 spike mask too and i dont get smears

[rugged shale]

I don’t know how that’s possible with an alt-az scope

[little lichen]

do you own one?

[rugged shale]

Yes

[little lichen]

then your doing something wrong if your getting smears with diffraction spikes

[pseudo harness]

how much int time are u doing

i don't get smears at >30mins but others who have hours have big smears

[rugged shale]

Well firstly, I don’t use an artificial spike mask

But simply because of the way the scope works, each frame will have the spikes at a slightly different angle

Unless you have some kind of field rotator to rotate your mask over the course of an evening, in which case I have questions

[tardy warren]

I have the seestar s50 and I’m considering getting the s30 as well. I mainly want it because of its larger fov. Is it worth it?

[pseudo harness]

I'd say it's good as a first scope but since you already have the s50 no

[tardy warren]

Is the s50 better at taking better quality images?

[pseudo harness]

i think so

[surreal nova]

yes

you can easily mosaic with the s50 for larger fov

[little lichen]

its just a 3d printed mask my guy

[rugged shale]

At a guess the apparent thickness of the spikes on the image is caused by the field rotation as much as the thickness of the tines on the mask.

[dusk fiber]

S50 mosaic

[little lichen]

can confirm that it works

[surreal nova]

how come that produces 4 spikes rather than 2

[pseudo harness]

the obstructions make diffraction spikes that go the other way

if it was one spike then it would make 2 diffraction spikes bc it would diffraction to either side of the thing

[rugged shale]

Ok, but after a couple of hours imaging?

[rugged shale]

[little lichen]

no smears

[rugged shale]

If you say so, but you’ve somehow found a way to break the laws of physics

[little lichen]

raw image of dolphin head

with the mask

[rugged shale]

How long?

[little lichen]

1.8 hours

mosaic mode also

my conditions were pretty poor

[rugged shale]

You got spikes at all sorts of angles there.

[little lichen]

it was like really windy the first few hours

[little lichen]

i did notice that

usually when i do exposures with diffraction spikes

i dont get any angles

example a

now stacking my dolphin head data

[wispy vessel]

What could this be?

[little lichen]

a seestar s30 mounted on an equatorial mount

[wispy vessel]

Hmm interesting, maybe they’ll add a dedicated eq mode

[haughty pond]

They should probably do so

[barren owl]

They need to do that

[wispy vessel]

I guess time will tell

[blissful depot]

i just got Mine

[deep island]

I wish you all a seestar s50 under the tree

[lean cipher]

Although it’s been rare to see in uk I did get a shot of sun with me Seestar

[wispy vessel]

Some pictures using the new ai denoising feature on the Seestar s50

[little lichen]

letting you know

you can turn off the seestar watermark

[wispy vessel]

Yeah I know I usually don’t worry about it because I edit them in siril after but these images just came out so well, as well as I’m not sure how to composite images in siril

[little lichen]

you own a pc?

connect your seestar to your computer

and you can grab the files off the telescope from there

and you can chuck it on siril

[wispy vessel]

Ah okay, it’s just a different process from the one I’ve done before.
I even have a script to process my images in siril but it’s just a little different when using the mosaic mode

[rugged shale]

This is the stack I got from app last night. There’s a telephone pole that got in the way, hence the horrible gradient, but there are no satellite trails. Has ZWO done something to the stacking to remove them?

I’m used to seeing a lot of trails on the app.

[blissful depot]

Idk if this does anything but if sometimes i see a Message that reads Last image Disgarded: then the reason like star trails

[rugged shale]

Yeah, but satellites don’t usually trigger that, it’s normally wind or field rotation.

[trail token]

You'll get that message for any number of factors. Wind, tracking errors, an odd sense of unease.

The Seestar can go crazy some nights on the rejection I've found.

[rugged shale]

I tried continuous mode on pacman nebula. It definitely creates more usable data in any period of time, since it doesn't actually reject any frames, it just saves them all one after the other with no pause. There isn't any noticable trailing here in the stack. What there is, unfortunately, is a deal-breaking amount of walking noise, since it doesn't bother to dither. Plus also it drifts and it's hard to get the initial framing right.

[little lichen]

you have to dither it yourself with either siril or pix

[rugged shale]

You can’t dither after capture

In normal stargazing mode it dithers every 5 frames, but in continuous mode it doesn’t.

[little lichen]

you can

theres a setting on the seestar where you can save each frame individually

and dither those from stacking programs

[rugged shale]

I think you’re thinking of drizzling? Dithering is where the scope moves every few frames so that walking noise doesn’t build up.

[little lichen]

ah

yeah

i was

i think mosaic mode does that though on the seestar

[rugged shale]

The image above is stacked from individual frames (and drizzled) but you can see the walking noise as trailing lines at the lower part of the frame

[iron crescent]

Guys, a friend of mine @blissful depot got some data on the tarantula nebula with the see star s 50 like 1 hour and a half and i reprocessed his data and it turned out pretty good what do you think about it? like i didn't know it could turn out very good but it did!
Anyways i processed it in pixinsight

[blissful depot]

thanks

i don't have PixINsight as of right now so i relaly appreiacte a good mate hlepin me out!

[surreal nova]

that’s a seestar??

[iron crescent]

yes

[iron crescent]

like not bad at all damn

[little lichen]

gotta love seestar mosaic mode

totally

definitely need to start saving for a better scope for astrophotography

[little lichen]

horsehead project is gonna take me 6 nights in total for 6 hours

3 more nights to go

raw image from tonights exposure

[tardy warren]

In a few days I’m going to have 2 clear nights in a row and i would like to do some mosaics however im not sure what to image. I have already done the heart nebula so I dont want to image that and need help. Any suggestions what to image. If it helps I live in the Uk

[rugged shale]

Buy a second one 🙂

Honestly if they do bring out a bigger Seestar next year for less than a grand, I’ll probably do it.

[tardy warren]

Anyone have any ideas?

[blissful depot]

Seestar S60 or what ever they calling it

Or s90 if they keep itnpattern

[pseudo harness]

I need a s90

[tardy warren]

Someone please give me target ideas 😭😭

[wispy vessel]

Are you in the northern or southern hemisphere?

[tardy warren]

Northern hemisphere, I’m planning on doing a mosaic too

[wispy vessel]

What are you looking to image? Nebula, galaxies, etc?

[tardy warren]

Anything really, just a quick note btw I’ve already imaged the heart nebula

[wispy vessel]

You could do Orion, horsehead, rosette nebula, andromeda, m33, Pleiades, there’s some other little nebula that are good objects

[tardy warren]

Ooh ok

Thank you!

[blissful depot]

Carina nebula Mosaic

[tardy warren]

Flame and Horsehead Nebula

[trail token]

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=527577696982960&id=100091922029093

[lean cipher]

My first pic using my Seestar s 50

[little lichen]

should we at all trust the ai denoising thing on the seestar

[rugged shale]

If it produces good results. IMO it seems to do a good job but over-smooths things.

[little lichen]

was my thought

[onyx adder]

does anyone know how to remove the bar of info and words at the bottom of the seestar image?

without just cropping the image

[little lichen]

in settings you can disable watermark on the seestar app

[onyx adder]

I can’t seem to find where it is in the settings

[little lichen]

on seestar settings i think

i dont remember exactly

[inner elk]

My best taken images whith seestar s50 so far

Hope that discord wont ruin the quality

🙏

[rugged shale]

Tadpoles.

Colours are a bit drab.

[blissful depot]

Horsehad And flame i took last night then the Clouds™️

[rain wagon]

Nice job!!

[stable oracle]

Any people with s30 pre-orders here? I pre-ordered, but no idea how long it’s going to take to fulfill, so wondering if someone here has an idea 😅

[blissful depot]

funny Hambuger... Hehe

[last hare]

hamburger

https://tenor.com/view/roblox-roblox-gear-cheezburger-gear-burger-gif-6177008637990299490

[gray light]

I saw some people in US have received theirs, I'm in the UK and ordered one for a trip in Feb, not sure if it'll arrive in time

[stable oracle]

I asked around at the “bbs” of zwo and they told me that the very late orders (31st of December) will be fulfilled in February. So they will ship then, add a few days and half march for me. Hope you’re before me if February was your goal.

