Compared to other telescopes, the Seestar is relatively uncomplicated and a backyard astronomer's dream come true. But the Seestar is not easy to use, if it was, this wiki wouldn’t be necessary. If you have never thought in astronomical terms or are not comfortable with mobile apps in general you’ll definitely find some Seestar concepts and operations befuddling. (That’s an often-used astronomical term.) It doesn’t help that the User Interface is bizarre, the English is poorly translated from Chinese, and the way some things function is just weird.

For example, I’ve been using computers since the ‘60s (IBM 360) but couldn’t get my new Seestar to turn on. Mainly that was because I didn’t RTFM. ¹⁾ You should. There’s some stuff there that isn’t here.

But we love the Seestar despite all that, and those irregularities will probably be sorted out as the product matures.

Since you probably didn’t read the manual either, getting this thing to go to work is befuddling. You push the button with the ubiquitous power icon on it and nothing happens. You push again and again, and nothing. Then you get mad, and just like an elevator button, you press and hold it in, goddammit. And it works! Won’t help with elevators, but you have to hold the Seestar on/off button down until you hear two beeps

Cool, but still nothing is happening, the Seestar just sits there. That’s because you have to wait for the computer to boot up and connect to your mobile device. Wait, what? Mobile device? What's that got to do with anything?

You control the telescope with an app on your phone or tablet. You must download the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. Use this QR code to get the one you need.

Now, here’s an often-misunderstood arrangement. The computer in the telescope does all the work, your mobile device is only a monitor. You can close the app, you can delete it from your phone, you can turn off your phone, you can ship it to another city, and the Seestar will go right on doing the last thing you told it to do. Until the battery dies, that is.

Which leads us to another commonly misunderstood detail: your phone talks to the Seestar via Seestar’s built in Wi-Fi hotspot. You don’t need to be in range of cell towers or home Wi-Fi. In the middle of Sierra Madre mountains or the Gobi desert with no outside-world connections, you'll be able to control your Seestar just fine.

Of course, all this assumes your Seestar (and mobile device) are properly charged. At home you can use a USB-C cable attached to a 12V power converter or a computer to keep the Seestar battery charged. But if you’re away from home and the Seestar or mobile device battery goes dead, you’re out of the astronomy business. So, carry a power bank with you if you’re away. I bought a 50,000mAh battery pack (over 8x the capacity of the built in battery) for just $20 after an Amazon Lightning Deal and manufacturer’s discount coupon. Depending on what deals you find, you can a buy a power bank that will recharge both your scope and mobile device for $20-$50. The Seestar battery and the 50,000mAh battery keep the Seestar humming for about 8 hours with the dew heater on.

By the way, a cool feature of the Seestar is it’ll draw power from a connected power bank before it starts to use the built-in battery. If the Seestar is depleted when you plug the power bank in, the power bank will not only keep the Seestar running but also start to re-charge it, too. Good on ZWO for this design.

Supposedly the built in battery is good for six hours, my experience is it’s more like four, less if you have the dew heater on or if it’s very cold where you are. So, as in other things astronomical, YMMV.

Where the six-hour estimate comes from, I suspect, was a thoughtless conversion of 6000mAh to 6Ah or six amp hours, which is accurate only if the device uses one amp per hour. And it doesn’t; it uses more. 

When you turn the Seestar on, you’ll hear a voice prompt that says, “Power on, ready to connect.” If you then launch the app (in my case on an iPhone) you’ll see a pretty “splash screen” with mountains and Milky Way. ²⁾³⁾

Usually, the Seestar will automatically connect to the app and take you to the Home Screen. Press the Connect button if it doesn’t. You do not need to be within range of a WiFi service such as a coffee shop or at home. The Seestar has a built in hotspot so you can connect anywhere.

If this is your first start-up, after you see the splash screen you’ll be asked to allow the app to use your Bluetooth, Wi-Fi network, and location.

During this first-time set-up process you’ll see a pop-up screen that has links to some short video tutorials. Definitely watch every one, preferably now or at least later. If you don’t do it now, you’ll find a link to the tutorials in the middle of the Home Screen. It’s labeled “Tutorials.” (Duh.)

Next, the first-time set-up process will show you what you have enabled and present you with a button mis-labeled Enter App. You already in the app so it should say something like Join Seestar. But whatever. Tap the button and you’ll see a screen that lets you choose your Seestar, possibly from a list of Seestars if there are others nearby. ⁴⁾

Tap Connect and you’ll see a very useful feedback graphic that proves something is going on…or not. If you’re too far from the Seestar, or forgot to turn it on, a similar graphic will report No Seestar Found and offer some suggestions. The process works well, and you’ll get connected unless you’re like one guy who bitched loudly and longly about it not connecting until someone asked if his Seestar was properly charged. Never heard another peep from him. Things like that remind me of my grandfather’s wise saying, “It’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”

Anyway, when all goes well the graphic slides off the bottom of the screen and you’re looking at the Home screen!

At the bottom of the settings screen (tap the Seestar image at the top of the Home Screen or the Me button at the bottom), In a not-so-handy spot hiding out of sight off the bottom of the screen if you're using a phone, there's a big red 'Slide to shut down' button.

If after reading all this you still want a more detailed tutorial here's a comprehensive review of s50 operations by Curtiss Macchiomi

(Note: there may be some minor differences between what Curtiss shows you and what you see when you look at your Seestar app. ZWO is constantly adding updates.))

Now that you have your Seestar up and running, go to the Acquisition Modes page to start using it.