r/seestar

Hi !

Here is my workflow for editing M17 for example !

S50 Stack .. 648x10Sec

1 — Denoise. Loaded the stack and ran ML denoise at 50%. I could run a second pass with another click, but I skipped it.

2 — Star separation. A few residual stars were still visible, so I went for a second pass (Fresh separation / Second pass / Cancel). It didn't change much here — depends on the image. Stars inside a nebula can't fully be excluded. Why it matters: you can edit the nebula freely without distorting the stars in colour, sharpness, etc.

3 — Rotate + gradient & green cast. Rotated to landscape. Clicked Auto in Image Editing — the algorithm works out the gradient with built-in "auto recipes". Nudged the gradient up a bit and pulled the green cast fully out. Careful with the gradient: looks nice, but you can lose information.

4 — Before/after compare. That's why I use the Compare view (top-center toolbar).

5 — Tone + detail. Auto on tone, Brightness 2, Contrast 18. Detail needs a feel for it. The key slider is BG Smoothing — it brings the nebula structure out but softens the image, which you recover with Detail / HDR.

6 — Crop. Cropped off the corners.

7 — Fine-tuning + Color Punch. Color Punch (I should rename that :)) creates a multiscale chrominance — colour flows along its original path. Interesting effect, as is the one below it.

8 — Palette. First impression when a palette is applied: looks oversaturated — but it isn't.

9 — Palette fine-tuning. You could tone it down via the Intensity slider — but you shouldn't need to.

10 — Narrowband (ML). An ML model I trained myself on 350,000 images for correct colour emulation. Here it emulates the Midnight palette.

11 — Tone curve (Auto). Good result, room for improvement.

12 — Tone curve (Curve mode). Boosted the blue channel in the lower range — and the luminance.

13 — Star Spikes + saving. Added Star Spikes. Note: saving can take a while on deep edits — just wait. The finished image lands in your folder.

That's the full run. Normaly it takes me about 5 - 10 min to get this type of picture .and its very easy if you are getting used to the Workflow !

Happy to answer questions on any step.

Is this okay that stars on upper part of image look slightly blurry? is it just a coma common to all telescopes, or an optical imperfection?

21 minutes of 60 sec exposures in Eq mode

Bortle 9

Ring Nebula region

First moon shooting in my life

Captured with s50 raw video stacking 1 min.

Cantabria, Spain.

FINALLY CLEAR SKIES

Ahoy! Longtime gazer on this group but first time ever diving into it. It was the first real clear night in the Hudson Valley of New York since I received the Seestar S30 Pro and I had to attempt something besides the moon.

It was 4.5 hours between 2130-0200 and 30 second exposure shots on a EQ mount. I used Lightroom via my iPhone and I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly what I did to process this. I have a lot to learn so one shot at a time I guess and I’ll start remembering the steps.

I feel like this was a gateway drug for photos and now I can’t wait for the next clear night to grab something else.

NGC 4565 - Needle Galaxy, from Calabria - Southern Italy!! 😍

Seestar S50

Technical data in the first comment

I hope you like it 😃

We see so many amazing photos in here, but the Seestar (or sky) isn't perfect. Photos can be ruined by satellites, star trails, not focusing correctly, the moon, the list goes on. Interested to see some bad photos and any potential funny stories behind it.

I am sure I have much worse, but I usually delete them. This is my attempt at M96, where the satellites had about as many stacks as the objects.

2 hours of total integration time (10s exposures). Stacked/processed in Siril, GraXpert, and GIMP.

So both photos are of M101, same parameters, same software etc. Which is more visually appealing to you all?

This is M106, which doesn’t have another name as far as I’m aware. I’m a big fan of this picture because you can also see other galaxies to the left of it.

Camera: SeeStar S30 Pro
Time: 508 x 10s
Bortle 5
Edited In: Siril

Total Integration: 346x20s with LP Filter on
Alt-Az Mode

Processed in Siril, GraXpert and AP

This is the first deep sky object that I’ve attempted with my s50. I’m wondering how to get rid of the satellite lines? Also, I selected the light pollution filter but it wasn’t actually on during shooting, how do I make sure it stays on once I click shoot? Any other tips? The haze in the background is light pollution. Integration time is around 3.5 hours, 10s per frame

Caldwell 4 | The Iris Nebula

Captured over two nights from a super dark Bortle 1/2 in central Idaho. Had about one and a half nights of clear skies and was able to get 7 hours of total integration (850x30s). Data captured using Seestar S50.

Processed in Pixinsight:
BlurXTerminator
NoiseXTerminator
Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch
StarXTerminator
Contrast/color adjustments on just the nebulous region
Add stars back, very slight contrast adjustment with stars
Another round of NoiseXTerminator

These little devices are pretty amazing! M81 was two nights of observations (~4000 images at 10sec), the second night with the LP filter. M51 was one night (~900 images, didn't start with a full charge). Stacked in Siril, background corrected/denoised in Graxpert, then color stretched back in Siril using Asinh and then histogram stretched.