[onyx adder]

Triangulum Galaxy taken for 30 minutes

[rain wagon]

not bad aside from the gradient

[surreal nova]

and framing

[onyx adder]

One of my first pics

[dusk fiber]

2550 subs B6, Deep sky Stacked on SS, cropped on Siril only to run AI-denoise on the SS, edited contrast etc in APP. 1 pass on Cosmic Clarity-Denoise done lightly and barely noticable. So Almost all done on the SS..

[stable oracle]

Wow, that looks real good. How much time did you run it? 2550 subs doesn’t say a lot to me… (currently waiting until the s30 will be shipped, so no experience with seestar as of yet).

[rugged shale]

Unless it's mounted in EQ mode it's usually 10s subs and for me it takes 15-20s on average to capture a sub, because it dithers and some get rejected. So that's about 7hrs of subs taken in maybe 11-14 hours of capture time.

[dusk fiber]

10 sec subs, NOT on EQ... NO clue on "time spent.. Multiple nights, ran until the x2 mosaics were completed.. I have the files on Gdrive if anyone wants to play with them? It started as 2800 subs I had to remove trails from to be able to Deep sky stack in the app.. And DSS also removed some leaving 2550.

SO anyone want a (quick) project to edit with more expertise than Newb me?

I was thinking of Printing the Flame and Horse I posted under images. Before doing, so I would like to see what others can do with the data and maybe small print those as well. Anyone with Pixinsight I'd love to take a spin at it and see what that software really can do with that same data!

And best of all, would be someone that could take my original ~4k image and make it a 32k image or whatever to be able to print MY copy on a Larger print of some kind.

I have a RAR of the stacked FIT's files of IC434 mosaic I posted. 1 is original SS stack, 1 was cropped in siril to be able to run AI-denoise on the SS.

Also shared I have a RAR of the 'hand picked' 2696 subs 'removing trails', that the Seestar ended up stacking 2550 stack out of.

I understand there are better images, and better data that I even probably have of both.. But made it to the point, I am truly proud of an image that looks great on my huge TV, and that I have made ~4 months into my scope and want to print it!

Final requests, Add your NAME to the file name with ANY info you did to it
And JPG or PNG picture replies on my Google Drive (its nearly full). And to keep the comparable and easy to print. And the less Cam-wow editing the better! Hopefully you can kinda see my artistic intent in the one I did.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1olC9KvBu6W7vFlI-Sl2kpQp1JHe3syqc?usp=sharing

[latent kestrel]

a seestar for sale on ebay for 340 bucks atm.

[stable oracle]

If you look in the community part of the seestar app, most people take images like they take foto’s… often 10/15 minutes… but this guy, 44 hours for example on the fireworks galaxy; https://www.astrobin.com/users/Recretos444/

[barren owl]

this guys is with us in the server

[buoyant quest]

I got a seestar that should be arriving today or tomorrow

How much are those stabilizer things that people have to help with leveling the seestar, unless it comes with it already

[stable oracle]

This one?
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EzdQsuY

[buoyant quest]

Yea, ain’t that bad I’ll think about getting it but I don’t think it’s necessary rn

[rugged shale]

Seestar is very sensitive to being level and the tripod isn’t easy to level. IMO that gadget is worth getting for the £15 or whatever it costs.

[stable oracle]

If it’s the seestar 50 you should be able level with the mount it comes with. Not very accurate I think, but probably close enough.

[buoyant quest]

My backyard is pretty flat and I won’t like level it perfectly, I think the green area is good enough to make some good images

[little lichen]

its not as hard to level to be fair

but if you do get one of those levelling adapters then its a life saver

[buoyant quest]

I like how when I get my seestar it’s cloudy out and supposed to be rainy for the next 2 or 3 days

[white beacon]

LITERALLY SAME
got mine in 4 days ago and then the forecast showed 7 days of constant cloud cover

[buoyant quest]

Welp, ig I’ll have to experiment with scenery mode or something

[stable oracle]

Happens all the time. Here, got a ASI585MC two months ago, haven’t been able to image once in that time. Hopefully those clouds will be gone soon and I can start imaging.

[buoyant quest]

GUYS I FINALLY GOT CLEAR SKIES.

Tested it out with Orion Nebula and Flame Nebula, both turned out really well especially flame considering it’s 11 min in a B7 or 8 sky.

[onyx adder]

M33, first edited s50 image

[little lichen]

you have alot of artifacting going on it looks like

[white beacon]

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6518469

if anyone with a seestar s50 has a 3d printer i would highly recommend checking this collection of models out
its pretty much just a bundle of all of the most popular accessories + a carry case for lens attachments
all together all 7 of these pieces in the pic will take ~15 hours to print and it includes a place to store the included solar filter
the model for the dew shield is also included!! it takes about 2 hours iirc

[buoyant quest]

Did I do something wrong when editing it. It was more of a test out so I just did some quick edits on the seestar app and AstroShader

[little lichen]

edit your things on a computer

if you have one

[buoyant quest]

Yea I want to but I’ve never processed anything on pc

so I gotta learn it

[little lichen]

siril is easy to learn with

would start there

[buoyant quest]

Should I fully process it from stacking to finished image, or is the seestar stacking alright

[little lichen]

would reccomend stacking through siril

seestars stacking is alright but would definitely do siril

ive had considerably better results from stacking through siril back before i bought pix

[buoyant quest]

How would a mosaic work. Would I have to put each picture together and stack it or does the seestar just have it one picture

[little lichen]

certain scripts can help solve this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np9Ld4oA1S0

[buoyant quest]

I’ll probably try out the seestar more then get into manual processing

[rain wagon]

Welcome to the club!

[white beacon]

~400 minutes of 10 second exposures of pleiades

is going to 20 or 30 second exposures worth it by any measure? im okay with needing to try several times to get a better image

not like the stars are going anywhere anyways x3

[little lichen]

go 10 seconds

if you do 30-20 on an alt-az mount then you do risk star trailing way more than 10s

[white beacon]

got it

thank you

[buoyant quest]

I redid the Orion Nebula as a mosaic and longer integration. 50 min of integration that took 3 hours for some reason

[violet ingot]

Light pollution differens

You can easily see the difference

[buoyant quest]

What bortle you in

[violet ingot]

4 and 6

[buoyant quest]

dang, I’m in a 7-8 so it’s prolly way worse for me

Ik your not supposed to but I feel like I should use the lp filter for capturing galaxies like andromeda or something

just because I’m in a 7-8 sky

[rugged shale]

The lp filter isn’t great for galaxies, it cuts out a lot of the light you actually want. Best thing is to get a dew shield and try to block out sources of direct light

Also graxpert and siril are both pretty good at getting rid of gradients

[blissful depot]

Got this o forgot is name it's towards galactic canter

Center

[buoyant quest]

Yea I think I’ll have to just see how bad the light pollution is whenever I’m capturing something that requires not using the lp filter. I don’t know how to process on pc or anything rn but using something on pc will prolly help a ton with light pollution.

[blissful depot]

To process on pc you gotta have it on the s50 export the raw to discord or something download on pc then go crazy

[buoyant quest]

can’t you just connect the seestar to the pc so you have all the files

[blissful depot]

I mean connect you phone to the S50 export files to discord or something download from discord on PC

Then you god the raw

I mostly use it for colour calibration

[buoyant quest]

I’m just doing it on my phone rn but I plan to learn siril and process there

[blissful depot]

Yeah

Siril is loafs better then seestar on board dont get me wrong is good but similar is better

[violet ingot]

In 2006 it was 2 now it 6 so thats not grate

[shut rune]

Can anyone sanity check something for me?

I'm seeing really high rejection rates on my S50 lately... like 48 minutes of data from 3 hours of observing on a clear night. It's able to do 'horizontal calibration'. It's solidly mounted to concrete post (with embedded tripod thread - that's out of plumb by 4 degrees... but I was also seeing these rejection rates when tripod-mounted). Standard 10s exposures. Lots of star trail rejections.

Has something changed in semi-recent firmwares that would be causing this, or do you think my unit has just developed a fault?

[buoyant quest]

I had a similar experience the last time i captured something. Took 3 hours or so for 50 mins of data. I suspected it was something with the environment since i live in a B7 sky near Dallas (a big city).

