What is not to like about the Seestar S50? One can readily obtain amazing images with a highly portable telescope in little time.
Sure, the images are not going to compete with those from the Hubble Space Telescope, but that is not the point. The stacked images are consistently good.
I have included some wishes below, but these are to make the experience even better than it already is.
This is a well-designed optical system that, paired with a good sensor, an efficient mount, and highly-featured software, produces amazing results.
The system elements work together smoothly.
I guess just about anybody could use this telescope. Still, the more you know, the better things go. For instance, it helps to know where objects are in the sky, to know when they are best observable.
For my part, I have enjoyed expanding my mental model of the night sky to include objects that I could not see before, which I find rewarding and, well, kind of the point.
The carrying case with its form-fitting interior holds the mount, tripod, and filter securely, and requires little space in a vehicle. (There is enough space beneath the tripod to add a small accessory or two.)
My Seestar S50 in its off hours resides in my home office. When it is time to observe, I easily carry the Seestar S50, mounted to its tripod, outside, with one hand. Since I use the Seestar S50 in Station Mode when at home, I do not even necessarily have to take the tablet out in the yard. I just set the telescope on its tripod in a fairly level place and power on the system.
Most of my sessions do not outlast the battery, but when I really want to keep going I just connect a hand-held battery bank and charge as I go.
The filters are essential to counteract light polution and to see nebulae. The app even indicates (with a green circle in the object catalog) when to use the UV/IR Cut Filter (for imaging emission nebulae). With the Anti-Light Pollution Filter, I have been able to capture Pluto , and a distant supernova (SN 2024ggi), from my suburban backyard.
The plate solver works well, and sidereal tracking is good. Of course, there is field rotation with an altazimuth mount, but the image registration technique undrelying the stacking still works fine.
I generally do not hear the telescope slew. What I do hear is the voice status, which I do enable, albeit at a low volume.
The solar filter is super simple to use, fits the the aperture well, and produces solid results.
The first few months I did not use this feature, but it became necessary in the Texas summer, when I use it every night.
I enoy employing the telescope to image wildlife, in particular. I hope to do much more of this. There are limits, of course. The telescope does not focus up close. The field of view is small, and the autofocus routine takes a bit of time to complete, so the telescope is not going to be the tool to use to find a small bird that is moving rapidly. Still, what it can do is impressive.
This is handy for me and hopefully for my readers. It draws attention to items one might overlook, and names them. (See, for example, the marked image of M 86.)
This only works for fixed objects (not for comets, asteroids, or planets), but it is a handy feature.
Setting the Seestar S50 in Station Mode allows the controlling device (e.g., tablet) to be located anywhere on the local network and access the internet, while controlling the Seestar S50.
The method does depend somewhat on the file type, but for the most part my photos transfer from the Seestar S50 to my device (tablet) immediately. When I open my photo app the images are in the collection and upload immediately.
The app now supports adding a custom target by specifying right ascension and declination.
OK, this one is for the post S50 observatory, not the Seestar S50, of course. If a 50 mm refractor and a 2 MP sensor can do this, what can a system with a larger aperture telescope and larger sensor do? Just dreaming here....
Support for tracking comets and other targets moving at nonsidereal rates would be welcome. I'd like to see the coma of the comet stay sharp while the stars trail....
It would be helpful to add to the edge of the frame an indicator at least of which direction is north.
Where I most want this is on solar images. For these, I am not so much interested in celestial north as an indication of the solar north pole, to make it that much easier to demonstrate solar rotation day by day.
Certainly it would be good to selet T CrB directly this summer. Or select an asteroid from the catalog (one can already select an asteroid on the map.) Or pick any star, at least on the map.
A stargazing timelapse capability would make it simpler to capture the motion of objects moving with respect to the stellar background. Stack a few images, wait a while, and repeat.
Early on, I tried the feature that stacks RAW video images into a still image (of the Moon or Sun). The resulting image did not seem that much sharper to me than a snapshot image. Maybe I am not doing this optimally. Or maybe the snapshots are that good.
My understanding is that photometry is possible with the RAW images. Maybe an app feature could make that straightforward, so that many users would make light curves, either individually, or, better, collaboratively.