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Now what do I do

You have the scope. Here is tonight.

0 targets, in the order to shoot them, picked for a ZWO Seestar S50. Not the most impressive things up there: the ones most likely to give you something you are glad you stayed up for.

We need somewhere to answer from. Drop a pin and this fills in.

Before you press go

  • Level it properly. On grass, push the legs in. Almost every "my stars are dashes" post starts here.
  • Let it cool for ten minutes if it has come from a warm house.
  • Run the autofocus and run it again later. Focus drifts as the temperature drops.
  • Turn dithering on. It is off by default on the ZWO Seestar S50 and it is the single most common fault we measure.
  • Save the raw files, not just the preview. You will want them in a month when you know more.

What your ZWO Seestar S50 is good and bad at

  • Dithering is off by default in the Seestar app and has to be enabled per session.
  • The narrowest field in the lineup, so big targets need a mosaic more often than not.
  • In alt-azimuth mode, field rotation limits usable sub length near the zenith.
  • The built-in dual-band filter helps emission targets and works against broadband ones.

Field 1.27° × 0.72° at 2.39″ per pixel. Those two numbers decide which targets fit and how sharp a star can possibly look.

And after tonight

There are seven stages between unboxing and running your own programme

Nothing to tick. Each one completes when your own data shows it has, and the next one tells you what is actually blocking you.

See the path