Can it do Lunar and Planetary imaging? ZWO Seestar S50
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- Pre-Order Links for the ZWO SEESTAR S50!
tinyurl.com/3n... (Direct from Maker/ZWO)
bit.ly/3Mf9pAU (Agena Astro)
tinyurl.com/53... (All Star Telescope)
bit.ly/45k7J1b (High Point Scientific)
Some free lunar and planetary processing software:
Autostakkert: www.autostakke...
Registax: www.astronomie...
Wavesharp: github.com/Cor...
PIPP: web.archive.or...
My initial impressions and first light: • The Budget Smart Teles...
The competing Dwarflab Dwarf II Smart telescope: amzn.to/47Ztwxf or bit.ly/3SyChXu
Support me on Patreon!: / cuivlazygeek
If you're planning on buying equipment (or anything from Amazon), it will help me if you first click the affiliate links below!
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Askar V Modular Telescope: bit.ly/3Imoq2M
or bit.ly/3GLuyR8 or tinyurl.com/2h...
ZWO AM5 Mount: bit.ly/3Qb5xVf or bit.ly/3JeVUkn
iOptron CEM70: bit.ly/431Ii2U (successor of my mount)
MiniGuideScope: bit.ly/3MyUJhn
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High Point Scientific affiliate link: bit.ly/3lReu8R
All-Star Telescope: bit.ly/3SCgVbV
Dwarf 2 Smart Telescope: bit.ly/3SyChXu
General Amazon Link:
amzn.to/3hTB5Ne
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I have just purchased a Seestar S50 and am learning how to use it and loving it!!👍🏽❤️
Wonderful! Have fun!
It's just amazing to me what this little and cheap robotic scope is capable of. Thanks for the video and Clear Skies!
Thanks Dave, CS!
They HAVE added a planetary mode which I will try this evening. NOT expecting much. I am on day three since it arrived and am super happy with Andromeda and the Moon from my driveway here in town! Worth every penny and then some if you want to photograph deep sky objects. Thanks for your videos….the very first review is what prompted me to purchase.
Looking forward to hearing about the planetary mode... thanks!
Enjoying your reviews. My S50 has been on order for several months. It should be a fun, portable unit to enjoy with friends.
I agree regarding planetary *surface* imaging. One aim I have with the S50 is detecting Pluto (mag 14.5 should be visible in urban skies?). I've never seen it by other means (rather low on the horizon at my latitude) and it would be useful to take images on successive nights to see its motion. Same with asteroids (Vesta, Ceres, etc). So the Seestar in astrophotography mode can still be very interesting. As always, your presentations are engaging, fascinating, accurate and honest. Great, job, Cuiv!!
Super interesting idea! I need to try this out!
Mag 14 è difficilissimo se non impossibile con quel diametro
@@Lorix_music I'm in a Bortle 7 region and in a 1 hour exposure last night in light high level haze on my S50, I can identify stars down to at least mag 15 against that essential app, Stellarium. Hard to believe, but that is the benefit of stacking.
Thanks so much, Cuiv. I really appreciate that you've devoted more time and expertise to the little SeeStar. My unit has been delayed until some time in December, but should be great for winter DSOs.
Meanwhile...You are a truly interesting guy. A Frenchman living in Tokyo creating astro imaging videos in English. I assume you have some kind of day job (and perhaps a companion) that brought you to Japan. It's great that you're able to play with the latest gear and software and present it all to your many followers. Best of luck to you! Michael
Thanks Michael! And you pretty much guessed well on all points! Often people believe UA-cam is my day job, but yeah no, I couldn't survive on UA-cam alone 😂
This little scope does so much, so well, for so little. Any young person with it and a laptop instantly can become a 21st Century Galileo Galilei ....
Thanks for posting this video. Showcasing affordable equipment serves the "up and coming" Astronomers of the future. What great and marvellous discoveries they will make!
