How To

You sure can. It's a great way to plan a session in advance.

Click Sky Atlas in the bottom menu of the home page, then click on the magnifying glass at the top of the icons on the right side.

If your Bahtinov mask was made for the Seestar then it should fit into the lens opening in the same way as the orange solar filter.

But before you place it over the lens do two things:

1. Tap the “Tutorial” icon on the Home screen and then look at the Turn On Manual Focus tutorial.

Then tap the AF icon at the lower right side of the screen. Once auto focus says that it has finished, check on the left, lower side of the screen. You should see the “Manual Focus” panel. Take note of value displayed there. This is the proper focus setting that the Seestar has determine with it's autofocus algorithm. Moon, Solar, Planetary, and Scenery each may have a different focus point.

2. Next, carefully insert the Bahtinov focus mask in front of the Seestar lens. Don't get fingerprints on the lens! Once installed observe that the individual stars shown on your phone or tablet will appear to have an X across them. The Bahtinov focus mask causes diffraction spikes to form from the star images. In addition there will be a spike that splits the X somewhere.

The goal is to center the diffraction spike so it crosses exactly in the center of the X. If it doesn't, use the manual focus panel buttons to adjust the focus so that the spike is perfectly centered across the X.— Murray Foster 2024/06/25 10:59

Finally, remove the mask! I know a guy who has forgotten to do that twice (me).

GoTo your target and then select SkyAtlas.

The blue rectangle is where you're pointed.

Drag the red rectangle to where you want your second mosaic image and then GoTo (overlap at least 50% to accommodate field rotation).

Take a screen grab or make a drawing so you can keep track as you build the mosaic.

Rinse and repeat.

Siril's Go Register and PixInsight Star Registration processes will help you put the mosaic together.

Initial Setup

• Update your Seestar app to the latest version (at least 2.2) to access the framing feature
• Open the Seestar app and navigate to the sky atlas

Capturing Process

• Select your target object in the sky atlas
• Tap the “Framing” button located on the right side of the screen
• Use the adjustment controls to customize your frame:
• * Adjust the magnification slider (1x to 4x)
• * Set the rotation angle to your preferred orientation
• * Press the “GoTo” button to begin imaging

During Imaging the telescope will:

• Start capturing from the center of the target
• Spiral outward with overlapping sections
• Automatically stitch images together as it progresses
• Discard poor-quality frames affected by clouds or star trails
• Important Notes

The process can take several hours depending on your selected frame size. For best results, avoid imaging when your target passes through your zenith (straight up). The final mosaic can cover an area up to 6 times the width of the moon

AstroEdit is in Early Access Beta* phase. If anything unusual happens or you don’t like the way something works, please send an email to help@astroeditapp.com explaining what you were doing when the issue occurred. As we make improvements, new versions will be released free through the Apple App Store. To paraphrase former President Kennedy, ” We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it was easy.”

Load Image: Tap the leftmost icon and select an image to process. Crop: Trim the image to reduce size or remove ugly stacking and field rotation artifacts Save: Once you’re happy with your edits, tap the down arrow box in the top menu. You will save a new version of the original image (which won’t be changed). Un-do/Re-do:

Tap left arrow icon to undo your last edit. Tap right arrow icon to redo edit User guide: App version and this user guide.

Tweak: • Exposure – adjust overall brightness • Saturate – Enhance the color • Temp – Create a warmer or cooler look • Tint – Refine hue by adding white • Hue – Changes base pure color

The histogram displays the distribution of dark (left) and bright (right) pixels. The higher the peak the more pixels are that brightness. Click a point and drag the slider for precise brightness adjustment. Point 1 will brighten the left 20% of the curve. Point 5 will brighten the right 20% of the curve Wavelet: Enhances the crispness of details. Control the amount of sharpening for each layer with the slider. “S” sharpens tiny details such as stars. “XXL” sharpens large details such as entire nebulae

The slider controls how much of an effect is applied

• AI Noise removes noise artifacts (grain)
• AI Star reduces/removes stars
• AI Gradient removes gradient lights
• AI Satellite removes streaks created by satellites and aircraft

• Tap the screen and hold to show the original image. Release to continue editing
• Double-tap the screen to cancel all edits and restart from the original image
• Use 2-finger-spread to zoom

A typical workflow will start with an overall brightness adjustment perhaps with help from the curve tool to brighten just parts of the image. Gradients, if any, will typically be revealed so fix that and then use the AI Denoise to remove grain. Some images have so many stars they distract from your target, so you can use the AI Star tool to reduce or even remove them. Finally, you may want to tweak the color and saturation before saving your image to the Apple Photos library.

*This early access beta software is a pre-release version of AstroEdit that we’re making available to you before its official launch. It represents a development stage where the software is feature-complete but may contain bugs and performance issues. The main purposes of early access beta software are:

• Gathering user feedback and bug reports
• Testing features with real users
• Identifying usability issues
• Refining the product before the final release

As refinements are made, new versions will be available free on the Apple App Store for current users and $4.99 for new users.

Keep in mind that the night sky is not pure black.

If you use PixInsight:

• Stack in WBPP with local normalization.
• Use ABE with degree 1 to handle linear gradients such as moon or other LP.
• If you have to use a higher degree, you should know why.
• If you have a relatively complex scene and ABE just isn't cutting it, go the whole hog and use GraXpert.
• Use NoiseXterminator or GraXpertDenoise with enthusiasm.
• If the background is particularly colourful after all that, RangeMask the shadows and throw some desaturation and darkening in with curves. That's sorta a last resort, but also a fair way to guarantee imposing your will on the image.

Whatever subsequent processing you do, do not expand contrast within the shadows. Be careful of curves, CLAHE and DarkStructureEnhance - these are good and favourable tools when used in the right places with care, but will exacerbate noise or other quantization effects at the blackpoint.

Be mindful of the order in which you do initial steps. Either ABE(1)+NX or GX+GXDenoise should be the first two things you do while linear (before stretching).

Two tips: 1) Run BlurXterminator first so the stars aren't egg shaped, which confuses things, and 2) if you're using drizzle, make sure you adjust your sensor pixel size (e.g. 2X drizzle means your pixel size should be divided by two, 3X by 3, etc.).