Rosette Nebula with Seestar and iPhone

[JimFox]

Captured last night in Colorado off my daughters patio deck. Captured with the ZWO Seestar S50.

This has 2 hours of imaging.

This is the stacked jpg that gets downloaded to your phone or tablet as you image. I still have the saved raw "fit" files that I
Can process later in Pixinsight, but I wanted to see just how good of an image I could get with just the out of the box SeeStar.

It's kind of cool to see what can be captured with the SeeStar S50 smart telescope without any real extra knowledge.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

 

[AlanLichty]

Point and shoot astrophotography. Pretty amazing result for the (lack of) effort.

 

[JimFox]

Point and shoot astrophotography. Pretty amazing result for the (lack of) effort.

Thanks Alan. There is still some effort, but only like 5% of the effort you would use if you had a regular Astro rig. To me the effort is part of why I enjoy doing Astro. It's fun to set it all up, and get everything working together. But there are times where it is nice to have something that does have minimal effort also.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Can you change the filters on a SeeStar?

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Pretty good. All the Seestar images made me look at what this device is. Pretty small and compact with all the capabilities. I must say I am tempted. Only HD resolution though? (1920x1080). That is a bit disappointing.

 

[JimFox]

Can you change the filters on a SeeStar?

Built in it has 3 options.
1. No Filter
2. Light pollution filter. (Think L-Pro type)
3. A Dark Filter for making darks.

4. And it has an external Solar Filter to image the sun.

A couple of guys have 3D printed an adapter to go on it so you can use any 2" filter you want. I haven't ordered one yet, but quite a few people have.

 

[JimFox]

Pretty good. All the Seestar images made me look at what this device is. Pretty small and compact with all the capabilities. I must say I am tempted. Only HD resolution though? (1920x1080). That is a bit disappointing.

For years, that's all Astro had. We are spoiled with our cameras getting all of the mega pixel upgrades. But in Astro, it was only about 3 years ago that they finally came out with Crop and full frame sensors.

I do get you on the sensor size. But if you want more, then you will want to get a full fledged Astro Rig like I use. The ASi2600mc Pro, Askar Fra500, AM5 Mount and an ASIAir Pro or Plus to control it all.

There are some Smart Telescopes with higher resolution, but they run in the $2000 to $4000 range. I got mine on a preorder for $399. There is no way for that price you could take the specs of this and buy it for that. Even todays $499 price range it's a steal.

For the price? You can't touch what it gives you. If you or someone is interested in doing Astro, $499 is a cheap price to get your feet wet.

Oh... and I double the size of my images in ACR anyway, so that resolution is more then adequate I think.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

For years, that's all Astro had. We are spoiled with our cameras getting all of the mega pixel upgrades. But in Astro, it was only about 3 years ago that they finally came out with Crop and full frame sensors.

I do get you on the sensor size. But if you want more, then you will want to get a full fledged Astro Rig like I use. The ASi2600mc Pro, Askar Fra500, AM5 Mount and an ASIAir Pro or Plus to control it all.

There are some Smart Telescopes with higher resolution, but they run in the $2000 to $4000 range. I got mine on a preorder for $399. There is no way for that price you could take the specs of this and buy it for that. Even todays $499 price range it's a steal.

For the price? You can't touch what it gives you. If you or someone is interested in doing Astro, $499 is a cheap price to get your feet wet.

Oh... and I double the size of my images in ACR anyway, so that resolution is more then adequate I think.

Thanks for the clarification. While I wasn't expecting DSLR level resolution, something like 8MP was what I was thinking. And for that a couple hundred more than the current price would be attractive. Not really looking for any serious investment in astro like your set.

 

[JimFox]

Thanks for the clarification. While I wasn't expecting DSLR level resolution, something like 8MP was what I was thinking. And for that a couple hundred more than the current price would be attractive. Not really looking for any serious investment in astro like your set.

There are some others, you can google Smart Telescopes, but there are some others out there that do have 7 or 8 mp sensors. Since the Seestar and the Dwarf II are in the $500 range, the more expensive ones have been cutting their prices. So perhaps that's something you can look into sometime.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Was this image processed through Picinsight (wbpp) ?

 

[JimFox]

Was this image processed through Picinsight (wbpp) ?

Nope, this was processed on my iPhone in PSExpress.

I just wanted to show off for those thinking about a beginner level telescope setup that you don't even need Astro processing skills or software, you can do it all on your phone if you want. I believe it would look even better if I had used pixinsight and processed the fits in WBPP, but for what it is, I think it's pretty decent.

 

[Comet Hunter]

Nope, this was processed on my iPhone in PSExpress.

I just wanted to show off for those thinking about a beginner level telescope setup that you don't even need Astro processing skills or software, you can do it all on your phone if you want. I believe it would look even better if I had used pixinsight and processed the fits in WBPP, but for what it is, I think it's pretty decent.

Its very cool... Had they had this avalable when I started out I would most likely taken a different path

 

[JimFox]

Its very cool... Had they had this avalable when I started out I would most likely taken a different path

I guess it's hard to predict. I am sure I would have gotten this too instead of the SkyGuider pro since they are both about the same price. But I think I still would have advanced beyond it.

The Seestar does have some restrictions to it, especially for an experienced astrophotographer, they might begin to bug a person, #1 is the field rotation. The Seestar is great for what it does, but it will never replace my Gem28, Askar Fra500 and 2600mc Pro combo. In fact, I am still looking to get the AM5 mount, the 585mc and probably the Celestron 8 HD. I want to capture Jupiters rings before they disappear for a few years.