polar alignment/ Eq wedge.

Mr Spook

It would be great for the ability for polar alignment and a Eq wedge for the Seestar, the wedge could be made part of a tripod that's sold as a upgrade to the Base Seestar S50. gps data can be gleaned from the smart device conected to the Seestar S50 in order to tell the use at what angle to set the wedge. Making it more plug and play for the user.

BZFrank

I second that request. Please add an 'expert mode' that allows EQ use. This mode can be hidden deep in the menus, so normal users do not encounter it during normal operation.

From the software side it should be easy enough to implement, only 2 additional settings would do the trick:

Allow to set the GPS coordinates manually, not from the smart phone. For EQ mode we would just set it to the north (or south) pole.
Allow to image objects below the "horizon". This would make more southern objects accessible in EQ mode.

This addition will make the Seestar much more interesting and useful, especially for people growing with the hobby.

starnet

I would not hold my breath, this has been requested before. The S50 mechanics were not designed with this unbalanced EQ orientation in mind and this might lead to premature wear of the azimuth gears and increased repair costs for ZWO.

pupak

A single bearing stored in plastic on the Ra axis. You bought a toy, so don't expect the functions of a professional device from it. The SS50 works well as designed, although the backlash in the gears is pretty terrible even for a toy.

BZFrank

According to the Seestar EQ thread in the Cloudynights form ZWO has already verified that the bearing is mechanically strong enough to handle this operation. People (including me) have operated their Seestar in this way without issues. ZWO just warns against the tripod tipping if not done correctly and this may be their main concern.

So why not put at least these two settings into the app? ZWO does not have to call it EQ mode officially. Except for the horizon issue I can already fake another GPS location in the phone and use the Seestar in EQ mode this way. But giving us these setting would make it easier for those people smart enought to try it. 😉

pupak

The bearing is solid, but the storage in the plastic and the plastic shaft of the Ra axis is not solid. Is it designed for purely axial load and more radial force due to clearance in the bearing of the same, or will it lighten the worm gear, resulting in more clearance, or friction and both are wrong. It will work for a while, but it won't last very long with frequent use in EQ mode. It's up to everyone if they want to risk the wasp leaving after a few months.

Julio939

Oh yes, please. To begin with, it would be enough to allow observation "below the horizon". Thank you so much.

Zandar

EQ shouldn't be too difficult to implement in software; I imagine the holdup is making sure the hardware side is correct.

BZFrank

From my perspective as a software developer I believe you are right, at least the "Don't check for below the horizon"-feature would be trivial to implement. It won't even cause any mechanical issues in AltAz.

starnet

BZFrank The list of features it would be trivial to implement in software but ZWO never does is quite long. Let's see:

Have an option to save all the RAW frames, not just those successfully stacked
Save 10 second RAW frames even when not tracking star movement - just go to RA/Dec position, stop any movement and continuously save 10-second RAW frames, how hard can that be from a software point of view, we are asking ZWO to remove, not add "features" - there are so many interesting things that could be done with this absolutely trivial change, like spectroscopy, wide angle image capture and mosaics, detection of very short period variable stars, etc. Yes, each image will have star trails but they are short and can mostly be removed through de-convolution if the SnR is good enough
Support Equatorial Mode, the subject of this particular post - all you have to do is recognize that in this mode it is OK to track even below horizon
Do not stack frames that contain satellite trails
Provide automation so that the S50 can capture images without a human present
Make the S50 controllable from Stellarium, we already know this is possible, despite ZWO's efforts otherwise
Provide remote control features, so the S50 can be used remotely over the Internet, not just from BlueTooth or WiFi range
Make the SeesStar/S50 API open source - this is such a no brainer move, it costs nothing in terms of software development, has no disadvantages for ZWO (SeeStar app is free anyway) and only benefits the company and the product (create an ecosystem, sell more units, gain market share); by keeping development closed and excruciatingly slow (no real new feature in 6 months), ZWO are literally sabotaging their own product, it is only a matter of time until somebody else comes with a competing telescope in the same price range but with the features we have been asking for all these months.

I could go on and on and on, but even one of these eight points would make my day and I have been waiting for 6 months already and nothing is happening. I like the S50, very much so, but I have to tell you, if ZWO does not add all these features really soon, I do not see myself as a ZWO customer in the immediate future.

BZFrank

I concur. Given there is no response from ZWO here (not even that they are considering it), the answer seems to be a silent but adamant "no". Very disappointing.

unixnut

Having tried EQ mode successfully I find myself reverting to AltAz mode again. The reason is that I find field rotation gives a larger and more rounded final image. What people are trying to avoid (field rotation) I find enhances the image. Example raw of 2 hours on NGC6946 below which in EQ mode would be the usual narrow proportions:

clipper99

unixnut With a butt-load of rational noise very evident in the top left/bottom right, the left and right edges and some less so but still there in the top right/bottom left, which is all normally cropped out. You were able to try to hide a lot of it by crushing the background. Don’t get me wrong, it still looks decent, but I would rather have 2 hours on target with no rotation. If I wanted to emulate the aspect ratio of your photo I could also do a mosaic and in either case, I have a clean image in all my corners.

BZFrank

Still no feedback from ZWO regarding this functionality?