Seestar stuff

[helicon]

A bunch of members of our local club have purchased Seestars recently. Last night a member posted an excellent rendition of Bode's Nebula taken with the Seestar. Bode's Nebula is an obtuse name for M81. M82 the cigar galaxy was in the same pic. He posted to our Google Groups page. A couple of folks pulled all nighters on Thursday and did lots of imaging as it was clear all night (which is a rarity) in spite of the moonlight really impressive stuff. For several members it was a Eureka moment for EAA which is a tune that many seem to be singing these days. I know Gordon has one and it seems to be highly effective in spite of the relatively modest aperture. Anyway just sharing a moment.

[Gordon]

Many people consider them a 'toy' telescope. Don't let that small size fool you. It does capture some great images!

[OzEclipse]

I agree with @Gordon and Michael @helicon.

I don't own a Seestar or similar however, I love using 135mm and 300mm telephoto lenses with a DSLR for astrophotography. These two lenses sit either side of the Seestar S50's 250mm f5 triplet objective.

Regular astrophotographers can simulate the Seestar using selective cropping of photos taken with larger sensors & camera lenses of similar specs.

Example:
This image of M100 is taken with a 300mm f4 telephoto lens and a DSLR. My image has been cropped down to copy the sensor size/FOV of the Seestar S50. I stacked 10x2min images in Photoshop then used Topaz to deNoise and Sharpen.

cheers
Joe