Seestar S50's Total Solar Eclipse Experience

Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @erewhon42
Here is a video of the entire total solar eclipse taken with Seestar S50 smart telescopes. The partial phases were recorded by me, and footage of totality were graciously provided by Tom Knudsen and Roscoe Lando. Roscoe and I were in Houlton, Maine. Tom was in Newport, Vermont.
I had high hopes for the Seestar, and honestly it exceeded my expectations. The biggest unknown for me was during totality, but if you look at Roscoe and Tom's footage, it did great!
For the partial footage, it was very windy, and although the telescope is pretty low to the ground, it was struggling. I tried to create a wind break to help, but there was only so much I could do. I did smooth out some of it in the video editor.
The partial phases were a timelapse with one photo every second. I stopped and started the video a few times just so the files weren't too big. The footage was then sped up in the video editor. The totality footage was captured as a timelapse and a video.
Tom's video: • 2024 Eclipse - Totalit...
========================================
Support my work:
Patreon: 👉🏻 / erewhon42
Buy Me a Coffee: ☕️ www.buymeacoffee.com/erewhon

[@kyzercube]

And people are flocking to my video saying it's the best 🤣 Erewhon, your time lapse is EPIC! I've been doing my best getting detail of that huge prominence with pics and even gif time lapses. It really blew everyone away, easily visible to the naked eye.

[@erewhon42]

Thank you! I appreciate it. You got some really good footage tbh. I need to re-watch it, but I like the video, and I'm always a fan of getting the background sounds during the eclipse. (I have a similar video that I'll upload this week, but I wanted to get the Seestar footage out there first.)

[@larrychristianson2244]

Never gets old. What a sight.

[@erewhon42]

I agree. It's amazing.

[@siguie2355]

Whoa! AWESOME !!! My s50 drifted too and here we only had 45%

[@erewhon42]

Mine just seemed to have issues towards the very end of the initial partial phase. Although interestingly right after totality it was able to re-center.

[@gunther1955]

Fantastic editing job - thnx

[@erewhon42]

Thank you!

[@BlueLion364]

Great job combining the different videos. Thank you for using mine.

[@erewhon42]

Thank you so much for making it available. I think it's great to see what this little telescope to do!

[@BlueLion364]

@@erewhon42 You are very welcome!

[@gunther1955]

Loved your video of totality - I meant to do that but got distracted by the eclipse (my first) - very glad you got it - love what erewhon42 did with our footage. We should meet up for the next one in Greenland - Roscoe

[@erewhon42]

@@gunther1955 That would be quite an adventure!

[@maharajashiv3086]

This is something SOLA - LUNA level

[@allisoncarlin3124]

Wow! Great video!

[@erewhon42]

Thank you!

[@mikehardy8247]

I also did TL with Seestsr, and a SW tracker with 800D and 200mm lens 5 second intervelometor. Then 600 mm lens on 7D MKII with internal intervelometor manualy recentrring. My Seestsr drifted as well. I wasn't in totality 😢 The Seestar is pretty awsome!

[@erewhon42]

Even though you weren't in totality, it sounds like you had some good coverage camera-wise! The Seestar is a great little telescope. I need to get back into some non-eclipse videos about the Seestar. I've got a backlog of material to start going through!

[@astrotherapist]

Excellent job on this video. When will you go back to doing Deep Sky Objects with SeeStar? I love those videos.

[@erewhon42]

Now that the eclipse is over, I do plan on returning to some Seestar-oriented videos. Last night for the first time in a while I had it outside taking some photos of a few galaxies and a cluster. I also have a few ideas for some more videos related to Siril. I plan to start getting back into that this upcoming week.

[@stuartdavis798]

Great Job! I couldn't get mine to do totality.

[@erewhon42]

Did you try removing the filter? In my practice sessions, a few times I ended knocking it off the sun. That was probably the biggest pitfall.

[@erewhon42]

And hopefully you got some of the partial phases. Those can be pretty cool too!

[@stuartdavis798]

@@erewhon42 I did remove the filter but the exposure and ability to track the sun just didn’t work out. I was also busy taking photos with a camera. The Seestar was a “bonus”. I did get the partial phases with Seestar. I was in Arkansas. Your video was great. When I give my slideshow I’m planning on showing it (giving you credit) because of how great it looks. I was surprised that the sky's were clear in Houlton. I was stationed at Loring and April was always pretty gray. I can’t say I miss the weather in Aroostook County but I enjoyed living there. Thanks for the video!

[@erewhon42]

@@stuartdavis798 Makes sense. The Seestar was kind of a bonus for me. I was focused on my other cameras. Yeah, it was kind of strange that the place with the worst odds for weather (Maine) ended up being the best. But that's just the way it ended up working out. I really enjoyed driving around there. I need to make it back up there again.