Your Seestar is a unique instrument. On the outside, only the outermost lens, an on/off button, four battery-level lights, and a USB-C port are visible. And that’s all you really need to know about the hardware, so you can skip the rest. But if you’re interested in the details keep reading.

Inside there’s a 50mm aperture, 250-mm focal length, ƒ/5 triplet apochromatic telescope with three lenses to correct for color fringing, a Sony IMX462 CMOS camera, a quad core 64-bit computer, 64Gb of eMMC memory, a rechargeable 6000mAh battery, a Wi-Fi hotspot and Bluetooth radio, plus gears and motors to make the telescope move up and down in altitude and turn left and right in azimuth. (That’s why it’s called an alt/az telescope.)

There’s also a motor that will automatically focus the scope for you, although you can do that manually if you prefer. And there’s even a little heater you can turn on to keep dew from fogging up the lens.

If all that isn’t enough, there are three filters inside: an opaque one for calibration; a UV / IR Cut filter for the Moon, galaxies, reflection nebulae, and stars; and a narrowband filter to enhance emission nebulae and reduce light pollution. The computer controls the dark one when you start taking pictures of deep sky objects (aka Skywatching in Seestar lingo). It takes about a minute, and during that time, a bunch of images are created, but only electronic noise is collected and the result is subtracted from your pictures to make them smoother. These images are called “darks, flats, and bias” frames. Happily, you don’t have to worry about any of that because the Seestar takes care of it for you.

When you pick a target, the Seestar will decide if the narrowband filter will help, generally when you select nebulae, but you can ignore the recommendation if you prefer and just stick with the UV/IR filter which prevents star bloat.

Finally, the Seestar also comes with an orange and silver external solar filter that you insert in the front of the tube, which you must do when shooting the Sun. Don’t get fingerprints on the lens or filter!

All this is controlled by an app on your mobile phone or tablet. The app allows you to chose several different kinds of astro targets and there’s even a terrestrial mode for looking in neighbor’s windows, I mean watching birds (same thing if you’re in the UK, I’m told).

The included tripod is special because it’s made out of carbon fiber to make it light. It has 3/8” bolt that goes up into the turntable in the bottom of the scope, which means any tripod with a 3/8” bolt can be used. But it also means that you can’t just sit the Seestar down on a table without the tripod and expect it work. The turntable won’t touch the surface and will rotate inside the base. Just keep in mind that, however you do it, you want the scope to be absolutely steady. If you use the little tripod, put it on the ground or a solid table. If you use a tall tripod, make sure it’s hefty and won’t jiggle in a puff of wind.

You really don’t need anything else, but there are several popular add-ons. The most useful is a leveling base that makes getting the Seestar level much easier than fiddling with the tripod legs. $19-$39 for essentially the same exact device, so shop around.

A lens hood/dew shield has been demonstrated to improve the contrast in images. Some have a base with prongs that lets light in if you aren’t careful, so look for one with a solid bayonet-type base. A lens hood is easy to 3D-print, but if you buy one you’ll find them from $15 to $40.

Some people find a Bahtinov Mask handy to check the focus. When it’s in front of the lens you’ll see a tiny X over a bright star, you adjust focus until a vertical line equally splits the X. Every time I use mine the auto focus is spot on, but YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). $12 -$20