Like so many I find that the Seestar is a great SMART telescope and also appreciate the updates ZWO has provided to the App over time to make it even better. Having said that, the biggest downfall of the Seestar is the noise/variability in the internal sensors (compass & accelerometer). These work fine when providing the Seestar general guidance for finding the sun (or moon) in the sky and for giving general direction for slewing to an object before Plate Solving to zero in on the object.
The problem with the internal sensor noise is quite evident and frustrating in the Polar Alignment Process. While the initial 3 point polar alignment process provides feedback for adjusting the Az and Alt axes, the internal sensors kick in very quickly and muddle the numbers, causing them to jump up and down by as much as several tenths of a degree. My suggestion is to have the PA routine follow the same procedure as the NINA 3 point PA process does, which is to keep taking images at the 3rd position of the 3 Pt alignment and continually update the feedback with that instead of the internal sensors. Last weekend I posted a video showing how to use the NINA 3 Point PA process (I won't link it here since I think it is not allowed) which you should take a look at. That process has a continuous loop of feedback with imaging from the 3rd point while the user makes adjustments to the Az and Alt axes. No spurious noise. I am able to dial in the PA to under 1 arc-minute (0.0.17deg) which is below the feedback threshold of the Seestar which is 6 arc-minutes (0.1deg). More importantly, after aligning with NINA I let the Seestar PA routine do the 3 Pt measurement and it responded with 0.0 and 0.0 on both axes, agreeing with the NINA alignment. Unfortunately, after only a moment noise from the Seestar's internal sensors causes these numbers to jump around as they always do. Next, I hit the Check Deviation in the Seestar and it did a single Pt plate solution and returned 0.0 and 0.0 once again, further confirming the spot on alignment with NINA. And, once again after just a moment the noise from the internal sensors caused these numbers to start jumping around again. This noise is the single biggest challenge folks have in getting a good PA with the Seestar. Anything that eliminates the noise would be very welcome by the user base.
Why not just follow the procedure in NINA's 3 Pt PA process and disable feedback from the internal sensors and allow the Seestar to take and plate solve images at the 3 position continuously to provide more accurate feedback for fine tuning the PA?
Best Regards,
Curtis
