68 replies to this topic

[Dwight J]

Just got my SeeStar and tried out the solar filter.  I put it down just outside my door and sat on the couch.  It found the Sun on its’ own and I auto focused.  Done.

[Rasfahan]

Judt as a heads up: After posting the review I contacted ZWO concerning the tilt. It has been a very tedious business trying to get definitive answers from them. Contact only occurs when I send another e-mail. Opening the Seestar and adjusting yourself is not possible according to their info. I‘m thinking to RMA but so far they haven‘t even answered the question if they consider that a defect (I do). I‘m hoping service could be done locally via TS but not holding my breath. Not a good customer experience so far, considering this has been going almost 3 months now. If you really have to buy ZWO (I won‘t again), buy locally.

[SeymoreStars]

Is the solar filter an extra purchase or does it come with the Seestar?

[Psion]

Solar filter is included with the telescope.

[Dwight J]

Took some night time images at our club site which is just outside of the city.  Despite the moon being almost full deep sky objects showed well in just minutes.  Five members were there and they were stunned at the quality of the images and how stupidly easy it was to get them. It was a frosty night (-7 C) but no frost on the body of the unit or lens.  The battery life was shorter as expected but no surprise there.  

 

[Dwight J]

And the usual suspect M42.  I had to crop in a bit to meet size guidelines.  Darn god with an almost full moon.

[mark379]

What skies are you in? City? Suburbs?  Bortle7-8? Or darker?

 

In case you haven't seen these posted elsewhere, these are the results of my 2 weeks ownership of a Seestar. All images are straight from the Seestar, no post-processing.  This is really a good introduction to EAA for beginners, or even an experienced user who wants an ultra-portable rig to take to deep sky sites.  Stacked FITS files also available at https://drive.google...6yX?usp=sharing

 

 

 

EDIT: And after some basic post-processing in Siril.

 

 

 

 

 

[tarbat]

  Bortle 3. Although significant cloud and haze when I took most of these images.

 

What skies are you in? City? Suburbs?  Bortle7-8? Or darker?

[Dwight J]

 

Due to boredom on the cloudy nights (5 in a row since getting Seestar) I played with the moon image.

[Rasfahan]

IMG_0039.jpeg

 

Due to boredom on the cloudy nights (5 in a row since getting Seestar) I played with the moon image.

Well, if you have another 9, that would prove once and for all that the Seestar qualifies as a „real telescope“.

Great moon, btw. I can never get the colors to pop so much

[floroembuido]

I got my seestar 2 days ago and tested it last night. I did noticed there is some kind of humming sound when I turned in on and hear it just after the voice prompt that it is ready to connect. I just wanted to know if this is normal behavior and yours do make the same sound. Here's the link of video https://youtube.com/...?feature=shared

Appreciate any feedback.

CS,
John

[Psion]

Yes that's right, they check the indexes on the engines.

[floroembuido]

Yes that's right, they check the indexes on the engines.

Thank you Psion for the feedback.

CS,
John

[dpo]

Thanks to Rasfahan and the others who added to this great review.  Very informative. 

I have some very old equipment from when "Go To was new" that I purchased a few years ago in an estate sale, but haven't had the time to get it all working. 

Lately, I've been considering the ZWO guiding equipment option to get my mounts & "go-to software" up to date, but as basic as this all-in-one device is, it is very tempting for the time I have to spend on "stargazing".  This sort of system might give me the "entry" that I need to get my act together.  I also think it might work as a grab-and-go system to take with me when I travel to the 2024 eclipse rather than haul all of my tripods, scopes and cameras . . . 

Thanks everyone!

[Leafus]

I love the Seestar. Incredible quality (for the money) images with zero hassle. Just what I’ve been looking for for years.

But it’s no comparison to the thrill of seeing objects with your own eyes. The thing is that the objects the Seestar can image mostly can’t be seen with your own eyes, such as faint nebula. At least not in the same way.
So for me the Seestar is a great companion to visual Astro. You can look at the grey fuzzy galaxy whilst Seestar gets a photo of what it looks like if you had a massive scope and perfect skies.
Awesome.

[Rasfahan]

Final heads up from me (I‘m the OP): After taking several months to get a response to me, ZWO decided that the severely tilted sensor „meets specs“. I‘m quite disappointed, with both the process and the result, especially since the defect is easy to see and impacts final results. I will no longer purchase or recommend ZWO equipment.

[Sixptelk]

I just ordered one of these. I'm impressed with what I saw in examples of images elsewhere as well as here. I used to shoot AP....too tiring. From the old school before GT mounts, digital cameras and computers we had to manually guide our images the old fashioned way with film cameras and OAG guiding. The pioneers in the field were Tony Hallas and Daphne Mount (now Hallas). They got some incredible images and still do. I really believe that for less than the price of a decent UWA eyepiece this is a decent unit. I have plenty of ZWO Pro cameras for EAA, Ioptron AZ and EQ mounts and a selection of scopes from 60mmEDs to 150mmAPOs going on up to 16". I've been very happy with the EAA views as well as the images produced with the smaller scopes. Not AP but then again EAA wasn't designed for that. I got the Seestar for trips to places I'd go and not be able to take one of my larger scopes. I think that if it does what I'm hearing and seeing I'll be very happy.

