My EAA rig for SeeStar S50

EAA stands for Electronically Assisted Astronomy. Its primary difference from the classic hobby is that you are looking at an image on some screen instead of directly at the object in the sky. There are multiple EAA options from obvious sensitive camera and fast image stacking options to military night vision devices and scientific image intensifier tubes re-emitting the light after the signal is passing high voltage cascades. I prefer the good old wide field eyepiece view. The 100 deg. AFOV is an unbeatable joy. I have made a very similar experience possible with my SeeStar S50 EAA rig.

Aside from designing, procuring the optics, and 3D printing, the project requires some additional mobile software and phone tricks to make it a real joy to use.

Celestron Powerseeker 60EQ OTA rings mod.

This is for my tower balcony 24/7 seeker. With heavy EPs it's asking for a significant OTA rebalancing often. The first solution was an OTA counterweight (3lb) sliding on H&L tension belts. This one is finally the ultimate solution for this classic small tube long refractor telescope:

Design details as follows.

Hiking with SeeStar S50

 Tripod can be ditched in favor of something like this to distribute S50 weight on Az axis:

SeeStar S50 trick: No leveling nor compass ever?

Obsolete. Just point to starry patch and tap red "shoot" button.

Being working on the Plate Solving project myself in the past, I've figured that SeeStar firmware implementation might follow a similar math for its functionality.

That led to a few simple experiments confirming that initially. After a few software updates from ZWO  rendering my initial findings obsolete I now have reworked my quick guide below.

ZWO SeeStar S50

I have decided to get this minimalistic but full fledged robotic astro-photo rig for occasional near zero effort sky events documenting and possibly astro-photometry, some astronomy apps development ideas benefiting my main aperture (Portaball 12.5), and remote terrestrial imaging.

Zero regrets! I believe it's on par with the venerable 100% manual AstroScan ball scope in the engineering ingenuity.

PORTABALL

 1. From under UTA with (L to R):

A. 3D printed Secondary Mirror in Snap-on rigid protective dust cup (bottom).

B. 3D printed oversized star-piece in the focuser for RLC/BRLC (laser collimator) dual-side projection screen with Cheshire center hole. 

Orion 70mm Multi-Use Finder Scope

Just would like to share my impressions with this simple purchase.

At $100 it's somewhat overpriced for what it is indeed, as at the close inspection I have figured it's just the front piece of the Orion's 70mm binoculars plus the 6 adjustment screws shoe mount stalk and some threaded adapters. But overall it might worth it in the long run.