Not just for any young person, but also for middle aged adults like myself who always wanted to get into it, but don't have the patience or time for doing it the manual way.
Yep, it's really a nice "jack of all trades" package at a really good price overall!
Thanks for the review. I use a Celestron 8" EdgeHD for planetary. This looks like a great way to get into deep sky for a minimal price.
That's a great piece of kit for sure!
Hi Cuiv, new subscriber here! Just wanted to say a bit thank and congratulations on the quality of your videos. It was thanks to you that was eventually convinced to purchase a Seestar S50 and finally started taking some cool space photos. I really appreciate how meticulous you are in your reviews, you cover all sides, both pros and cons, and always with a big smile and in a friendly and warm manner. Thank you once again!
Thanks so much and welcome to the channel! I hope you enjoy your Seestar!
Thanks!
Thank you!!
Thank you very much for your time that you spend to learn us something new ,clear skies.
You are very welcome!
I had a 90mm refractor and your images of Saturn were pretty much the same. Great video!
My dear fellow… your enthusiasm not only for discovery, but for teaching, as well, is always fresh and infectious. Thank you, Cuiv, for this additional update on the strengths and weaknesses of the little Seestar S 50. Though somewhere in the queue around number 2,000 (!) perhaps I'll receive mine before my birthday next January. Then the challenge will be Iowa's frigid winter. But I am having fun devising in my mind a shelter that may be heated just enough to bring the ambient temp. up to the unit's operating range. We'll "see!" (Or maybe we won't. But I am staying positive.) Clear skies to you! FH
I really hope you get it soon, good luck!
Looking forward to getting mine, maybe December. Will be fun to compare my regular little rig vs this gizmo.
Fingers crossed you get it soon!
Very cool! I have begun to like these smart telescopes, they are so good! Very well presented video Cuiv!
Thank you for the honest review.
Those pressure waves in the atmosphere are CRAZY!
For planetary no one escapes from old school planetary photography and huge telescopes. That's the way it is and it's beautiful also. Seestar is not simply designed for planetary, no it's not a fault, it's a physical imperative, you can't have a telescopes for planetary and deep sky at the same time, it doesn't exist.
Actually a modern SCT has a lot of versatility for both deep sky and planetary imaging. It can be outfitted with Hyperstar for F/2 or a reducer for F/7, or with a barlow for planetary.
That's pretty much it - although there are indeed ways to use large SCTs as DSO machines too :)
Why not?
@@shb7772000if It's too small an aperture.
Thank you for this vital information
Thanks for all your videos.
I think the Seestar has to shortcomings:
* No EQ mount (could be solved easily with a software update)
* Low resolution sensor (1080 x 1920)
I understand that you can't have everything for that price. However, I hope for a Seestar 100 ...
Great video! Station mode is available in the latest app ver where you can connect it to your local wifi for file transfer
I didn't know that, that's super cool!
On the Seestar website, it is mentioned in the review section that a newer version might come out with a planetary mode! No date mentioned.
another fine video by you. :-) Like you i think that i like the moon shot of the left... seems more natural.. like the end part of this video. very COOl
Great video! Thank you.. I heard that ZWO will be adding a mozaic mode to the Seestar.. It will be an exciting journey to see what ZWO adds in future firmware's..!
That would be cool!
Great as always!
Thank you! Cheers!
As i've mentioned in another one of your videos, I recently ordered an S50 (eta sometime next month hopefully); but..since then, I've also ordered an 8" dob; two very different scopes for different purposes :)
Thanks for putting that little scope through these tests! Zwo not doing a wedge firmware is really missing out.
Is there such a thing as a smart telescope like this, but with a focal length suitable for planets?
Probably the God of astrophotographers declared madness on the Moon... I, too, succumbed to the general lunar psychosis and photographed it the other day))
You too, huh? Couldn't resist practicing with my Canon rp...