I also heard the seestar’s tracking is not that good so maybe that’s the problem

[shut rune]

I am in a B6/7 zone... how odd. I don't think it used to be this bad, but maybe i am misremembering... there's been total cloud cover for months on end here lately

[white beacon]

even here in B4 i see ~30-50% rejection rate
it goes down to a minimum around 2-3 AM when its the darkest to ~20-30%
if there is even a minor breeze the rejection rate skyrockets even higher to upwards of 60% early in the night

best case scenario that ive found is recording after midnight on level concrete with no wind blowing or up against a wall that blocks the wind

nice to know that its not just me with a frighteningly high rejection rate

[rugged shale]

It’s very sensitive to being level. Being absolutely level helps a lot (I always aim for 0.1 degrees in the calibration).

You could also check that that level calibration is correct. You can calibrate that calibration on a surface that is perfectly flat.

Even with that my rule of thumb is that you get about 1hr of data for every 2hrs of imaging.

[stable oracle]

Maybe the seeing was bad that time? These are disturbances in the air, that can come with high level of moisture in the air, or wind…

[white beacon]

does anyone else have a really bad problem with goto innacuracy?
every time i set up i calibrate the compass and get it perfectly level
but then when i use goto its always several degrees off in both axes

is it normal to have to use skyatlas sync to adjust the offset every single time i use the telescope?

its exasperating to have to spent 10 minutes every single night trying to find where its actually looking

[rugged shale]

That’s not normal at all. The compass can be quite inaccurate but it should sort itself out after the first plate solve.

You should never need to use sync for normal deep sky imaging.

[river vault]

I have found some success with 20s as I find 10s to be way to noisy

[river vault]

I usually get to 0.1 but even I am throwing out 50%-60% of subs

[rugged shale]

I get terrible rejection rates with 20s and the stars are noticeably more bloated when stacking.

[river vault]

I would say so I am new at processing so here is like 5 hr on M1 from bortle 8

10s for me in bortle 8 just gave too much noise

I think for my first "Serious" image it turned out Ok

this is mixed 10s and 20s exposure

[white beacon]

i figured it out
if anyone else is having this problem, DONT START WITB ANYTHING BUT DEEP SKY OBJECTS

starting with the moon or any planets doesnt work at all without manual adjusting
but a few nights in a row starting with the orion nebula it adjusted all on its own

[buoyant quest]

This is pretty bad cuz it’s only 40 min exposure that got interrupted by clouds that randomly spawned in. Couldn’t even complete the mosaic so it just looks like this, but I might try to get the same frame and capture again when I get clear skies and process all the pictures from those nights with my pc for the first time.

Are the default scripts in Siril enough for stacking or is there a better script for stacking seestar images

[rugged shale]

There’s a script on the Siril website that is good enough to stack (not process), but if you have the in-development version you can get better results with drizzling.

Drizzling is only in the dev version and the script doesn’t use it, you have to do it manually or write your own.

[river vault]

Wow that is with a seestar?

My M1 photo looks like out of foucs by comparison lol

[surreal nova]

yes

3x drizzle + blurx + a little bit of graxpert deconvolution

[river vault]

what bortle? Seeing conditions

?

[surreal nova]

7

not sure about seeing conditions probably average

I guarantee you can probably achieve something similar

[river vault]

ah mine were pretty bad and im new at processing I think I used a 2x drizzle

im assumming 10 second exposures?

[surreal nova]

yes

[river vault]

I mixed 10s with 20s

10s for me just produced too much noise

I guess I was not in perfect focus? idk

[surreal nova]

did you do any sharpening

or deconvolution

[river vault]

no not really

I did it in siril

did not do anything dont really know how to use the tool very good yet

[rain wagon]

I need to try deconvolution on siril

[rugged shale]

I find even non-AI deconv is worth doing in Siril because it helps reduce the size of the stars, even if the background doesn’t get noticeably sharper

[buoyant quest]

I wanna capture the moon and get horse head again but it’s been cloudy and rainy ever since my first attempt on horse head

[buoyant quest]

What do I need to do to get those bright full moon shots with like the glow of the moon, will a 5 min vid be enough or is that not how it works

[rugged shale]

You need to do some HDR compositing. Stack the frames additively so the moonglow stands out, then do the high-contrast stacking in autostakkert4 and combine the two images.

[inner elk]

it iss getting interesting whith the zwo seestar s50

[stable oracle]

In this video “Barry Craig” mentions there is a community modding seestars. Does anyone have any idea? (Like replacing the sensor from color to mono maybe, then use filters in the front to do color?)

https://youtu.be/lwJf8ncNt-E?si=MQAjW92E5vJafpyi

[hot tapir]

Hi guys, I've bought a Seestar at the beginning of January, so far I'm liking the ease of use, I've processed these 2 images, nothing too fancy, the iris nebula is 11 hours of integration time, M42 I don't remember, something like 3 hours maybe.

No idea how to make them show in chat tho

[pseudo harness]

they dont show because discord doesnt embed .tif files

convert them to png then they will

[hot tapir]

ah, didn't know, there you go

[pseudo harness]

very nice

[white beacon]

does anyone have any up to date information on jailbreaking a seestar s50 for root SSH access?
all the information i can find is from several years ago and the provided root password of "raspberry" doesnt seem to work anymore

[tardy warren]

Whirlpool galaxy

[river vault]

Tried my best at processing M106 I got 3 hours of data on it in a bortle 3 sky at my local astronomy park there was some ice crystals and people coming in through the parking lot with their bights on seeped into the image nonetheless I am happy with the result ill shoot this object again when I go back in about a months time

[white beacon]

im now realising just how much of a difference that being perfectly level makes

on the same setup and conditions, i went from a 40% to 20% error rate, the only thing i changed was the level being about -1.2 degrees off and tonight i got it to 0.0 degrees off

i was under the assumption plate solving would mean it wouldnt matter as much but that is very clearly not the case

also using the seestar ALP project on PC and it is so amazing
everything is so much more streamlined and efficent that i couldnt see myself ever using the mobile app ever again

https://github.com/smart-underworld/seestar_alp

doesnt take any complex setup or external hardware it just works
it even has station mode compatibility

[surreal nova]

i know right

i use it too and its awesome

i love being able to actually see the scopes efficiency in real time

[white beacon]

i get that the seestar is supposed to be "idiot proof" so anyone can use it but i wish there was an advanced mode toggle to get access to these settings and statistics
but where close-source corporate firmware fails open-source community projects step in :3

[pseudo harness]

nothing is ever idiot proof

[rugged shale]

Alt-az is very sensitive to being correctly levelled.

M95. Only 45 minutes this session, I’ll probably need at least 3x that.

Stupidly tried the built in AI denoise. Never again

[rugged shale]

Never say never. Here’s 1.5hrs of crab stacked and processed on Seestar. I’ll need to get twice that before trying to stack it properly.

[blissful depot]

yeah

Nice

i made a DIY Diffraction Spike Filter for my S50

It worked well

[river vault]

Sun from 2-25-25

[rugged shale]

Cuiv’s new video is interesting. An interview with the head of ZWO. EQ mode maybe as soon as next week, a dedicated Seestar EQ wedge/tripod product, new sensors for the S50 and S30 being evaluated, and the S70 is “real”

[stable tulip]

M51, just over 2 hours and a half

[blissful depot]

Wishing well cluster

[rugged shale]

https://www.youtube.com/live/BN2ATGDnSm0

[little lichen]

i definitely gotta start using the seestar alp at some point

[rugged shale]

I haven’t really felt the need but I’m glad it exists.

[buoyant quest]

I stacked a multi night exposure of Horsehead and flame (around 2 hours of integration) and the stacking turned out pretty weird idk if it’s because it added frames that aren’t good or because something else happened

I might stack it again but remove some bad frames, or just get more exposures because I feel 2 hours is not enough for a B7 sky

[rugged shale]

Yeah, more exposure needed I think to pull out more of the Ha area around the horse. Was this stacked on the Seestar?

Oh yeah, I see there are some weird artifacts from different panels. Might be worth checking if there were any frames with clouds or some other unusual gradient and strip them out

[buoyant quest]

There was a night with clouds that came through, but I thought I had gotten rid of the frames with the clouds in them. And yes, this was deep sky stacked in the Seestar app.

[buoyant quest]

Alright I re-stacked and edited it in LR mobile (for now) and it looks so much better. I used less frames and somehow the seestar stacked it correctly. Given that I don’t know how to properly stack a mosaic yet in Siril, I might try to get more exposures soon and stack in the seestar app, and then do some editing in Siril or other software.

