I'll be observing the total solar eclipse from Mallorca on August 12. I'd love to create a time-lapse video from the start of the eclipse until the fully eclipsed sun sets into the sea with the S50. However, since I have no experience yet with whether the Seestar is capable of keeping the sun in the center of the frame even as the eclipse progresses and whether it will remain there during the total eclipse phase (I would remove the filter during this time), I would be very grateful for any tips and advice on how to proceed. perhaps someone has already had experience with the S50 during other solar eclipses. It would, of course, be fantastic if ZWO were to integrate a special automatic mode for capturing solar eclipses into the app.

I am trying to understand a feature I see in the histograms of my Seestar S50 data, before stretching.The target is M57 (see my gallery if interested). I have two stacked images, one made from 20 s subs and one from 60 s subs. Both were stacked in Siril with drizzle 2× and default parameters for pixel rejection algorithm (GSEDT). The screenshots show the clean pre-stretch histograms in logarithmic scale.For comparison, I also attach the histogram of a single original Seestar light frame, not debayered, shown at histogram scale 1 and scale 10.What puzzles me is this: in the single light frame the histogram looks quite normal, with a broad sky-background distribution and a tail toward low values. But in the stacked RGB images, even in logarithmic scale, there seem to be absolutely no pixels below a rather sharp lower threshold. The histogram starts abruptly.Is this simply the expected result of stacking many calibrated Seestar frames — noise reduction making the background distribution much narrower — or could it indicate some kind of black-level clipping / pedestal handling / normalization effect in the Seestar FITS or in the Siril stacking process?I am not necessarily saying this is a problem; I am just trying to understand what I am seeing. Any comments from people familiar with Seestar FITS and Siril stacking would be very welcome.

Was just browsing and I saw the Celestron. I have the S50 and I've had it for about a year now I think? Any advice is appreciated.

Opening and shutting the S50 case had a squeak so I found a silicone grease made by NETLEA in China on Amazon. Near the hinges on the case corners rubbing on a light coat of grease solved my cringe feeling when the case would open a close late at night. In Hawaii nearly all the neighbors sleep with the windows open so now I don't have to worry about them waking up thinking it's that guy again.

Once the dew heater slider is on does the Seestar operate the heater straight away or does it wait until you are imaging? if you execute a plan does it come on straight away or when the plan commences?

M51 pinwheel galaxy.

i think its time that ZWO releases a bigger smart telescope. What additional features and upgrades are needed in such a release? From my prospective I think of the following: 1. Bigger battery. 2. Bigger camera senser frame. 3. Bigger aperture. 4. More memory. 5. Better tracking. let me know your thoughts

During live stacking — called “Enhancing” in the Seestar app — the app already gives some basic information about rejected frames, at least while the session is running.If one watches the app screen continuously, it is possible to see individual rejection messages such as, for example, “overexposed”, “star trails”, or “no stars”. After the message disappears, one can still tap on the total exposure time and see a basic summary of how many frames were accepted and how many were rejected.My suggestion is to make this information available also after the session, for example the next morning, or whenever the user decides to review or post-process the data.This would be useful not only out of curiosity, but also for learning and planning better future sessions. Knowing when frames were rejected, how many were rejected, and for what reason can help the user understand whether the problem was caused by dawn, clouds, obstacles, poor tracking, wind, field rotation, low altitude, or other factors.A very simple implementation could be just a log file, accessible through USB from a desktop computer. The log could list all acquired frames with a timestamp and a status, for example:acceptedrejected: star trailsrejected: overexposedrejected: no starsUsers who want to analyse the information could then process the log themselves.A more advanced and user-friendly implementation could be a graphical summary in the app: for example, a time histogram with 30-minute bins, showing the percentage of accepted and rejected frames, with different colours for the rejection reasons. For example:green: acceptedred: star trailswhite: overexposedgrey: no starsother colours for other rejection causesI understand that the Seestar was originally designed as a very simple “one-click” imaging telescope. However, many users are now using it in a much more advanced way, with manual post-processing, external software, mosaics, equatorial wedges, long sessions, and careful target planning.For this reason, I think that making more acquisition diagnostics available — especially in the existing “expert” context — would be very useful, without making the basic user experience more complicated for beginners.

How do I fix the Bortle level? The app makes it 5 when it should be 9.

Does Seestar have Hα SII OIII UHC filters? Would the photos be better with them on?