Hahaha well the Moon is a bit of a diva
Another great youtube , The Astro Junkies wish to bestow you with an honorary life membership. please look at the palm of your hand, next lift it up above your shoulder , now pat yourself on your back. congratulations ! PS I have been asked to ask you to do a video about the seestar and how to set up the station mode so that wee can link via sharpcap . A daunting task but you are up to it. once again congratulations on your astro Junky honour.
I have patted myself on the shoulder, thank you :p
Great Video! I can’t believe it. I am still waiting for mine to arrive from pre order 😫....... it’s a month and a half overdue 😪
Ooh I'm so sorry it's so late... hopefully ZWO can get it to you soon...
Thanks for that!
No problem!
Excellent video and content - what is your accent btw? French? Swedish? My wife loves it and her S50. Very interesting about image scale & pixel size & focal length - have you a video that explains this more for beginners? Good stuff subscribed! And thanks $
Thanks Randall! It's a French accent :-) Glad she's enjoying her Seestar! I have a recent video about that, it's a bit complex though and from the perspective of deep sky imaging! ua-cam.com/video/1I5V3-ePs94/v-deo.html
Unfortunately, you have to accept the compromises of this small smart telescope, after all, a telescope suitable for photographing the moon and other planets costs at least three times as much as this one, not counting the mount and camera. Anyway, thank you for your enthusiasm which is really contagious. 😊
Exactly! :)
I'm looking forward to a much larger version. Something with a real punch, 80 to 100mm objective.
If ZWO don't make it someone else will. Maybe Iopton.
One of the great things about Autostakkert! is that there are 4 boxes that you can fill in to choose % frames stacked (plus another 4 for number of frames stacked). Therefore, rather than just stacking 10% as you did,, you could choose 10, 20, 30, 40%, or whatever you liked, all in one pass, and get all four results presented and choose the best. The analysis graph gives you a clue of how good your data is.
I have a ZWO planetary camera (as that is my thing) and it comes with ASI Studio which I find even better than Autostakkert! and super quick. You can only one process one % stack at a time though. Is that software available with the Seestar?
Thanks for the tip! No idea about ASI Studio maybe I should try it out!
You could use a polariser filter to get better planetary images to cut down the over exposed image and pinch zoom
still tempted, but wait time is silly...so will stick with my dwarf 2 and equinox...great video number 2 lol
If you already have those there is no rush for sure!
Thanks so much
I'm from Brazil and there aren't much videos about SWO Seestar S50..
Fascinating to see shock waves in the air across the moon. Have you ever tried enlarging the individual pictures before you integrate? I know this is a way with regular photography to increase resolution with stacking.
Autostakkert can do that for you via Drizzle algorithm! Still not a large change
@@CuivTheLazyGeek - Thank you.
Great video! 💪
I have one doubt, sorry if is silly😅 can you take photos of the milky way ? Like,im talking about the same type of photo you can take with a good camera or a powerful smartphone?
Thanks Cuiv!
No worries!
The great thing about the planets is you do not need something like a Seestar to show them to your friends and neighbors. The SeeStar will show you deep sky objects in a way that, at least visually, no visual-only, portable telescope can. Even quite large telescopes cannot collect enough light and our eyes and brains cannot accumulate signal in a way that a electronic telescope like SeeStar can for deep sky objects. However, when it comes to very bright planets, the view is immediate in even the smallest, cheap telescope. There is no need for stacking frames to boost the signal from objects with inherently low surface brightness. In my experience, the visual view of planets through a telescope is better than the frame rate-limited view you get on a screen. Our brains can become quite good at "stacking" the best details of bright objects like the moon and planets when we view through a telescope in real time. Combined with the wet processors we have inside our heads, a relatively cheap 60mm telescope anywhere will best the planetary results we can expect to see with the Seestar. That's absolutely OK. That same cheap 60mm telescope can be near useless for hundreds or thousands of deep sky objects the SeeStar can show us.
