Almost

I knew the weather forecast said clouds were going to roll in overnight, but it was so clear just after sunset last night that I decided to make attempt #2 at an Andromeda mosaic with the Seestar 50. I now officially hate the little tripod that came with the scope. I mounted the Seestar on my big tripod and it was incredibly easy to level. I can put the ball head on the little tripod and use it to shoot the birdbath in the spring.

I got going just before 7:00 and accumulated 656 images in just over four hours. Total exposure time was 110 minutes, so even though each image is 10 seconds, it gets fewer than three images per minute rather than the six that you might expect. Unfortunately 110 minutes of exposure was not enough to complete the mosaic before the clouds rolled in. This is how far I got:

Yesterday I was pondering what would happen if I tried to restack the individual images in the Seestar app. Before mosaic was introduced last week, this is what I always did. For whatever reason, I think it gives better results than the stacking that is done during the shoot. I set the app to save all the individual images and did the restack. I was concerned it might take forever, but it wasn't any longer than usual. However, it threw out about a quarter of the 656 images, and the result was far from satisfactory:

Even though stacking the individual images turned out to be pointless, as long as I had them I paged through to see if there way anything to see. There was. I think this is a satellite. An airplane would be a line of red dots from the running lights, and I don't think a meteor would be a solid line. Because of the way the stacking software works, an anomoly like this that only shows up in one frame gets filtered out.

In summary, whenever the clouds clear again, this is what I will try next time I set up the Seestar:

• Use the big tripod.
• Don't rely on the battery, plug it in. The battery is probably good for 5 hours, which is not enough for a mosaic shoot.
• The mosaic image can be set at any angle, so pay attention to composition.
• Don't bother saving the individual images for mosaics.
• Focus before allowing the scope to start taking images.