Had a brief look at the moon last night with the Seestar and as much as it was shaking and moving around I can't help but think that some of the scenery will change Grey... :-) My mission last night was to try the planetary mode and that is going to require some more practice and research I guess. It had read a recent software change had helped the planetary viewing and Jupiter was just hanging there so I mashed the right buttons and 15 seconds later there it was in mid screen. Only one moon that was occasionally viewable. Jupiter itself was just a white glowing orb. I played with the manual focus control and sharpened it up a bit and I had all four moons but still not impressed. My next step was to play with the manual exposure control and down the scale I went until the edges started to shape up and the bands popped into view. At that point I tweaked the focus a bit and it was a pretty good planet for a little scope like that. The only problem is that to crank down on the brightness of the planet, the moons disappeared. I think you need to be able to selectively narrow down the exposure to a certain area.. maybe you can but I don't know how yet. I also couldn't figure out how to capture an image from the planetary mode... another thing to research. I almost wondered if it wasn't allowing the image capture because it didn't seem to want to capture any subs, I think because Saturn was also doing the same dance around the screen. I don't think looking at a fairly steep angle through window glass was a big help on focus either. I did take a peak at Orion Nebula before shutting down. On a good night I think that has some potential.. flipping the filters in and out makes a remarkable difference. Mission accomplished though, I learned there some more things that I need to learn. Keeps me humble and interested...
That image definitely has been jumping. I guess in years past I maybe didn't bother doing anything when the breeze was up? I think once you take it out in better weather you'll be happier with the stability. My telescope has a goto mount, which I really like when I've had the chance to align it properly, but it's not exactly top of the line on build quality. You can pretty easily rattle the view when focusing (which is why I put a zip tie on it and focus with the long end of the zip tie), or if you bump it, but by gum once you get used to that and accept it, the scope has given me some great views. And you certainly won't be bumping the seestar with your when you're using it, so it's only the wind to worry about I guess.
