For future reference, it helps if you don't start shooting until astronomical dusk, which is the time when the center of the sun is about 18° below the horizon and the sky is considered "dark" so that you can shoot without the sun lighting up your images. You can look up the time of astro dusk (and astro dawn, which is when you should stop shooting) online. For example, my telescope is at Starfront Observatories near Rockwood, Texas. Sunset tonight is at 8:44PM and sunrise at 6:32AM. But astronomical dusk is at 10:23PM and astro dawn at 4:53 AM. So I'll shoot only between those hours.
Thanks for that good information. I did notice that I had to delete a couple dozen subs at the beginning of my session :-)
I am somewhat limited because the Seestar S50 really has no ability to schedule a session. I will try waiting until more like 10:30p. This will take the session to ~3:30a which should still be dark when the low battery level triggered auto-shutdown happens. It seems as if ZWO could easily program their internal computer to allow for scheduled sessions and then do a graceful shutdown...
I am slowly researching and assembling a more capable "traditional" ASIAIR based system which will hopefully be able to schedule my sessions to take better advantage of the dark hours. Now I will need to descend the much deeper software rabbit hole. Fun stuff!
Edited by mourip, 16 June 2025 - 10:10 AM.