Celestron should really make a c6 based smart Telescope for planetary (if they would sell that for abt. $1000 a LOT of people would buy it )
Just want to say I am viewer number 1 :) thank you Cuiv
Woohoo,well done! :)
I am interested when ZWO may be adding plantar focus and lunar/solar focus routines to the ZWO EAF section in ASIAIR
I clicked on your purchase link from your first review, and was added to there list. They're Canadian, I'm in the US. They eluded to possibly having stock. I don't want to buy outside US , just because of confusion with currency exchange etc. I'm on Highpoint's waiting list. No word from them with Availability.
The beauty of using a telescope is to look inside it and see with my eyes the sky.
With this telescope you see things looking to your smartphone/notebook: where is the difference to watch a video on youtube?
I completely understand where you're coming from - but try to use your telescope from the middle of the city on faint fuzzies.... It's a tough choice, but in the end everyone can enjoy what they prefer
Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I‘d like to know what a Seestar or Dwarf user should use to add planetary, lunar observation to her/his portfolio? Maybe a not so expensive and portable (mobile) solution.
Distant fireworks moving the telescope! That's insane.
It's super cool right?! Sound waves can be powerful!
Hi Cuiv! , great video again , im being swayed more to the seestar than the dwarf2 but both good it comes down to your own preference . Just wandering will you be doing a video on the latest updates on the seestar s50 . Thanks again 👍😀
What an awesome product! Do you think they will be able to update it somehow to do planets eventually? At least for Jupiter and Saturn? But i just came across your channel and am blown away by just the Sun and Moon alone. Thanks!
No because of the alt/az mount. It will always suffer from that "stepped" tracking.
If these are as successful as I think they’ll be, I wouldn’t be surprised if ZWO eventually offers a range of these. Something like an S80 and/or S100.
Aperture is not enough for planetary, you need extreme long focal lengths and that makes absolutely impractical and more expensive any kind of tracking system, especially if it's alt-azmuthal, since your FOV is so tiny everything needs to be more precise.
We'll see what they do - the fact they have the "S50" moniker in there is telling indeed. But as Mike mentions, it likely still won't be great for planet. Honestly for planets you want an 8inch telescope or larger :) I mean you can get good results with smaller scopes and long FL (like Maksutov) but these wouldn't work on a DSO machine...
@@MikeViker agree about planetary and I personally use a C8 for that, but let’s not underestimate ZWO. They obviously have the expertise and willingness to innovate. Guess we’ll see what they do. I think the possibilities here are expansive.
Noticed a few quirks with lunar on Seestar. Processed it in a two ways: first, i ran video through PIPP and debayered it separate from AutoStakkert, and got an image with a bluer tone. Then i just now processed it entirely through AutoStakkert and got near identical results. I noticed there’s a bit or a reddish hue in both yours & mine however.
So currently it’s looking like i either get a moon with a blue hue, or a red hue.
But with some processing trickery i was able to get a mineral moon with a blue hue with the seestar!
Blue hue? Boo hoo! 😉You have to experiment with the bayer matrix. PIPP offers GBRG, BGGR, RGGB, GRBG choices (under Input options tick Debayer monochrome frames). But there is no consensus as to which corner to start reading the 4x4 matrix or which direction to read). So all you can do is try each one and pick the (only) one that doesn't give a blue or purple hue. In Autostakkert its under Color uncheck "autodetect" and experiment with the 4 Force Bayer options. Good luck!
Is there anything that can be done to S50 to improve capability? Is the camera the limiting factor? Any way to add focal length externally that will help? Planitary? I would love to say wow when looking at Saturn. You're the smart one. Any hope. Or am I heading down that astrophotography black(actually green) hole. Thanks.
Hello shopping for my first telescope and keep landing on the S50. However if it is not ideal for planet viewing, which telescope can do a better job of checking both boxes - distant nebula etc and local planets?