[drowsy pilot]

These are mine with seeatar

[hot tapir]

I tried processing NGC7635 in Pixinsight, but I found out that I definitely need more data (I've 1174x10s right now) and I've no clue how to use the software properly.

[drowsy pilot]

Ye I found out the hard way processing thors helmet and it.... well let's say... it crashed my computer trying to denoise it🤌

[white beacon]

at what point does diminishing returns make more photos of a deep sky object not worth your time?
ive got 4 hours of data of M1 and im wondering if i would be a waste of time to keep gathering more

ive done drizzling, deconvolution, background extraction, denoising, and GHS but im still not happy with what i have

[onyx adder]

Beautiful

[river vault]

I would go for like 8 hours thats what I did

did a reprocess of my data may try again some day as I think some of my data is out of focus or has a lot of start trails or smth or maybe I am just not very good at processing

[buoyant quest]

My final image capture of Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula. Took multiple nights and got a total of 4 hours of exposure (1400 subs) which was deep sky stacked on the seestar app then edited on lr mobile. I plan on editing it on pc but I’m not gonna be doing it this week because I’m going on vacation.

[white beacon]

m3 cluster

[rain wagon]

EQ mode wooo

[rugged shale]

Need to get a wedge now. They said they’d release one.

[rain wagon]

I'm just using the one from my star adventurer 2i

Not greatest wedge but it was free and gets the job done

Update, looking stunning!! 😍

[barren owl]

can you do 60s subs?

[surreal nova]

woahhh

thats such an interesting galaxy

[rain wagon]

Not yet

But simply would just be enabling some software settings

[white beacon]

only with external software
but yes it is possible with seestar alp or similar

[rain wagon]

Might have a play around with alp next week

[rugged shale]

Looks like their version of a wedge is just a tripod head https://h5.seestar.com/course/159727

[buoyant quest]

is it a wedge they made for the seestar that you can get or do you have to get a random wedge

[rugged shale]

They said they would be making a wedge but you don’t need to use it. The video just shows what looks like a normal tripod head.

[blissful depot]

my orion..

didn't calibrate the colours

just did some basic editing

[buoyant quest]

Honestly looks better than most guys who just get like 2 min of exposure and upload it to the seestar community thing

[little lichen]

which is 90% of the seestar community

[rugged shale]

Testing EQ mode on M81 & M82. Pretty nice, but the best bit is that this is 3 hours of data that only took 3.5 hours. Normally I’d expect it to take 5 hours or so.

[blissful depot]

Yeah

I try to get images like this

[blissful depot]

Is it just me or are you ever so slightly out of focus

I'm attempting Hubble's V nebula

[blissful depot]

That last horsehead one got deep fried good image just tone down thet red

[rugged shale]

I autofocused, but the stars do look a bit more bloated than usual. I did have some light clouds and there may be some wind wobble from my dodgy tripod. I’ll see if it improves when I get round to processing.

[fickle hollow]

if you got a hacksaw and knew where stuff is, could you modify a seestar for visual

[rugged shale]

No. Despite being a complete waste of money, a lot of the tracking depends on it having a camera.

You would get much better views from an 8” dobsonian for the same price as the Seestar

[fickle hollow]

well it comes with a free dob mount

im aware lol

[inner elk]

7hours 37mins of total exposure

For seestar it is good image

[rain wagon]

Very nice!!!

[surreal nova]

nice images!

[final plume]

Any suggestions for a eq mount or eq adaptor for a seestar s50?

[rugged shale]

This is what I’m using for the moment. Amazon Basics tripod, 15cm mount plate, 2x 1kg ankle weights tied around the base.

Does it work? Yes. But I wouldn’t recommend buying this setup because the tripod head is plastic and has a bit of wobble and it also has the wrong mounting screw (the plate has a 1/4” screw in the centre so it can be screwed straight on). I needed to 3d print a 2mm thick washer to allow the Seestar to rotate freely on the plate.

Honestly if the mount plate wasn’t offsetting the centre of gravity I wouldn’t trust the head to hold it.

[barren owl]

Yea I wouldn’t trust this tripod

[final plume]

Any other suggestions then? I don't have a seastar yet but I'm hoping to get one soon

[blissful depot]

Seastar... hehe

but really uhhhhhh

a better tripod

that you trust with the weight

it dpeends really

[final plume]

Does sea star have their own mount? On the app instructions it says something about adding the sea star mount to the tripod, am I missing something?

It looks more like an "adaptor"

[rugged shale]

No, not yet. They just show what looks like a standard video tripod head. I don’t think thats their solution as I would expect something that shifts the centre of mass on their own tripod.

[rugged shale]

It’s OK for now, the S50 is within the weight limit and the head feels secure. The problem is that it’s a bit wobbly, a wind gust makes the legs vibrate.

[blissful depot]

Yeah

In a windy spit drips needed to hand craft a little 3 sided box for it

[final plume]

Hmm, any other suggestions then?

Would this work? https://a.co/d/7uZoiai

[rain wagon]

Has anyone ever had this before with their s50? I checked the single subs and it's seems to be a stuck pixel. At least I assumed it is stuck cause it's in the same spot for all subs, also dead pixels are just off or black i think?

[little lichen]

theres hot pixel removal things in the calibration settings

[rain wagon]

In pix?

[little lichen]

seestar settings

[rain wagon]

Hmm okay. I'll have a look. Others have also said it is just cold pixels where resetting the seestar may help fix that

So I'm going to try that

[buoyant quest]

Stacked some m81 shots and it isn’t final, I still wanna adjust some stuff and also try out Siril. I feel like it stacked some images with clouds unless it’s just cuz of the light pollution

[blissful depot]

to cloudy to get anythin..

[final plume]

Is there any disadvantages with the s50 now that the sensor is discontinued?

Please @ me

[rugged shale]

Not really. The 462 has been discontinued (not manufactured by Sony) for many years now but existing stocks of the sensor are still selling. The replacement 662 has a slightly less noise than the 462 but it's not a deal-breaker IMO. Chances are that ZWO will update the S50 with a 662 or some other sensor later this year, or bring out the rumoured 'S50 Pro' (whatever that is), but no idea when that would be.

[little lichen]

i need myself to work on getting a new rig at some point, i really wanna move on from the s50

[final plume]

Where are you located, I'll buy yours

[little lichen]

South australia lmao are you sure you want mine?

[final plume]

Damnit!

[rain wagon]

Hahahah no way

Same here!

Didn't expected another person from SA here

[little lichen]

we are everywhere lmao

[rain wagon]

Hahah yeah

U country or suburbs/city?

[little lichen]

suburbs

[rain wagon]

Ahh nice nice

[little lichen]

wbt u

[rain wagon]

Yeah suburbs

I'm still trying to save for a proper rig aswell

Wanna get a Umi17s and an Askar 71f and probably a Quattro 250 in the future

[little lichen]

yeah im willing to switch to a canon camera with an eq mount

[rain wagon]

I got an astro camera and guide cam already

[little lichen]

likely a t3i

[little lichen]

ooh nice

[rain wagon]

Not a bad idea but at least find modded

There is a dude on fb marketplace that sells full spectrum cameras

[little lichen]

yeah im in the process of finding a modded one

and just saving money

i really want one thats Ha modded

[rain wagon]

Look for these sorta posts

[little lichen]

ohh yeah i'll definitely do that

[rain wagon]

He has a few on his pages and he is legit

Dm me and I'll send u his name and stuff or link

[little lichen]

i'll consider it, rn just focusing on obtaining more money to afford one at the moment

[rugged shale]

585 sensor. Quadruplet instead of triplet. More storage.

The 585 gives a wider FoV I guess. I don’t know how they managed to solve the problem of field rotation.

[pseudo harness]

it has eq mode now

[rugged shale]

Yeah, but it’s not the default mode. I can’t see how a wider fov will work at all in alt-az mode

[rain wagon]

But getting it into eq is not that bad

They'll release their own "wedge" or if you have a ball head, you can use that

In terms of alt az with a wider for, not sure tbh. But also I don't have an S30 so idek how the current one performs. I do have an S50 which does good in alt az, but I mainly use it in eq

[rugged shale]

I mean it still has to work in alt-az mode, regardless of how well it works in eq mode

[rain wagon]

Yeah for sure. Idk, imma assume that ZWO has it figured out I guess 🤷‍♂️

Depending on pricing tho, it would be something nice to pick up

And depending on the quality of it's 48MP sensor, would be a nice camera to use for long exposure, wide field, milky way shots. Without having to get a DSLR, Wide angle lens, tracker and modify it for the Ha signal

[rugged shale]

I’m interested to see what they’ll do with the S50 Pro. With a larger sensor the field rotation problem would be even worse and I doubt they can add cooling without destroying the battery life.

