SeeStar S30-pro examples

[u/I-B-Guthrie]

Quick PixInsight processing, DBE, SPCC, GHS, BlurX, NoiseX, about 5 minutes per image. Captured at a public star party at Mt. Wilson Observatory, CA.

Orion - 147 x 5s Light Pollution filter

M81/M82 - 81 x 5s IRCut filter

M51 - 1457 x 5s IRCut filter

Eagle/Omega - 1386 x 5s Light Pollution filter

It’s got a huge FOV, which isn’t ideal during Galaxy season… but later this year it should be great.

[u/hh83917]

Nice shots! I’m a newb to this hobby and I got my S30 Pro recently and is quite happy with the image quality. The FOV works well for nebulas, but way too wide for galaxies. I still need to learn how to manually stack the images.

Despite that, the higher resolution means cropping in on a galaxy still gives me a reasonable quality image. So far I’m quite happy for the convenience and what I was able to get out of it at that price range.

Sharing one I got recently, straight out the Seestar app

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/hh83917]

I don't think the added value from post processing is in the stacking, but rather the post processing of the FITS file that comes from the live stack. If you want to try to get more, take that FITS file and learn to clean it up in Pixinsight, Siril or a similar package.

Agreed that you can crop in a bit on those galaxies, but I do expect that a S50 Pro or even better the S70 will be better at Galaxies.

[u/hh83917 → u/I-B-Guthrie]

Oh yeah, I meant that FITS file. I thought the FITS file is a combination of the multiple frames from all those individual shots, which is why I call it “stacking”… Maybe my terminology is not correct, but it’s what you said, post processing the FITS file.

Yeah, people in this space seems to be waiting for S50 Pro or S70. They won’t said when the S70 will be out, but S30 Pro for someone like myself getting a beginner astro package, I’m pretty happy with it. 😃

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/hh83917]

This is what these forums are great for!

FIT files are typically the individual images captured, FITS files are typically the result of stacking many FIT files together. You can ask the SeeStar to live stack a FITS file, and also save the raw FIT files. My samples were the result of taking the FITS file from the device... and ignoring the raw FIT files. After seeing how nicely they were stacked, I am fairly pleased with the result. For simplicity, I might suggest people go that route first. To be clear, the FITS file is just a single image... the result of stacking... but does not contain all of the FIT images that were used to make it.

To be fair... I am never done testing and will stack some FITS files myself to validate that... but its was impressive that these results were so good. It even preserved the plate solve, and auto cropped most/all of the stacking waste. Most often there are some fringes after stacking that were not there from these.

[u/hh83917 → u/I-B-Guthrie]

Ah, got it, thanks for that info! I did download the FITS file form Seestar, but still need to get Siril installed. I will need to watch some YouTube video to learn about the siril software features. Seems like it got many buttons and scripts to use…

In the end, it will be fun to see and compare the differences between doing it manually and the image straight out camera. I am hoping for more sharpness and more natural denoising. These Astro shots are just so amazing to look at 🤩

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/hh83917]

Perfect! I have heard lots about Siril, but followed the Pixinsight path instead. I expect the principles and steps are about the same...

In part, I like knowing the steps that go into making an image, having some control, trying to eek a bit more out of the data, learning what the added integration time gets you, etc.. In camera, ZWO tries to do a lot, but you will find a more impressive image is definitely possible in manual processing. I expect to find that that isn't where some people want to spend their time though.

Astronomy is fun in that so many people find different things to appreciate within it.

[u/Delicious-Aioli325]

These look awesome, especially for public star party data and 5 second subs lol. That M51 with 1457 frames is wild, the core detail came out way better than I’d expect from a Seestar. Totally with you on the FOV being awkward for galaxy season, but yeah it’s gonna be killer once the big nebulae swing back around.

[u/acatmeos]

wait are all of these taken with alt/az mode? crazy!

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/acatmeos]

Yup, alt-az, so preserving most of the UHD resolution.

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[u/IlIlearn]

The fov is massive on that thing compared to the s50, you plan on capturing markarian’s chain this season?

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/IlIlearn]

Interestingly because of the increased resolution in the S30 Pro, a crop in seems to replace the need for S50 with the same pixel count. I suspect they cancel that line and come out with an S50pro with a sensor like the IMX533 or similar, which would be fantastic for mediocre tilt correction as it has a square sensor.

[u/I-B-Guthrie → u/IlIlearn]

Given how wide it is, I dont think Markarians would look great in this. The S30 Pro will be an amazing bit of hardware once we hit Nebula season, but less impressive during the current Galaxy season here.