That's really hard - if you want purely visual astronomy (no camera involved), you're willing to train your eyes to see very faint details, and you live in an area with fairly dark skies, something like the Celestron 8SE is great for both.... But it's visual only.
It would be an interesting test to see the results if you were to batch crop the moon raws edges so what ever reason for the weird right hand edges wasn't calculated in the stack.
I can't get Registax to open the RAW video file of the Moon recorded by Seestar. Maybe I should give autostakkert a try instead
It seems that there is a new, planetary mode in sseestar app!?! 😊😊😊
Thank you for the video! I’m eager to see what you can do with this scope. I have pre-order one myself, I should have it by November, in time for Orion and the Pleiades.
Also wanted to have it for the 2024 N/A Eclipse.
Do you think we will be able to see details on the sun? What about putting a Ha filter if that exist?
The sun definitely shows sun spots and can have some details - I wish I had a single band Ha 3nm filter to test but I don't!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek Neat! I’ve seen people creating 3D printed filter holder, and I wonder if we could try to put a filter above the sun filter. Something I’ll definitely try to do if it’s safe :)
Are you planning to visit the the US to observe the total eclipse on April 8th.
Is there any smart device for our solar system? For planets and for the stars that are visual with our eyes?
I’m not very interested in deepsky and objects far away and “unknown”, but I’m very much interested to bring the objects closer that I already see with my eyes - some planets form example.
Is there any device that brings the planets close in a good quality?
I was testing it last few nights too. Not so great for dimmer nebulae. Wind sensitive too. I am wondering if it chooses the frames based on the shapes of the stars or if it has accelerometer and refuses frames that were shaken. I wish it would have derotation device that would derotate the frame after each 1 degree of rotation or even better if it would rorate the frame as it goes, but that would require higher precision. For now swithich to 2x1 mosaic mode after 1h of taking photos to compensate for field rotation would be great too. Or advanced planning for multiple nights and multiple targets with the same orientation of the field of view. That would sort out the biggest downside of SEESTAR - extensive cropping of already small resolution image in the post processing because of the field rotation and resulting image degradation.
Yep the derotation would make it better. Agree on the wind sensitivity, also mentioned in my videos. I think it chooses based on star shapes but can't say for sure. When I tested the single frame saving feature it only saved the successful frames... :-( I'll give feedback to ZWO on that
Hi Cuiv, bought the Seestar S50 after watching your video. am disappointed that it doesnt have planetary mode but as you said, maybe they will add the feature in future. I was downloading Stakkert but realized that there are versions 4, 3 and 2. Any advice how to select version? many thanks.
atanph
Wondering if a Barlow lens could be attached to increase the magnification a bit.
Would it be possible for ZWO to add video stacking to the telescope? My astrophotography knowledge is limited so I don't know if that is even possible, but would be really cool if they could do that.
I saw that a firmware update was released that allows for longer exposure times, more than 10 secs.
I’m curious. Will the Seestar work if I put it on star tracker? I know it is built on an alt-az mount, but if I had it also on a sky watcher star adventurer, could I take advantage of the longer exposure times? Thanks!
Interesting.
There is planetary mode now.
Can you make a recommendation or link a vid for planetary telescope? For a complete noob
Could you not add a lease in front to help the focus length?
Thanks for the great videos, am looking to get a smart telescope but cant decide between the Dwarf and Seestar, any idea which one you would choose if you had to choose one
You might want to choose Surface rather than Planetary in AS next time (for the moon), as well as a lower laplace, since your data was so good. Just a couple of thoughts
Thanks for the tip!! Will try that
They added a planetary mode are or have you made a new video on it?
Hi
Hope all is well
Would be interested to know how your are working out with the Dwarf Lab2
Would love to get your views on it after several months.