Maybe they’ll add a field rotator.

[drowsy dome]

Had a good night with the s50

[blissful depot]

what i'm trying to do is like get a good rig but if i'm too lazy to actually do anything i'll just pull out the Seestar as my Travel rig or if theres not enough time to justify using the main

[tardy warren]

Do you know if there’ll be a s50 pro?

[reef mason]

I've been doing stuff with the Seestar S50 that from what I've heard isn't possible.

[tardy warren]

That looks incredible!

[rugged shale]

They confirmed it but said no details until later this year

[reef mason]

thanks! I pretty much run it every night. The M33 had only 1.5 hours, but it is too low to keep trying it now, the M86 was just over 8 hours, and the M101 was just over 14 hours worth

[rugged shale]

Is the Markarian’s Chain one a mosaic?

[solid nymph]

Currently have a nexstar 130slt while I live at home in b3 skies but I’ll be off to uni in a few months and I don’t think having a newt in a city is a wise thing so was thinking of selling it for an s50 I bought scope for £480 so I might get like £350 ish for it.

Do yous reckon it’s worth getting an s50 ??

[river vault]

Star adventurer tripod and mount head or telescope underworld wedge you can find that on etsy

[river vault]

Your M101 looks geat better than mine haha

[reef mason]

nope, just centered on M86 and moved slightly with the joystick

[reef mason]

I have a ton of tricks for processing in APP and Photoshop along with years of experience doign so

[river vault]

I am still a noob at processing but this is what I have with 9.5 hours in bortle 8 sky

here is a sharpened version

[reef mason]

back off on noise reduction, select shadows and desaturate and darken them, then use selective sharpening on parts of teh galaxy

bump your vibrance and saturation some too

[river vault]

oh okay ty : D

no idea how to do any of that in SAS or Siril

[reef mason]

I am 100% APP and Photoshop, never even tried Siril

[drowsy dome]

I love my s50, but I would hold off until we have a bit more information about the s30 pro

[solid nymph]

Ooooh, are we thinking it may be better?

[reef mason]

I would like to see an S50 pro, or better yet, the S70 they teased last year

[drowsy dome]

simon says the s50 pro is coming

[drowsy dome]

definitely will be better

[rugged shale]

It depends what for. Aperture is always going to win out for detail.

[solid nymph]

Quad APO 😳

[rugged shale]

So you wouldn’t expect the S30 Pro to take better shots than the S50 for the sort of shots the S50 is good at

[solid nymph]

Yeah fairs, also I just can’t use my telescope to its ability, I can’t even prime focus without modding and i cba to do that so my roster of pics is tiny and won’t really get any better 😭

[reef mason]

As long as you don't expect IOTD quality from the Seestar you will be happy with it. I do recommend stacking your own subs, but you should still be okay editing the stacked fits file that is also saved. I do with the S50 had a better sensor and more internal storage though.

you honestly will be hard pressed to beat it for what it does at the price point it is at

[rain wagon]

maybe maybe. Cooling would be nice tho

[reef mason]

1289 10s subs on M44, stacked in APP and finished in Photoshop using the S50

[reef mason]

and 1540 10 subs on M13 too

[rugged shale]

2.5hrs on Crab

[final plume]

Has the s50 ever gone on sale ?

[final plume]

i also have another question, what CAN you use the SeeStar S50 for, like what should i expect to NOT be able to shoot?

[final plume]

would this tripod work to put the s50 into eq mode?

[rugged shale]

It’s not so good for widefield, the field of view is slightly larger than the sun or moon. You can mosaic for larger targets such as M31 or Rosette but it’s not as good as the S30 for that. It’s also no good for planetary, except the sun and moon. In general images don’t have a huge amount of detail and it’s very slow; you really need a lot of exposure time to raise detail above the noise floor and processing the data to get good results can be tough.

If you look at astronomy.tools or Stellarium you can enter the field of view details and see how a bunch of targets will look. There are loads of nebulae and clusters that work well with the field of view, but IMO most planetary nebulae and galaxies are slightly too small for the scope.

[final plume]

I don't want it for planet's, just nebula and stuff...

[drowsy dome]

Yes, but a ball head is less than optimal

[river vault]

was on sale for like 450 like couple months ago

[blissful depot]

4 Hours on a target the Rotational gradient is horrid

Barley proccessed

[drowsy dome]

Have you tried eq mode yet?

[blissful depot]

no

don't got a mount for it yet any Suggestions

For like tripod mount for the goobe

r

[drowsy dome]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C13C4F1B?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
This is the head that ZWO are rebranding to sell as their wedge

[blissful depot]

ah

What kinda Like tripods can it attach to thos

[drowsy dome]

pretty much anything

[naive pendant]

Do you think it would be a great time to buy the Seestar S50? I wonder how the price will evolve and how probable it is that there will be improved versions in the near future. I live in the Netherlands by the way.

[rugged shale]

There’s a ‘S50 Pro’ due out some time later this year but no date or details given

[reef mason]

Here is what 850 20s subs get you on NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula, with the Seestar S50.

[drowsy dome]

I would definitely hold off for the improved versions coming, unless you want to stay on the cheaper side

[naive pendant]

Yes has this been confirmed for this year? I saw the confirmed S30 Pro so it is likely. I wonder what these improved versions will cost.

[naive pendant]

Okay thank you!

[rugged shale]

They have said this year, but that could be next month or it could be Christmas. It may also be delayed.

[drowsy dome]

tariffs have thrown timelines out of whack

[naive pendant]

Really? Where do you find this information?

[naive pendant]

Yeah probably also for Europe

[rugged shale]

It was mentioned by a rep on the ZWO official forum, but I can’t find the post now so it may have been removed.

Thinking about it, I believe they said the S50 Pro would be “at a later date” so that’s not necessarily this year I guess

Also in an interview with Cuiv the Lazy Geek, the ZWO CEO confirmed an update to the S50 was “real”

Personally, unless you have a need for it soon (like you plan to go on holiday), and with the nights getting shorter, I would hold off getting a S50 until after midsummer, see if they have announced a replacement by then.

[naive pendant]

Okay thank you for your advice!

[manic hawk]

are there any good heads for eq mode on seestar s50?

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1858953434/improved-eq-it-all-equatorial-mount-for?ref=shop_home_active_1&crt=1&logging_key=c247163b1cb6c56397feeaced02519857f29f0c6%3A1858953434&variation0=5198608224

this is my best option rn

[drowsy dome]

we basically got confirmation of the s50 pro and s70 from that interview

[rugged shale]

That is not the best option, no

Beat option is a Skywatcher/iOptron wedge or a mount head like the Smallrig CH3. The mount head shown by ZWO seems to be a rebadged version of that Smallrig one.

Even my Amazon Basics tripod is better than this

[manic hawk]

ik its not the best option if you consider actual eq heads

im just saying that its my best option for the price and capability

[rugged shale]

Although not if you’re in the US

But you might find one already stocked

[manic hawk]

ok

sure

[drowsy dome]

similar to the zwo one, but not quite the same

ZWO is using a rebranded version of this head https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C13C4F1B?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

[final plume]

Anyone have raw data they would be willing to share with me? Just want to see how I can edit photos from s50 on my mobile (I'm trying to convince my wife to let me buy one) hehe

[blissful depot]

I got some dsts if you give me little bit to get it

[final plume]

How would I edit dsts? Never heard of that file type ....

[final plume]

I currently have Lightroom on mobile, how do you currently edit dst files?

[drowsy dome]

I'd be willing to share some of mine, but I REALLY don't think you want them since they are taken in basically the worst conditions possible

[final plume]

Would love to see what I can do tbh 🤗

[tardy warren]

My best photos with the seestar s50

Any thoughts?

[drowsy dome]

with your rosette, if you saved your frames, you can go in and delete the frames with the plane trails, and it'd look even better

[tardy warren]

Yeah but the thing is it was a mosaic so I couldn’t 😦

[drowsy dome]

you can delete individual frams of a mosaic, although it does make the process much more complicated

[tardy warren]

Wait you can, how?

