How to Capture the Milky Way with Seestar: Beginner Tips & Settings Guide

Milkyway capture tips!

Recommended Shooting Environment： 1. Dark skies recommended Bortle 4 or lower 2. Somewhere with no local light pollution  3. Shoot when the moon is not around

Shooting Setup Tips：

1. Capture in EQ or alt/Az (8k mode is only available in alt/Az) 2. Enable save each frame(optional) 3. Set exposure time high 30-60s 4. Enable "freeze ground" to keep the landscape from blurring too much. 5. Settings can be accessed by tapping the top right three dots once inside the "Milkyway" mode.

Choose EQ mode or AZ mode?

Benefits of EQ - (best for just shooting the sky) -No field rotation  -Best tracking

Drawbacks -Tilted framing for landscape

Alt/Az benefit - (best for shooting with landscape) Landscape is level and well framed Easy setup Drawbacks -Field rotation 

How can I find a dark sky? 

This is very easy to see and you can find your bortle scale inside the Seestar app! Simply tap "nearby" and then "LP map" note the light pollution level at the bottom. The closer to 1 the better. Once you've set up and calibrated the scope a good thing to do is a quick test shot to make sure you're getting the framing you want! you can change the exposure setting to 10s just for a quick shot and switch back to a higher one once you've decided on your framing. (see attached for jpgs)

Bonus processing tips!

Because you will capturing a large portion of the sky you are more than likely going to get some satellites or planes in your shot. I'm going to tell you some key tips for stacking outside the app.

Pixinsight - when using WBPP in the lights tab click the little gear under image registration and enable distortion correction. Then for image integration the little gear again and select median combination.  Siril - Manual stacking you can select in the stacking tab and select method "median stacking" This should help with a smooth stacking experience and get rid of those pesky trails!