Test Driving the Seestar S50

For a while now I’ve had mixed feelings about the new generation of “smart telescopes.” On one hand, they make astrophotography astonishingly easy - almost too easy. On the other, they lack that soulful connection you get when you lean into an eyepiece and let ancient photons fall directly onto your retina. I’ve written about this tension before.

So when the Howard Astronomical League set up a Seestar S50 loaner program, I finally got around to signing up. Curiosity won out. I wanted to see whether this little automated wonder would feel like a shortcut or a revelation.

Unpacking the Little Robot

The club keeps the Seestar neatly packed in a compact carrying case, along with a sturdy tripod that’s a major upgrade from the tiny one ZWO ships with the unit. They also included a micro–leveler, a excellent addition that makes fine-tuning the setup much easier and helps ensure accurate tracking and plate solving.

Before my first night out, I watched a few tutorial videos and ran through the pre-flight checklist: compass calibration, app installation, all the usual rituals of modern astronomy.

Field Test: Suburbia vs. 10-Second Exposures

All my testing happened in my Towson backyard, which sits squarely in Bortle 8 territory. If the Seestar could perform here, it likely could perform anywhere. I spent some time scouting the darkest corners of the yard, trying to dodge the neighbor’s floodlight on one side and a porchlight on the other.

My first clear night came on November 23rd in the form of a crisp, 40° temps under clear skies, well suited for a trial run.

The app interface took a little getting used to. At first I kept losing track of how to return to the live stacking view, but after a few minutes the layout started to make sense. Once leveled, the Seestar slewed to my first target: M1, the Crab Nebula.

And then the magic happened.

Within a couple of 10-second exposures, a ghostly patch appeared on the screen — unmistakably the Crab. The Seestar had nailed the target on the first try. I left it running while I went inside to warm up and watch TV. When I returned before bed, it had quietly accumulated more than 90 minutes of data. The live-stacked image already showed color and the classic filamentary tendrils. A bit of elementary post-processing the next day produced a genuinely respectable image.

Not bad for a telescope the size of a thermos.

Chasing the Pleiades

Another target I absolutely wanted to test was M45, to see whether the Seestar could pull out the delicate blue reflection nebulosity around the cluster. I used the “extended field” mode, which stitches slightly offset frames to widen the field of view – a clever trick for large objects.

It worked far better than I expected. After 75 minutes, the Merope Nebula was clearly visible, and the whole frame had that soft, ethereal glow that makes the Pleiades so arresting in appearance. A little post-processing turned it into another keeper.

A Productive Two Months

Over roughly eight weeks, I captured:

• M1 (Crab Nebula)
• M38
• The Owl Cluster
• M42
• NGC 1055
• NGC 2403

Each target reinforced the same impression: the Seestar is remarkably capable for its size and price.

Where the Seestar Stumbles

As much as I enjoyed using it, the experience wasn’t flawless.

• Forced firmware updates: One night I had to wait for an update with no option to defer. At a dark-sky site, that would be maddening.
• Wi-Fi frustrations: Despite tutorials and configuring the required low-bandwidth network, I never managed to get the Seestar to connect through my home Wi-Fi. Being able to run it from the comfort of my bedroom would have been amazing.
• Occasional boot hiccups: A few times the unit simply wouldn’t connect to the iPad until I restarted it.
• Wind sensitivity: Even with the sturdy tripod, a mildly breezy night caused enough buffeting that the Seestar rejected a large fraction of frames, causing me to abandon the imaging run.
• Limited focal length: At 250mm, it excels at wide-field star clusters and large, bright nebulae, but for targeting the multitude of planetary nebulae or quirky galaxies (some of the object I love most) there just isn’t enough magnification there to get the job done.

Verdict: A Keeper (Just Not My Keeper… Yet)

The Seestar S50 won me over. It won’t replace my Vixen and ASI2600 for deep, detailed imaging, but it’s a delightful, capable, and genuinely fun piece of gear. The ability to set it up, walk away, and come back to a finished stack is liberating. I can easily imagine running a Seestar in the backyard on a DSO while I’m out front lucky-imaging a planet.

If ZWO ever releases a version with a longer focal length – or the ability to insert something like a 2× Barlow – I’d be seriously tempted. For now, I’ll happily borrow the HAL unit again this summer and see what else this little robot can do.