Peter Chappell- SeeStar S50 review

At one of the Wiltshire AS viewing evening at Lacock before Christmas, a member brought a long new astronomy equipment (to me), turns out it was the SeeStar S50 All-in-one Smart APO telescope. The pictures he got on his mobile phone looked very good. That was about all I thought about the product until around the Christmas period when I thought I could get one as a present for myself. I placed an order with First Light Optics for £539 (standard price in the UK) but had to wait about 10 days as they were out of stock at that time.

The SeeStar arrived about two weeks later, took it out of the box, I was surprised how small and light (around 5 kg with tripod attached) it was. It comes with a 50 mm f5 apochromatic telescope with electric focuser, digital camera and intelligent controller to name a few. First thing I did was too charge up the telescope, it will last up to six hours in the field? While this was happening I down loaded the App to my phone, you need a smart phone to operate the SeeStar. Later on I connected both together via Wi-Fi, so I could operate the telescope. The instructions were fairly simple to get started, I had to view a couple of YouTube videos to help me out. After that it was just a case of waiting for a clear night so I could get out and try the kit out.

First clear night and I was free turned out to be the 16th of January, so I went outside on to my driveway and set up the telescope following the instructions I read. I used an umbrella to shield the telescope from a street light right outside my front garden, anybody going past would be wondering what I was doing! The sky from my front garden was limited by houses, trees and street lights, my first target I tried was M76, the Little Dumbbell in Peruses, while doing it self-checks it was not happy with the levels but I let it carry on and see what would happen it takes a dark frame first and then light frames which are either 10, 20 or 30 seconds long. I went for a session of 10 minutes using 10 second pictures and see what I could get at the end, several times it dumped a picture as it was not happy with the result. In the end I did get a picture of M76 which I had to blow up so I could see the nebula on the screen of my phone, it was not bad at all, I expect with some post processing the picture would be much better (something I am totally useless at before you start asking)? Could not go to M42 as that object was still behind a roof, so I tried for M45, the Pleiades. Unfortunately I only got a few stars in this large open cluster, the subject was too big? The following night I went out for a viewing session with my Meade telescope and took the SeeStar with me. After doing the set ups I let the telescope do its bit on some subjects, as I had problems with cloud being around, I had a go at IC434 better known as the Horsehead nebula an object I have never seen with my own eyes, yet! I left the telescope run for approx. 17 minutes on this object and the result was pretty good, I had a half phase Moon to deal with in the sky. Following this I went on to M42 and the amount of colour it brought out was very surprising, all I see with my eyes is stars and grey dust lanes. I still had the odd error come up around some pictures that the controller dumped. A few days later I was speaking to Damian, the chairperson of Swindon Stargazers and I found out he had one and was willing to help me out one evening. So we arranged a time and date and went off to his house for some instruction. Seems like I was not setting up correctly to start with, Damian took me through the set up and I made mental notes which I put to paper later on. We had a go at the Rosette nebula (NGC2244 or Caldwell 49) and after a few shots we started to get good detail from this open cluster and associated nebula. That was the only picture I took with Damian as I did not want to take too much time from him as he was take pictures as well that evening. Since the night with Damian I have not been able to get out and try the SeeStar for myself but I think with the notes I have made, I should not have any trouble setting up?

For the price, I think this is a great object, the pictures are very good as the unit as an auto focus which I have not mentioned before, you can store the pictures on either the unit or phone and it is very mobile. It also comes with a solar filter, so you can view the surface of the sun, fitting the filter only takes a few seconds, built in dew heater and good carrying case.

If you have the money spare, it is a worth well object to buy, might even come down in price in the future if newer models come out? I have included some pictures I took with the SeeStar as they come from the unit to my phone with no processing. Only real downside I could up with, no good if you are doing visual viewing at the same time as viewing the phone screen you could lose night vision?

Peter Chappell