S30Pro – IMT3b Observatory

Viewing Report 15th July 2026

22:40 – 02:20

This evening I have chosen another Messier object as I try to completed my list. M57. The Ring nebula is very small and as such appears small in the Espirt. I did want to get this with the 12” before I sold it but never got around to taking a great photo. Instead I will image with the 6” and zoom in.

The Seestar is also out, this time I have removed the tripod and thus it allowed me to perform a mosaic of the Milky Way. It is not immediately or at all obvious how to decide which bit of the Milky Way to mosaic, however I will go off and find a YouTube view. Meanwhile I have started the mosaic based on a random placement of it. I found the outcome to underwhelming to say the least. The total exposure for each frame in the mosaic was 10s of seconds and I could not seem to find a way to increase the total exposure or frame count.

Viewing Report 14th July 2026

22:00 – 03:00

Tonight I have the 150 Esprit in operation and the Seestar S30 Pro. I am imaging M56 again with the Esprit to gather an additional 1.5 hours of data.

On the S30 Pro I started with a Milky Way shot, It was meant to be the mosaic, however the scope was on the wedge and the mosaic only works when not using the wedge. So instead I went for a single image. Clearly seen is the cloud in the distance.

Once this was completed I went to image the Lobster but landed up on the Bubble instead. So I imaged that until 3am at the end of darkness as it is.

Viewing Report 3rd July 2026

23:30 – 01:40

Luke and I setup the S30 Pro with the Antlia Triband RGB filter to see what difference it makes.

Meanwhile I have taken the Telegizmo cover off the 180 Mak ready to go after the Moon at midnight and Saturn again after 2:30am.

After waiting for the majority of the “night” as it is, at 10 past 1 I slewed to the Moon and started to image using SharpCap 4.1. The image was not great as the seeing due to the Jet stream being overhead was not ideal, but it gave me a start on re-imaging pieces of the Moon. I managed to at least grab a single stacked image of the 3 large craters at the edge of Mare Nectar’s, namely Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina.

Bottom left to top right of the crater chain – Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina

I must admit to having problems with remembering how to use the ADC so I will watch a video over the next few days.

Meanwhile the S30 Pro also struggled under the not dark skies but again produced an ok image given the lighting conditions.

Viewing Report 24th June 2026

22:50 – 03:05

I setup with the 150 Esprit in the dome and both the Seestar S30 Pro and the S50.

I set about using the S30 Pro to capture M16 and M17 in a single frame. This was really my first time using the smart scope in earnest.

Meanwhile I setup the 150 Esprit to capture M13.

I stayed with this until the light started to increase and then went to bed. The final unprocessed image straight from the S30 Pro is below.

Once I had processed using PixInsight from the S30 Pro it looked so much better.

On the S50 I took some data on IC 1284.

S50 stacked image of IC 1284 processed in PI

Viewing Report 8th June 2026

11pm – 2:30am

I collected the new ZWO Seestar S30 Pro (S30P) today. I thought Luke and I could give it a little run, even though astronomical darkness is no longer with us until August.

I setup the S30P here on the observatory patio. Luke setup the S50 at his house. We then took a variety of test images on both to compare the different scopes.

Whilst I waited for darkens to fall I took a quick phot of Venus and Jupiter close together on my iPhone.

Then we setup the S30P so that it could be used remotely. You can share the scope but only 1 person can be logged in at any one time.

First we tested out just getting focus on Arcturus and seeing what FoV we would get with the much larger chip of the S30P.

Next we slewed to M13. Given the light nights it’s better not going for a galaxy or nebula.

Then I went fore M27 on the S50 only but I had problems with red banding on the photo. It must have been some interference, however I was not quite sure I knew from where.

Then I did M10 on the S50. At the same time I did M92 on the S30P as M10 was poorly positioned.

I then tried a Milky Way shot but this was too faint due to the night sky being so very bright.

Lastly I set the S30P performing a short Star Trails image on Polaris.