Thanks, Paul. I had a tooth pulled. I struggle to believe all the possibilities attributed to it, but if you confirm it, I’ll begin to dispel my doubts.
I’m referring here to the cheapest telescope AP 50/250 Seestar S50.
I’ll tell you, it’s a little hard to imagine having Pluto within reach. It seems that on M13, M31, M42, the Pleiades, etc., it’s truly miraculous. For “beautiful” photography, I think it’s a good instrument, even if the resolution leaves something to be desired. I wonder: what does it provide on Epsilon Lyrae?
Given its light weight, I’d take it to high mountains, to the Gran Sasso, even at altitudes above 2,800 meters, to photograph lunar eclipses, which I study seriously. At F=250mm, the lunar and solar disks have a diameter of about 2.5 mm. So I wonder what the quality of lunar photography is, taken for photometric purposes? No description provides information about the actual resolution on the Moon and Sun.
I would like to see some photographs of the Moon and the photosphere, taken without any post-production or retouching with various soft-focus techniques.
My image of the Sun, one in the list given by Andy, is exactly as it came off the S50. No post-processing at all. Another image in the list shows Pluto. I can’t help with epsilon Lyrae, sorry. An image of Polarissima Borealis, aka NGC 3172, appears at https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20241121_180849_58cdbd49c5f6525c — that image took only 11 minutes to take. The galaxy is not very impressive in appearance, true, but it is magnitude 14.9 and the exposure was quite short. What really surprised me was LEDA36268 appearing — that one is 17th magnitude!
Re: Andy’s comment about access to the raw data. On the Seestar the lights frames, in FITS format, are easily available for subsequent post-processing. The calibration frames are not, as far as I know, but perhaps they may become available in subsequent versions of the firmware if enough people ask ZWO for them. The telescope firmware automatically applies dark frames. Flats can, presumably, be taken in the usual manner but I have not yet ventured there.
Paul
