Gaia BH1, the closest black hole to Earth

starnet

Discovered in 2022 by Gaia, BH1 is the closest known back hole (for now), at 1565 light years. With a mass of 9.6 Suns it has a radius of 28Km and as nothing is currently falling in it, is invisible. However, it has a star companion, almost a twin to our Sun, a G star with 0.93 solar mass and 0.99 solar radius, which orbits the black hole at a distance of about 1 AU in 185 days, and this star we can see. It is quite faint, magnitude 13.7, but something the S50 can definitely see. It is right in the middle of this seemingly banal starfield in the constellation Ophiuchus:

Here is a zoom in (as far as the SeeStar app will let you, which is not much), with the arrow pointing to BH1:

For reference, here is the Stellarium screen shot with BH1 marked with a cross:

If you want to check this out yourselves, all you have to do is enter the RA=17h 28m 41s and DEC=−00° 34′ 52″ coordinates in SkyAtlas and press GoTo - wait, I forgot you cannot do that, but you can watch an animated spinning wheel while you fly through a starfield at multiple times the speed of light instead!

starnet

starnet If a GoTo RA/Dec function is so difficult to implement, what about something even easier - in SkyAtlas you always have a red Target rectangle, with a red cross in the middle, just display the RA/Dec coordinates of the red cross at the top of the screen, how hard can that be? Instead of entering coordinates manually we could pan the screen until the red cross points to whatever we want to capture. If a target is not in the searchable SkyAtlas data base, and BH1 is not, there is no easy way to make the S50 point to that target.

ZWO, give me at least this minuscule improvement in the ease of use and I will stop asking for mosaic mode and automation, I promise.

AstroImg@ZWO

starnet We are already developing the mosaic function and it will be available soon.

rvergara

Actually with the latest firmware you can set a custom object using RA/Dec and then go to the object.

starnet

I see, but have you tried to use this new feature? It only accepts JNow coordinates, while J2000 are more common. You can add a target as a custom object, but if you made a mistake you cannot edit it and more importantly, you cannot delete an entry once added. It sort of works, but not really.

LA3QMA

starnet you cannot edit the RA/Dec later but you can delete it. So maybe the next version they can add a edit function. But it's just as quick to delete it.

I tested with stellarium and this gives you all data you need for the seestar and also in j2000.

Tested the app TheSkyLive and also position from this seestar located.

Tested with planets stars and an asteroid. Maybe it's not spot on but I think it's good enough. So I guess the internals of the seestar use jnow/apparent.

LA3QMA

And i tested using the SkyAtlas. if you move to a random point i get a popup with "Uknown 22h 16m 21s +19 54 42" and a Sync and a GoTo button. You can also store a favorite and select GoTo and manually enter the RA/Dec or press "use current position of seestar". If you move to an object that SkyAtlas have in the database you get the name/RA/Dec and also sync/goto

starnet

LA3QMA This is a very convoluted way of implementing a GoTo RA/Dec function - I would have expected a "GoTo RA/Dec" button, where you would spin the numbers and then press OK - but I will concede, it is possible now to point the S50 to an user entered RA/Dec target coordinate. It only took 8 months.

LA3QMA

starnet yes but if they just implemented enter RA/Dec then Goto we would argue that they should have added a method to store it as a favorite. ;-) But i guess the wait was worth it. And suggestions on how to improve this or other functions i guess they want feedback on. But for now i think they made a workable function. Anyhow i like your post where you inform user on what they can use the S50 for. For me thats an inspiration.

clipper99

AstroImg@ZWO

Sorry ZWO, Myself and many other users are getting tired of this “coming soon’. Here’s a small sampling of ZWO saying this:

Mosaic empty promises

March 2024

https://bbs.zwoastro.com/d/17902-mosaic-mode/2

Feb 2024

https://bbs.zwoastro.com/d/17807-when-will-mosaic-mode-be-added

Jan 2024

https://bbs.zwoastro.com/d/17629-request-for-new-mosaic-and-planning-mode-feature

starnet

clipper99 Maybe ZWO can learn something from this Aesop fable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf

The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index.[1] From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable[2] and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.

EHEA

If you want to have exact coordinates for certain objects in JNow, I guess you can do that using SIMBAD,

1) go to http://simbad.cds.unistra.fr/simbad/

2) click on "output options"

3) you can change one of the coordinate configurations line (say, Coordinates 3) like shown in the screenshot:

4) Click on "SAVE" to save this setting in a cookie I guess.

Now you can search you object her: https://simbad.cds.unistra.fr/simbad/sim-fid

E,g. enter "T CrB" and you will get coordinates like shown in the second screenshot:

The line with "J2024" in it tells you the coordinates that should work with Seestar. As you can see the difference is not very
significant, Just for the dedantic among us..

starnet

I changed my mind and I want to take back my concession, this convoluted GoTo RA/Dec through using the favorites function is still not very useful. It only works if you are connected to the S50, which sort of defeats the purpose. You mostly need it to plan your future session, which normally happens during the day. You can store to favorites the target the S50 is pointing to, not the current point in SkyAtlas. It is something better than nothing, but not something very helpful.

LA3QMA

its not optimal that you have to be connected to the S50. I found a "semi-workaround" but you still have to be connected. Use the SkyAtlas to whatever position and press GoTo when you see the RA/Dec is correct stop the goto. Then go to the magnify class and add this position with the "use current position of seestar".

@AstroNet@ZWO Feature request for a future release is to add in the SkyAtlas an extra button as shown in the attached image. Pressing the button should take the current RA/Dec and let you fill in the name field for the Custom Object. Programatically this is just an extra button that takes you to the function already written by the developers. With the only change is to use the current SkyAtlas RA/Dec pre-filled in the "Custom Object" menu.

support

LA3QMA Hi, I have already conveyed your feedback. Your feedback is very valuable to Seestar. We are very grateful to users for sharing their thoughts and experiences during the use of the product, making the use of Seestar more convenient.