What is the limiting magnitude of the Seestar S50?

JohnIIIAstronomy

I recently purchased one, so I'm interested to know what the limiting magnitude of the telescope is. Since that affects how faint of an object you can observe and image with the smart telescope. And on the product's description, it doesn't list that number anywhere, so if someone knows what the scope's limiting magnitude is, I would please like to know. Thanks, John.

JohnIIIAstronomy

UPDATE: So, I did some searching online and found that the telescope can apparently achieve a limiting magnitude of approximately 15 under optimal conditions when using 3 minute (18x10s exposure) stacks.

Can someone confirm if this is indeed the case, or is the answer I found online incorrect and if so, what is the actual limiting magnitude of the Seestar S50 under optimal conditions?

sea_change

JohnIIIAstronomy Someone on the SeeStar Facebook group posted an image where they captured a mag 16 quasar. I do not know what their conditions were like.

qnhswS9I

JohnIIIAstronomy I wonder what about the S30 ?

KODA

I have tried to see what magnitude I could see with Seestar and was able to see up to magnitude 16.2, Bortle scale is 2-3.

JohnIIIAstronomy

KODA Thanks for the response with the image showing the magnitudes. According to Light pollution map, I live in a Bortle 4 area, so that probably means that the limiting magnitude from my location is 1-2 magnitudes dimmer than what you observed if I were to take similar length exposures to what you did.

Daemn42

Light pollution aside (the limiting factor for most people) you could also try longer true exposures, as Seestar can do 10, 20, 30s, but then it'll be a race against sensor noise, and depending on where you're pointed you might get some rotation artifacts.

starnet

The best I was ever able to achieve is magnitude 17 with a one hour exposure from Bortle 7-8. Magnitude 15 with 5 minute exposures is relatively easy.

Regulus136

Here are 15 galaxies in one image taken from a Bortle 5 area. A few ICs, like IC3311 or IC 3303, are magnitude 14.87 & 14.24, respectively.

Given this was also taken in such a short time frame, that should give you a good idea.