SeeStar S50 captures deep house for Astro images newbies

I fought the thought of photographing deep house objects reminiscent of Nebulas and Galaxies apart from our personal Milky Way. My pal, Larry Gunn urged I dip my toe into the style with a tool referred to as the SeeStar S50. A fairly priced automated telescope/digicam that may navigate to targets routinely. I could be in bother now. I missed most of final evening’s sleep time probing the heavens…

Making picture in Sedona, Arizona

Last evening the skies have been clear in our Bortle 4 space. You find yourself with extraordinarily darkish skies while you level the digicam as straight up as you possibly can. The mild will all the time be extra intrusive close to the horizon. Targets that I photographed have been between 70 to 80 levels above the horizon. The solely processing I’ve completed is to make use of Adobe Photoshop after the jpeg stacked was downloaded to my digicam. Many of us who are usually not Photoshop proficient use the modifying capabilities of their cellphone to share captured photos. Even although this can be a shopper digicam/telescope it has some highly effective options.

Finding targets

When you might be on the lookout for what to {photograph} there are libraries with pattern photos type which to decide on. I’ll solely speak to the Nebula’s and Galaxies which I photographed final evening. I look via the library of targets to seek out ones which have extra curiosity for me. I.E. form, type and coloration. Checking to see that are increased within the sky is a crucial step when you’ve got mild on the horizon. Software constructed into the SeeStar S50 has all of that info and rather more.

Features

In addition to the library of issues to {photograph} the S50 additionally has a inbuilt heater which retains the lens from fogging up in humid conditions. It tracks and makes a number of photos out of your most well-liked topic. Then it stacks the pictures. You can watch because the picture builds in your cellphone display. Or, you possibly can go actually deep and as soon as the method is in place head into the home for a bit of heat and possibly a nap whereas the unit seize what is known as FITS which is the RAW file created. If you need greater than the created jpegs wo work with you possibly can obtain all the person frames for processing in any variety of software program applications. That could be for the arduous core many hours seize sort of individual. I haven’t headed down that street as but however can see myself working the recordsdata to tease out extra information and finally stronger photos.

Reasonable Price

For all of this functionality, as of this writing, the value is $549. It comes with a strong carrying case and a small carbon fiber tripod. All it is advisable to get began gathering photos from the heavens. Here’s a hyperlink to the SeaStar S50 at BHphotovideo.

I discover it fairly superb that this machine can discover and report photos from objects many thousands and thousands of sunshine years away. Technology that’s on show and is employed completely amazes me. Let me know what you concentrate on the pictures I used to be in a position to make with out an excessive amount of submit processing or too lengthy making captures. Looking ahead to studying extra and spending time visiting the heavens.

Yours in Creative Photography, Bob