Seestar S50 Polar Alignment and Operation

This video was posted originally on Jan. 19, 2024 on the Physics Demos UA-cam channel, and was moved to the Sensor Sensibility UA-cam channel on Dec. 14, 2024. It is the second of three videos about our equatorial mount for the Seestar S50.
In this video, my son Reynold, "King of the Dark," and I (Boyd Edwards) brave the elements to show how to polar align our equatorially mounted Seestar ( • Seestar S50 Equatorial... ), and how to orient the Seestar to the equatorial view of the sky so you can use the Seestar app to find and track objects automatically, the same as you would in altitude-azimuth mode.
The portion of the video that shows how to orient the Seestar to the equatorial view of the sky begins at 1:18.
The advantage of mounting the telescope equatorially is to eliminate field rotation and to improve tracking and frame acceptance rates. We've shot some amazing images in equatorial mode, and we've logged some excellent frame acceptance rates (up to 73%).
The Seestar firmware restricts you to observe only half of the sky. For northern observers, equatorial mode allows you to see only the stars in the northern celestial hemisphere, the same view of the sky that you get from the north pole. For southern observers, equatorial mode allows you to see only the stars in the southern celestial hemisphere. For now, northern observers who want to view an object in the southern celestial hemisphere, such the Orion Nebula (M42), will need to use altitude-azimuth mode or to polar align to the south celestial pole, a suggestion by Kai Yung, founder of the Smart Telescope Underworld.
Northern observers who desire to polar align to the south celestial pole could reverse the direction of the red-dot finderscope on the Seestar base and point this finderscope at the north star, and then bingo, the Seestar would be pointing at the south celestial pole. One would have to figure out a way, though, to point the Seestar below the horizon, because the Sky Watcher wedge (that we use for our equatorial mount) will only allow you to point the Seestar above the horizon.
Just before publishing this video, we learned about apps (Polar Scope Align Pro for iPhone and Compass Steel 3D for Android) that can be used to polar align the Seestar, which would eliminate the need for a second red-dot finderscope. We've not tested these apps, but we mention them here in case some of you might be interested.
In this video, we describe a couple of small improvements to the equatorial mount assembly: • Seestar S50 Equatorial... .

[@GRILL332]

At -1 I’m not sure how long the lithium batteries will last. This is a great tutorial. Thanks

[@nertho]

Why are you polar aligning a Seestar S50 when it knows where it's at based on a compass alignment?

[@SensorSensibility]

Yes, it does know where it is based on the horizontal calibration, but when you take images over a long period of time, the field of view rotates, so when you stack the images, the stacking process aligns all of the images but they don't all cover the same area and you get weird artifacts in the corners due to this field rotation. When you polar align, you don't get such artifacts from field rotation.

[@caspase888]

This explains why i keep getting error when I tried to take Orion Nebula (after PA to Polaris).
Didn’t understand how to fix this?
I am in Northern Hemisphere.

[@SensorSensibility]

Yeah. When you polar align the Seestar in the northern hemisphere, the Seestar thinks it is at the north pole, and therefore cannot see anything below the celestial equator, such as the Orion Nebula. ZWO, if you're listening, please fix this.

[@SensorSensibility]

A contributor to the Smart Telescope Underworld Facebook group claims that you can use the Seestar to image the Orion Nebula from the northern hemisphere: ua-cam.com/video/tQRIVPq0CYU/v-deo.htmlsi=A8TkpiY4Cogwc9nA

[@EddieG-v4w]

history has shown us that trying to force something that is not native NEVER GOES WELL

[@SensorSensibility]

Except when it does, like when the LM module was used to save the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13). I'm with Ed Harris's character in the movie Apollo 13: "I don't care what anything was designed to do. I care what it can do." (ua-cam.com/video/XLMDSjCzEx8/v-deo.html). We've taken dozens of beautiful images, free of field rotation and with high frame acceptance rates, using our Seestar equatorial mount, and we're happy to assume any risks of such use because the images are better and easier to process than images taken in native alt-az mode. Folks over at Smart Telescope Underworld (facebook.com/groups/373417055173095) have successfully used the Seestar for spectroscopy, for which it was not designed. People may use their Seestars for the purpose for which they are designed, or they may modify them to do whatever they want with them. Will some of these uses void the warranty? Probably. But folks who are willing to take such risks have the potential to get more out of their equipment, and to learn something in the process.

[@BigPoppa-t3z]

Why destroy your s50 you put tremendous strain on the inner mechanism doing this over time. Plus the fact it's struggling all the time to align.

[@SensorSensibility]

Hundreds, maybe thousands, have mounted their Seestars equatorially, and I've not heard of anyone whose inner mechanism has been damaged.