Orion

One of the problems with the Orion Nebula is it is easiest to see and photograph when the weather is cold. I put out the Seestar last night and my fingers got really cold as I was fiddling with it, the phone app, and the flashlight I was using. The Orion image is a 45-minute stack (270 images), which actually took 101 minutes real time. The discrepancy must be due to a lag time between images and a high proportion of images that the software discards for whatever reason. I took five different stacks between 8 and 45 minutes, and the automatically-produced images all looked comparable except for some rotation. The 45-minute one is the only one I restacked.

Someone posted a Seestar image in our local Facebook group of Orion. That one had low contrast and very little color. I took the restacked JPG and ran it through Photoshop, enhancing color and contrast. The Seestar has its limitations, but taking these few extra steps produces an image that is 100 times better than the automatic image.

While setting up, I noticed that Jupiter was particularly bright, so I aimed the Seestar at it for a few minutes. The bottom image is a stack of only six images, but going for a longer time would not have helped. I think the severe lens flare is from my neighbor's porch lights. The Seestar is not a good planetary scope, so really what I was going for with Jupiter was the Galilean moons. All four are visible, and from left to right are Ganymede, Io, Europa and Callisto.