Smart Telescope
Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2024 9:38 pm
I’ve wanted to buy a camera and equatorial digital mount for my telescope for maybe over 10 years, but it’s always been far more money than I’ve been willing to spend, and it’s an extremely time consuming hobby.
However in the past few years smart telescopes have been coming out which I’ve been watching keenly. At first they were £3k, then £2k and then the one I bought direct from China was £350. A Seestar S50.
It’s a wonderfully constructed device. Carbon fibre tripod, nice knurled bits, built in anti dew heater, built in anti light pollution lens which it automatically uses if needed. 60gb hard drive and puts out its own WiFi which you connect your phone to. And it talks you through what it’s doing.
Started off with the sun:
Took a picture of the moon earlier, you can see the limitations of the 2mp sensor and there was also a lot of heat haze.
Going back to yesterday at twilight it recommended a galaxy, I was sceptical given it was still so bright you could only see about 4 stars with the naked eye. When it pictures deep space objects it takes 10s exposures, moves itself to counteract the rotation of the earth, takes another 10s exposure, analyses it and if it’s good it adds it to the stack. Yesterday I was getting a 50% rejection rate not helped with being under a flight path. But 15 minutes later I had an image of M51
Getting pretty dark and I fancy trying the Crescent nebula
I think my mind is blown almost as much at that nebula. Bloody heck that’s good.
Tried the M33 galaxy after that but I got too cocky, messed with the focus and it’s not as good. It’s really hard to focus and I’ve bought a lens to help with that for my next try.
Still, captured all that on a hot hazy night here, where it isn’t truly dark until after midnight. Amazing little bit of tech and my pictures are crap compared to what others are putting out so there is a learning curve to get the best out of it.
However in the past few years smart telescopes have been coming out which I’ve been watching keenly. At first they were £3k, then £2k and then the one I bought direct from China was £350. A Seestar S50.
It’s a wonderfully constructed device. Carbon fibre tripod, nice knurled bits, built in anti dew heater, built in anti light pollution lens which it automatically uses if needed. 60gb hard drive and puts out its own WiFi which you connect your phone to. And it talks you through what it’s doing.
Started off with the sun:
Took a picture of the moon earlier, you can see the limitations of the 2mp sensor and there was also a lot of heat haze.
Going back to yesterday at twilight it recommended a galaxy, I was sceptical given it was still so bright you could only see about 4 stars with the naked eye. When it pictures deep space objects it takes 10s exposures, moves itself to counteract the rotation of the earth, takes another 10s exposure, analyses it and if it’s good it adds it to the stack. Yesterday I was getting a 50% rejection rate not helped with being under a flight path. But 15 minutes later I had an image of M51
Getting pretty dark and I fancy trying the Crescent nebula
I think my mind is blown almost as much at that nebula. Bloody heck that’s good.
Tried the M33 galaxy after that but I got too cocky, messed with the focus and it’s not as good. It’s really hard to focus and I’ve bought a lens to help with that for my next try.
Still, captured all that on a hot hazy night here, where it isn’t truly dark until after midnight. Amazing little bit of tech and my pictures are crap compared to what others are putting out so there is a learning curve to get the best out of it.