I just received the dwarf lab but frankly it’s not in my view truly beginner friendly so I have a steep learning curve
Thanks
Can you zoom in on the craters on the moon and get clear images?
unlike how you can set the exposure time on the dwarf2.. i heard the seestar is set at 10 seconds regardless.. does anyone know if they ever plan to change this to adjust it to what you want? also i recall you making a method of changing the dwarf2 into a diy eq mode/wedge by tilting it and such. any way to do this with the seestar too? might not matter if we cant alter the exposure atm.
I’m going to get one of these just for the moon and Sun! I wish I could see more planets but honestly is there anything to see that I can’t see from Hubble? I’m also interested in catching the ISS, I doubt the tracking is that good but it would be interesting.
Hi, great video as always. I am a complete novice to astronomy and I have never owned a telescope but I am fascinated by the smart telescope. I wonder if you could try and help me understand why the zwo can image DSO’s but not planets. Is it because planets only reflect light and stars emit light. Are the planets too close? If so how come you can image the moon, which is very close? I am confused and feel completely ignorant. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Quiv mentions the pixel size bring small, planets would only take up a few pixels, plus 250 mm focal length is meager. DSOs are much larger comparatively.
As David mentions, it's a problem of size. The apparent size of planets is tiny because they're so far away - people seem to always be surprised by that. They're super bright so are not disturbed by light pollution, but you need to zoom in a LOT to finally get surface details!
Could it be on option to add a cheap tele lens as you can get them for your smartphone?
It should in theory be possible. However this could mess with the balance of the scope, and potentially completely overwhelm it's tracking capabilities...
So I'm thinking about getting one of these. But I am very much a novice. I like your presentation I'm going to hit up a few of your videos and compare it to the Dwarf try to figure out which would be better for my simple needs. I would like to be able to get the planets of course. So now on with the video 😊
-Oh and I'm so glad that getting on the moon is super easy, barely an inconvenience. If you know you know
😉😂😂😂
For a complete beginners, as things stand right now, I'd recommend the Seestar over the Dwarf II. But it you like to tinker the Dwarf 2 can also provide excellent results!
@@CuivTheLazyGeek lol nope the less tinkering I have to do the better for everybody 😄
Hi have you tested the full moon, because with my seestar the moon is too bright and we only see a very bright white disc even if I set the brightness setting to minimum thank you
Is it possible for them to release an addon (like a len) of some sort that you can put where the filter goes that can enable planetary viewing?
No. It has too short a focal length for planets.
You should try running BXT on the moon. You will be surprised... :-)
I'll try it, but why does it even work?? It has no stars to estimate a PSF
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I would guess it estimates the small craters. Even if you do not use the Auto PSF estimation, you could set the psf manually with great results. Disable star sharpening slider though by setting it to zero. 🙂
Also, use it on the unprocessed image for best result.
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Does the Seestar use open source software improperly like the Asiair?
How would I check that?
@@CuivTheLazyGeek I've replied twice with links to the indi forum and "search zwo on the indi forum" wtf?
Is the Dwarf II any better at looking at planets? What would be your ideal setup to photograph planets if on a budget?
no the dwarf has a much wider field of view so the planets are very very small.
No the Dwarf II is worse at planets with the smaller focal length...
I'd probably go with a Celestron 4SE if on budget, 8SE if not so much. Together with a QHY 715C or equivalent. Or an 8 inch or 10 inch Dobsonian if you don't mind tracking the planets manually!
Does their software run on Macs or Linux?
How well will this work on Milky Way pictures?
I want to know this as well!
I want to get it
But I know they’ll make another version that will blow this one out of the water loo
interesting device, but resolution is really low for 2023
Please. Please stop! You're gonna make me buy it and my wife's gonna be mad, again
Hahaha just resign yourself to it 😂
Artificial images. How's this possible
I've verified they're real images - of course I can get far better images with my (far) more expensive equipment
@CuivTheLazyGeek hi, have you tried to use some external filters like Optolong l-enhance or Svbony 220? I saw some people that used with great result
I tried a dual band narrowband filter, but the internal filter results were better, I think my filter wasn't square. I'll have to check again!