[drowsy dome]

if you have the seestar set to save individual frames it'll save them just the same as a normal stack, and you'll need to use a mosaic tool to stitch them together

[tardy warren]

Ok thanks!

[river vault]

I actually use this wedge and I think its pretty alright for the price

it would be super good if you have it on concrete I only have a wooden deck off the ground and a muddy backyard

put it on the deck and a lot of my subs get dropped

put it in the muddy backyard and it sinks into the mud over night and starts to tilt

also those knobs are super hard to get to where the seestar does not move I have to use a hex wrench on those bolts to get them to hold my seestar

[white beacon]

M81, 20 hours at bortle 5

[blissful depot]

i don't use mobile i use Siril and uhhmmmm GraXpert

M8- Lagoon

[manic hawk]

integration time?

pls

[blissful depot]

around.... 3 hours

only so i could get that nicer dust

for the lagoon it's so bright depending on bortle it shouldn't take much

[wispy vessel]

Some objects I was able to capture in the southern hemisphere, hoping to capture some more but might be tough in the bortle that I’m in

[blissful depot]

Carina Omega and Cent A

[blissful depot]

Statue of Liberty Nebula

[last hare]

America nebula

[last hare]

I think you doxxed yourself

[wispy vessel]

Nah we’re good, I was visiting a tourist destination when I took these

[last hare]

oh ur chilling then

[inner elk]

someone send me your stacked fit of some galaxy taken whith seestar s50 i wanna post process 😄 here are some of my post processes from this

to

this

[buoyant quest]

You could try doing this. I captured it a while back

[inner elk]

okay

[inner elk]

@buoyant quest

what do you think?

i tried to get rid of the noise and background but it not changed very much, from my experience try to do 1,1x mosaics to prevent this noise and the lines in the image, i always do 1,1 mosaics and dont get those so thats my tip

[buoyant quest]

The color is good. I have one without noise if you want it, I used ai denoise

What software do you use for post processing

I wanted to stack that image in Siril and stuff but got too lazy and didn’t lol

[rugged shale]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJD2W41zPKX/

seestar.official

After all the wait… It's coming！
Introducing the Seestar TH10 Hydraulic Tripod Head — the one that was worth waiting for. 🙌
Ready to elevate your Seestar stargazing experience?
Official Launch: May 7, 2025！

#Astrophotography #seestarS50 #seestarS30 #Seestar #astronomy #astro

Likes

182

Instagram

No idea how much

It looks identical to the Innorel F20, which has since jumped in price

[tardy warren]

What does it do?

[rugged shale]

It lets you use the Seestar in EQ mode. But it’s just a tripod mount head.

[blissful depot]

let's gooo

[drowsy dome]

Pretty sure it's the f10

and it's a pretty solid head (I've got it)

[white beacon]

is catching a lunar transit of hubble or the ISS feasable with the S50?

[pseudo harness]

iss yes, hubble not sure

[dusk fiber]

You see my picture? S50 ISS transit

[white beacon]

OH WOW
that makes me feel a lot better about my chances
this picture is awesome!!! this is easily one of the coolest things ive seen done with this "budget telescope"

[dusk fiber]

Thank you! ~10 months with the scope. Been waiting for this day for awhile. Got the normal video out of scope, and clipped with my phones photo app.. PIPP tore those frames apart, grabbed the 23 frames with the ISS, used Luminar Neo to layer them,

[dusk fiber]

Here is the video clip

[white beacon]

framerate definetly isnt a problem, that was something i was worried about

[dusk fiber]

I guess I got lucky on the focus?? Maths = 30fps.. 23 frames 0.78sec

I seen a Plane cross perfectly across it once before.... HANDS DOWN the most AWE moment with the scope EVER... And I wasnt recording... RIP

[manic hawk]

What's a good target to capture over the summer with a Seestar S50 in NYC?

I'm thinking either crescent nebula or western veil nebula

[pseudo harness]

lagooo duoband

[lone shoal]

Took this last night 108 minutes worth of imaging

[manic hawk]

?

[pseudo harness]

lagoon

[manic hawk]

only goes up to 25 degrees at its peak and my south is obscured

[wispy vessel]

Omega Centauri

[manic hawk]

[drowsy dome]

I was able to sneak in some imaging between the clouds last night

[manic hawk]

integration time?

[jolly aurora]

I'm pretty sure it was 2 hours each

Also I gotta say, this looks DAMN GOOD for 18 mins straight out of the camera

[marsh wolf]

I got this last night. It had been a week since the last clear sky and this was still thru a lot of light clouds but glad I got to get back to taking some photos. This was about an hour of 10 second subs for m51

[wispy vessel]

Hey folks how safe is it to override the seestars level calibration? I just took it outside to image the sun and it told me that my tripod wasn’t level when it was and the only way I could get the two bubbles to meet on the Seestar calibration was by having the Seestar tilted. I then wanted to check if I was going crazy and set the Seestar down on a flat table without the tripod under it and it says that the Seestar is angled at 6.3 degrees. Should I just go ahead and recalibrate it or how should I go about this?

[pseudo harness]

Your surface you put it on might not be level

[wispy vessel]

Does it matter if it’s on the tripod or not when calibrating? Because this is what my bubble level shows vs what the Seestar says on the same spot

I did also come back from travelling abroad with it so maybe it go messed up on the flights?

[pseudo harness]

yeah that's off

the seestar is right the tripod was not level

[wispy vessel]

But the tripod is not 6.4 degrees off level though

[rugged shale]

Do the level sensor calibration

[wispy vessel]

Will do

[pseudo harness]

https://youtu.be/eK43l5ub7R8

[manic hawk]

anybody have m51 seestar data they want to provide?

[deep island]

https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1234313057954697339

[manic hawk]

im looking for individual sub exposures

[manic hawk]

https://www.amazon.com/Avella-Release-Panorama-Compact-V502/dp/B0C64XVR83/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

would this work with the s50?

[deep island]

The mount plate has a 1/4 size screw while the Seestar needs a 3/8 screw. It shows a picture that says 1/4 to 3/8 adapter but its with the mount head and not the tripod. So not sure if its just for that or if you can use it for the mounting plate

[drowsy dome]

yes, but pick up a plate with a 3/8th screw, the adapters work loose over the night

[manic hawk]

where can i find one?

[drowsy dome]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LGDGF4L?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

[blissful depot]

https://app.astrobin.com/u/Zonal-Cheese?i=taexm1#gallery

[river vault]

Did a reprocess on my M1 not too long ago its old alt az data that was star traily lmk what u think

Processed in Siril, SAS

[inner elk]

Ngc 7331 and stephans quintet

1 month old photo

Total exposure time over 10 hours

Using mosaic mode just rotation (causing noise in corners) but worth cause i captured the stephans wuintet tho

M51 total exposure time over 6 hours

Sombrero galaxy total exposure time over 5 hours + croped image

And reprocesed m63 total exposure time 9 hours (captured during galaxy season)

[inner elk]

Can you send me stacked fit of it i will process it i will try to reduce noise and stars and sharpen it in pixinsight

M81 and M82 total exposure time 23 hours

[river vault]

Thanks here ya go good luck

I am still kinda a noob at processing

[inner elk]

Okay i will look at it in few hours im going to gym rn

[inner elk]

@river vault when did you take the image i need a date for image solver to use spectrometric color calibration

[inner elk]

@river vault

i got 2 versions

this is version 1

and this version 2

i cant send fit cause i dont have nitro but if you want fit files i will send here link from wetransfer

https://we.tl/t-hY0xRELKeL

hope you like them i did not stretch it as your one but i think if you zoom in you can see more details

also the color is GREAT tbh

let me know what you think of it

[river vault]

Pretty good man

thanks for doing that

I like version 2 more

[reef mason]

ZWO actually asked if they could use this image. It was over 40 hours on M8, M20, and M21 using a combination of the S30 and S50 both in EQ mode with 60s exposures from each.

