The HamBone

Quality sunspot images are easy with the Seestar s50.

Everything you need comes for $500 or less.

This is what it looks like in action:



We're not in the advertising business, so just "Google" "Seestar S50 Retail".

Can you take better sun photos? Yes, if you become expert and spend a boatload of cash.

This Seestar s50 gives good phtos of sunspots on the sun you can see right now!

Here's a sun shot from my Seestar 50 this morning:
(Click to enlarge.)

The pic was taken with a regular Seestar 50, no fancy attachemnts, just the included solar filter.

A short mp4 movie was captured with the Seestar, and the frames automatically staked with the Siril image processing app (Linux, free) to make a single still frame png.

There was too much black around the sun so it was cropped and color-balanced with Showfoto (Linux, free), and there you have it.

Could it be better? Yep, but pretty good at the price of a regular Seestar. Would expensive software do a better job? Possibly, but I'm a cheapskate who doesn't like a bully taking his lunch-money. The photographer could certainly do better; this is my first attempt at a sun image with the Seestar.


Astro buffs: note the limb darkening, the stippled solar surface, the spots with defined umbra and penumbra, and for the keen-sighted - a plage at 7'oclock.

Radio buffs: note why the propagation is as it is!

A fine crop of spots, so I decided to see how far I could make the little Seestar see: The culprits are, top to bottom left, 3801, 3799, 3800, and top to bottom right edge, 3802, 3796,3792.

I guess this is about the solar limit for this little guy, but considering what it does for an inclusive $500 or less, pretty darned impressive.

Not really the place here, but for deep sky objects the Seestar 50 is even more impressive, though it's little sensor is not really suited to best planetary imaging, but does it.

(You get the scope, tracking mount, tripod, solar filter, starting instructions, and a USB C for charging and data transfer, all in a fitted shock-resistant case.
The controlling app is free for Ap/An. I added a store-recommended easy-leveler which makes setup from easy to even easier. YouTube is full of Seestar videos.)

Here's a couple of Seestar snaps from my first night out with it:
Top: M27, "Dumbell" Nebula and bottom: NGC 6960, "Veil" nebula. The pix enlarge some if clicked.

A couple of huge groups today, as shown in this NASA pic:
I was out for most of today and didn't get a shot of these.

Did you?