 

I did have the EV-2 at $5K and it went back after the first night I looked through that thing....

 

Any post editing that I want to do I simply run an image into ALR for around 15 minutes to deepen the FITS gray background and restore the washed out colors and contrast...I can do 30 complete images in a night. With all do hope this will be just the ticket for trips where all I'd be taking are 10x50 binos...

[AstroPotamus]

Does anyone know if the app can be moved to external storage on an SD card?  I have an older tablet that I want to use to install it that has plenty of space on an SD card, but not a lot of space on internal memory.  I can move some stuff around to do the install and then move it, but it doesn't show the option to actually move it.  It seems like having to forcing a 1.4GB program onto internal memory only is a design flaw.  I'm hoping I just missed something?

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

I am thinking about one of these, mainly for outreach but also to keep on my dresser to take out on my deck from the bedroom for about an hour in the night before turning it.  a lot of the year it is too cold to spend a lot of time outside, I am on blood thinners after my stroke.  To use my current setup (Skywatcher EQ6-R and several scopes) I have to go out to my observing pad, run the electrical, uncover the mount set up scope align etc and reverse to take down, this sounds almost as easy as going out on the deck with my binoculars but I can stay inside and warm.

 

I think it would be a good additional scope to take to the Seagrave Observatory in RI when I am helping with the eclipse viewing.  I will be taking my Lunt LS80 with laptop for viewing and LS50 for visual observing and this sounds like it would be pretty much a stand alone and people could look at the sun on my tablet.

  For outreach I used to almost fill my jeep with gear and setup and take down took quite some time, this sounds like a grab and go that would thrill kids.

    Mostly what you are showing stuff to are kids and they really don't get the faint fuzzies that we go crazy over. 

 

When I run the 16" Meade at the observatory for outreach nights I put a ZWO Camera on the spotting scope and tie it into my laptop giving a FOV similar to the EP view through the 16", kids 12 and under tend to be more thrilled with the view on the PC rather than through the EP and half the time on the EP they really don't see the object.

   This sounds like it would be like my use of the spotting scope with out all the extra stuff.

 

I was thinking I could probably get better results with my Canon mirrorless camera and various lenses, a laptop, star tracker, tripod, cables, battery pack more cables, table for laptop, more cables....

 

This one piece unit sounds like while not "professional" or the star of a star party would hold its own

 

There was a question I wanted to ask but can't remember it now.

[jprideaux]

I am thinking about one of these, mainly for outreach...

I used my SeeStar for a downtown (worst light-pollution possible) astronomy out-reach at the local science museum's "after dark kids program" where parents take their kids for an evening of science-related activities and my astronomy club sets up some scopes out front for people to check-out on the way in and out of the building.  

The moon was out.  One nice thing about the SeeStar is that for bright targets like the moon, you can just live-view it without stacking and it shows up nice on your mobile device.  I was "live-view" showing the moon on an 11" tablet where you can "pinch in" for a digital zoom.  The kids were having fun doing this as well as placing their hands to block the light in front of the SeeStar to see the image of the moon temporarily go away.     It was a fun night for all.  The kids would play with with doing this with my SeeStar and then go over to the other club member who has his 12" dobsonian for them to look at the moon through an eyepiece.

[StargazerLuigi]

Have you tried the RTSP in an outreach scenario?

[jprideaux]

Have you tried the RTSP in an outreach scenario?

I have only used a direct connection for outreach since I have only done outreach away from any networks for which I knew how to access (or places with no network).

[StargazerLuigi]

Makes sense.

 

A travel router is an option I suppose. But RTSP only works in solar or lunar mode now that I think about it. So if you're in 'gazing' mode it's not an option.

[jprideaux]

Makes sense.

A travel router is an option I suppose. But RTSP only works in solar or lunar mode now that I think about it. So if you're in 'gazing' mode it's not an option.

My prior comment was about station mode. But yes, I agree that RTSP (what I called live viewing) is only effective for the moon and perhaps the sun since they are so bright and you don’t need to stack just to see them.

Technically, I’m not really sure if RTSP is available in gazing mode or not before you press the button at start the stacking process. It might be though. The next clear night I will try that on m42 - probably the only DSO where RTSP could work all that well.

[ngc2218]

Judt as a heads up: After posting the review I contacted ZWO concerning the tilt. It has been a very tedious business trying to get definitive answers from them. Contact only occurs when I send another e-mail. Opening the Seestar and adjusting yourself is not possible according to their info. I‘m thinking to RMA but so far they haven‘t even answered the question if they consider that a defect (I do). I‘m hoping service could be done locally via TS but not holding my breath. Not a good customer experience so far, considering this has been going almost 3 months now. If you really have to buy ZWO (I won‘t again), buy locally.

Oh come on Rasfahan, did you expect 10M or AP level of support. It got my attention because I wasn't up to date, so to speak, to this "smart telescope" thing. Seems like a good outreach tool to get people excited for astronomy, I'm all for it, but I've seen some weird YouTube comments like how this new tech scares most advanced astrophotographers, like this will render a 17 inch Planewave system obsolete   

And what is so smart about it? WiFi, Bluetooth? integrated camera? phone connectivity?

People spend top $$ not to have wifi, bluetooth because they are not very reliable. Perhaps just a marketing hype, put "smart" in front of it and people will jump on it.