[river vault]

I got around 23 hours on M 27 here is a quick process of the image : D

[rugged shale]

New update. Apparently 4K mode is a 2x drizzle

[river vault]

hows that work

not the drizzle but like

does it upscale it after you image

like during the stacking part

[little lichen]

either uses ai for upscaling or some magic

[rugged shale]

No it’ll drizzle while stacking

[drowsy dome]

3 hours drizzled, looks much better than standard (only in app adjustments made)

[jolly aurora]

When the clouds role in early and there’s been a meridian flip after an hour and my final attempt to image this region came down to 11 mins 🫩

Can’t wait to image this with a 533MC pro mosaic 😋

[manic hawk]

was looking through my lunar data with the s50 and found this frame, lucky!

[manic hawk]

final image, any tips and recommendations?

[river vault]

Perhaps a little less sharpening but other than that it looks good

[manic hawk]

k

[rugged shale]

Nice clean Dumbell

[jolly aurora]

3 Hours no processing

I kinda expected to see this after I had left it out (would be due to rejection stacking or some other problems)

[sturdy wind]

North America Nebular Mosaic (NGC 7000) only two nights. 287min Exposure.

Stacked and edited with Siril and Graxpert.

[surreal nova]

Cygnus wall 4h

[surreal ridge]

Crispy

[blissful void]

Can you take a picture of our Milky way with the s50?

[pseudo harness]

No

Telescopes can't image the milky way

[jolly aurora]

Without mosaicing, but I'm not crazy like that at all

[pseudo harness]

*sane people with telescopes cant image the milky way

[jolly aurora]

https://tenor.com/view/bravo-gif-gif-8524601943548603280

[jolly aurora]

Unless you dedicate your entire life to it, the S50 will miserably fail

[blissful void]

Doesn’t the s50 have the mosaic feature now?

[jolly aurora]

Yeah but it ain't enough for the milky way

[solar briar]

create a gofundme for 200 seestar s50s so the mosaic can be finished faster

[blissful depot]

Unless you use the Mosaci feature for pannels.....

nto for the whole image just for one pannel

[jolly aurora]

Gotta have a lot of clear skies lol, and dedication

[blissful depot]

And A Lack of Sanity...

[jolly aurora]

That’s pretty average for us

[river vault]

6.5 hours of M 16 from bortle 3

[barren owl]

nice

[inner elk]

@river vault if you want i can process ur image of pillars of creation and apply hubble palete colors and try process it

[river vault]

Sure that would be awesome

Ill stack that tomorrow when I have time in the morning

I use my USB-C to keep my seestar charged all night with a portable battery but I need that cable to also connect my external SSD

[river vault]

oops I did like just not do that uhh

tomorrow maybe just worked 12 hours

[sleek knoll]

I'm considering buying an s50 and going to a dark site in northern Michigan for a weekend next month. Is there anything I should know or buy beforehand?

I've heard a lot about an eq mount , and it looks like my main target (Andromeda) will be passing right above me, but idk what to trust and buy

[pseudo harness]

I'd do a s30 or a dwarf 3

[wispy hedge]

Id recommend a camera tripod like this for a stable EQ mode

[sleek knoll]

Would you mind sending a link for that?

[wispy hedge]

Any works, just search which is available for fastest shipping

[sleek knoll]

Anything specific I should look for in it? Also do I need the leverer thing?

[wispy hedge]

Yes.

[wispy hedge]

https://agenaastro.com/dwarflab-mini-tripod-with-hydraulic-head-dwarf-lab.html

apparently it is sold availably in the US so here you go

[sleek knoll]

Would this work with the s30?

[wispy hedge]

They should have a normal camera thread attachement iirc

let me see

[wispy hedge]

Eugh, doesnt look like it is

[sleek knoll]

so something like this https://www.highpointscientific.com/zwo-tripod-and-tripod-head-for-the-seestar-smart-telescope ? Or is this too much

[wispy hedge]

That should work

[onyx kestrel]

Anyone use the EQ mode? Is it worth it? Are 30 or 60 second exposures any better than 10 seconds? Hell is there any difference between 6 10 seconds and 1 60 second?

[pseudo harness]

absolutely

longer exposures are always better

[onyx kestrel]

Isn't it still the same amount of data?

[pseudo harness]

yes but fewer longer exposures will have less noise than more short exposures

[river vault]

S 30 is better for complete beginners if you are one

S 50 is fine if your willing to cram some knowledge in before you go

Caldwell 4 in Bortle 9 right over a bright highway I tried my best using 30s exposures and 120 gain this is about 19 hours

[sleek knoll]

does the s50 need a dew shield or anything extra if im shooting at ~10 C overnight?

[river vault]

Yeah I would go for one

they keep surrounding light out too

where I am in the winter even with the dew heater it still gets frosted over without one

[rugged shale]

I’ve always had much better results with a dew shield at any time of year. Keeps the background under control.

At -10 you might need a dew heater but I’ve never seen one on a Seestar

[sleek knoll]

is there a risk of it tipping over in EQ mode with the s50 tripod?

[wispy hedge]

With an old/faulty tripod or user-error, yeah

but if youre absolutely sure its rocksolid and cant tip with some mild shaking then youre good

[wispy vessel]

Does anyone know of a good tripod that could be used with the S50. I have a really cheap one back home but I don’t trust it enough to do eq

[sleek knoll]

going off that, is the stock s50 tripod good enough for eq?

[river vault]

if you have Kai's weight bag and wedge yes

look up dew it all eq mount on etsy to find it its like 30 bucks

[river vault]

Skywatcher star adventurer its like 100 bucks

[rugged shale]

Woah! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNWaMX7aJ8

[wispy vessel]

Where can you find it for 100$?

[river vault]

amazon

like literally anywhere

[wispy vessel]

I found the mount but I would have to get the eq base + ball head adapter right?

[river vault]

Yes you would need the latitude EQ base

For EQ mode and I would also recommend vibration suppression pads or like drill some duvets into some wood planks to put under the tripod feet to dampen out vibrations

Also a weight to weigh down the tripod so the weight of the seestar does not tip it over

And a leveler if you want it

Oh yeah one more thing the locking lever you are going to want to replace

https://a.co/d/7bYITLg

And a better shoe and 3/8 adapter

https://a.co/d/crWpsbH

https://a.co/d/7nyI1Nr

[sleek knoll]

Is all this needed? Like am i gonna get shit results from just the stock tripod and the TH10?

[deep island]

No, if you wanna do eq mode, all you need is to tilt it appropriately, and align the axis to the north or south celestial pole

Iirc

I think the seestar has a built in feature to help you polar align, so you probably don't have to worry about a polar scope, and something like a tripod tilt head (that tells you what the angle is) should be fine

[rugged shale]

Honestly I haven’t seen a huge difference between EQ mode and AZ mode. A bit disappointing really. You have to be in really dark skies or take a lot of subs to notice a difference.

The main advantages of EQ mode IMO are a lack of field rotation artefacts around the edges of the image and the processing time and storage needed to stack all the subs.

[river vault]

It’s for if you want to go the route of getting skywatcher tripod and latitude EQ base I recommend you upgrade the mounting shoe as it’s pretty bad

[river vault]

I somewhat agree I have no idea how people can get away with 60s exposures without like 90% rejection rates. Even 30s exposures have like 25-33% rejection rates when I am imaging close to Polaris and 35%-45% when I am not. I do the polar align many times to make sure I am getting a accurate reading and i am always 0,0 or 0,1 deviation

[rugged shale]

Yeah. I don’t think the S50’s tracking is good enough for long exposures tbh. Maybe if it could do guiding.

[wispy vessel]

So even in eq mode the tracking is too poor to do 30s subs well?

[rugged shale]

Tracking and/or the joints are a bit wobbly. I think I have too much wind for it to work here; even on a mild day I lose subs due to wind and losing 30s due to a quick gust is painful.

Even when it worked, I couldn’t see any real difference in quality. This might depend on your local light pollution though.

So for me, I don’t feel it’s worth the extra effort.

[deep island]

Is the mount balanced?

[river vault]

yes

[deep island]

Huh

[solar briar]

i get eggs with eq mode at 10 seconds

[wispy vessel]

Here is my stacked mosaic of the Carina Nebula from my trip to Australia.

[wispy vessel]

Has anyone done a multi panel mosaic with the Seestar and Siril?

[sleek knoll]

Yes, I found it best to use the naztronomy script. Using the default siril settings gave me really bad tiling artifacts

This is the difference in made (~1 hour of data)

[pseudo harness]

i read that as something very different

[wispy vessel]

Where do I find that script?

[sleek knoll]

You can search him up on YouTube (naztronomy), he recently posted a video about it

[sleek knoll]

Anyone know how to lose less frames? Even at 10 seconds, I'm losing around half. I think I'm aligning decently in eq

[wispy vessel]

This is my final product of the heart nebula. About 4 hours of it running outside just to get 2h 15m of data 😐

[sleek knoll]

That looks pretty good

Did you run it through graxpert?

[sleek knoll]

Not bad, can't wait to get home so I can process it myself

[wispy vessel]

I tried using it in Siril but it didn’t seem to do anything. I’ll have to go back and do that because the noise is brutal

[wispy vessel]

Here’s the processed image through Graxpert

[rugged shale]

If properly aligned in EQ mode it’s most likely to be wobble from wind (or ground shake if it’s not 100% solid). I found a dew shield also helped because stray light sometimes threw it out.

[sleek knoll]

oh gocha, i was imaging pretty close to the road so that might be why

[sleek knoll]

would you mind sending me the data? I would love to try processing it

[wispy vessel]

What would be the best way of sharing the data?

[sleek knoll]

i usually zip all the frames and upload it to google drive

[wispy vessel]

Okay I can try and do that and share the drive

Though I’ve used mega before too so I’ll have to see how much space I have on my drive first

[wispy vessel]

@sleek knoll Here's the link to the google drive with the data:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IB1ICf_dWeeTxwHe-par0QglLf866x1b?usp=share_link

Let me know if you have any issues with it

[sleek knoll]

well this is what i get

clearly youre much better at processing than me 😭

i swear every image i process turns red

[wispy vessel]

I had that same issue when doing my first process. I’m not great at processing, I just watch tutorials and just change some of the values of the stretches and that’s about it

Though I didn’t de-noise this image well enough

[sleek knoll]

yeah i really gotta start watching some more videos

i watched one and thought i was ready

[wispy vessel]

I just watch deep space astro, he has a lot of good tutorials but honestly your process is good

[sleek knoll]

I think i clipped the background a little, ill try again tomorrow

[onyx kestrel]

Shot that on my S50. Had to use some ai frame interpolation to smooth it out. S50 only shoots 60fps.

Not a lot of frames for a 1.072 second transit time

[wispy vessel]

How many panels did this take?

And what integration time for each?

[sleek knoll]

around 1400 x 10s

but like half were just of the core

im going to try to get some more data on the outer edges tonight

[wispy vessel]

I’m assuming you used the planning/ scheduling feature on the Seestar?

[sleek knoll]

nah, just different nights

i saw that my first few nights werent getting a lot of signal on the outer edges

[wispy vessel]

ah okay makes sense, I'm currently using the Seestars scheduling feature to shoot the cygnus loop. Hoping if weather is good I can shoot it tomorrow night as well

[wispy vessel]

Just finished two nights of the Cygnus loop with around 5:30h of data hoping to process it tonight

[wispy vessel]

1027 10s exposure with 3 separate mosaics stitched together

Ignore the top left 😐

[sleek knoll]

Reprocessed this one a bit

[sleek knoll]

Who that's sick

How do you stitch together different mosaics?

[wispy vessel]

Essentially take a couple mosaics with the Seestar, then put the exposures into a lights folder, set the home directory, and lastly use the Siril DSA (Deep Sky Astro) mosaic script. If you go to YouTube search Seestar mosaic tutorial and deep sky Astro has a good one

[solar briar]

caldwell 30 quick take

[solar briar]

processing this was messy, might go back and shoot a few hours of ha

[sleek knoll]

is that with the lp filter?

[solar briar]

no lp

the nebulae had some faint red after spcc so i just cranked the red to max post process xd

[solar briar]

owl cluster

a way i found out how to get sharper/smaller stars is using cosmic clarity's stellar sharpening script on the starmask, then setting it as a "screen" above the starless in post editing software and play around with the curves

[solar briar]

fixed the stars in this one

using that method

[solar briar]

trying to push details

[onyx kestrel]

Should this have this kind of play in it? I'm only able to get 30-40% of my subs because of star trails no matter what I do and I suspect this might be why

And yes I've leveled it, level calibrated, compass calibrated, and prayed to the star fairy. It's barely a month old so if something is bad inside it's getting sent back

[deep island]

Have you tightened the screw down?

[onyx kestrel]

What screw? You mean tightening it down onto the tripod? Of course.

I've never gotten like aggressively tight but I've gotten it snug

[deep island]

Hmm, idk. Ive never owned a seestar before

How long exposures r you taking?

[solar briar]

ya thats normal

i got similar rejection rates before until i bought a wedge for eq

now im getting 70-80% of subs

[deep island]

Do you think it's because it's so light that wind does that?

Btw, what's your favorite brand of hot chocolate?

[solar briar]

i think alt az is harder for it to track cause it has to move up/down and left/right a lot compared to a wedge that moves with the sky naturally?

some people had better luck with alt az

[solar briar]

idk.....

[onyx kestrel]

I used to get closer to 70% doing 10 second exposures. So that slop is normal on it?

I'm using it in Bortel 3.8 skies so it's not like it's a light pollution problem.

[solar briar]

normal slop

https://tenor.com/view/explodes-you-with-my-mind-angry-stare-seal-gif-18077432731494708549

i would recommend a wedge

[onyx kestrel]

I tried mounting it to my EQ mount with a 3d printed 3/8 to vixen adapter. Stupid thing cracked. Gonna have to get an aluminum one or something

[sleek knoll]

re edited my orion but i think i over did it a bit

[solar briar]

sculptor galaxy reprocess

too much deconvolution me thinks

had this ugly blotching

[sleek knoll]

hopefully i wake up to something good 🙏

[solar briar]

ngc 1055 and m77

this wasnt a serious shoot but im suprised by the detail i got for only 2 1/2 hours

will go back and shoot them seperately

[solar briar]

ghoooost

postgame?

[sleek knoll]

i got like 2 hours last night, then while editing i realized i need a lot more data

so im gonna keep imaging tonight and tomorrow

[solar briar]

ooo

[sleek knoll]

Anyone know if theres a better way to combine lp and nonlp frames rather than just stacking them as one?

[deep island]

Like, to improve contrast? I think you can stack it, then use it as luminance frame for pixel math. Siril has pixel math if you don't have anything else. Though you'll definitely need a video, cause I have 0 clue how to use if lol

[sleek knoll]

oversaturated and messed up the background but idc anymore

restacked with 3x drizzle but i cant get it to look how i want

[onyx kestrel]

Ok I need a legitimate tripod to use EQ mode with my S50. It just fell out of the saddle of my ST1 steel tripod I use for my mak-cas. Thank God it didn't hurt it.

[solar briar]

cosmic keyhole, right is hubble

[solar briar]

a little star cloud next to omicron persei a and b

[sleek knoll]

finally an image im actually kinda proud of

only around 3 hours exposure

ill have to wait until monday night for good weather

[river vault]

Thats pretty good for only 3 hours

[sleek knoll]

fr, it took a lot of denoising tho

[river vault]

16 hours of Caldwell 12 in Bortle 9 I plant to double the amount of hours I have in it so far

I am also doing like 30 second exposures with 120 gain in Seestar_alp

[rugged shale]

Do you find adjusting the gain helps? I’ve not tried alp yet but I always wondered if there was a more optimal setting since the subframes never get saturated by stars.

[river vault]

I do it helps a little bit in squeezing every photon you can out of your exposure but it turns the already noisy seestar data into even more noisy seestar data

not a big problem if you are just sacking intergration like 30+ on targets that is not like Orion or Andromeda or something

[rugged shale]

Yeah, being an uncooled camera it should benefit because it would swamp out the read noise even if it amplifies the shot noise (I think that’s right?) so long as it doesn’t lose data through clipping.

[river vault]

yeah fr

idk when it will be clear again for me with no moon as mid october-march is quite cloudy where I am

[wispy hedge]

this looks like scnr

[sleek knoll]

Like what?

[wispy hedge]

SCNR, it looks like you used SCNR, so the "Remove Green Noise" button

[sleek knoll]

Probably, why?

Does it drop the quality

[wispy hedge]

Kills data and colour

[sleek knoll]

Whoops

[wispy hedge]

yeahh

[sleek knoll]

Reprocessed without it

I think I overdid the sharpening a bit tho

[river vault]

It basically destroys your green channel

It’s recommended you don’t use it until you are done stretching

[river vault]

I re did the process on this