CEO Sam Wen Reveals the FUTURE of ZWO, Seestar and ASIAIR
In this video from NEAF, CEO Sam Wen discusses the future of ZWO, Seestar, and ASIAIR. Learn about the latest developments and what's on the horizon for this innovative company in...
The Space Koala Astrophotography by Luca Bartek
SeeStars a great system but how many times can you image M42?
6:22 ... is this Benjamin Chapell? Rest in peace, brother! ❤
yes it is. I had the chance to meet him there, he was very friendly
Sam, we need an S70! When will zwo will release it? Thank You
Good thing for CC. Brilliant company, top notch products.
A compact smart tracker with built in guide scope, eq mode, alt/az and goto target. All controlled by app. For light/medium setups would be amazing.
The built in guider is a great idea! iOptron have done it a while ago, but sadly (at least for me) it was horribly unreliable. If ZWO do it I’m sure it will work amazing with the ASIAIR and realistically with nothing else 😁
Been enjoying the S50 was on the ropes for a long time, finally got one. This is perfect for any level. Set up your main gear. Then target hop with S50. Perfect considering I get to really good sky’s a few times a year and half the time the weather doesn’t play well. Though I like shooting storms and lightning so it’s not all bad.
Thank you Sam and Luca.
It's not bad enough that we have Amazon and Google spy devices in our homes? Now we should add chicom devices too?
It is not just the lack of difficulty that I enjoy when I use the Seestar S50, I have got the complexity of using my mount and polar aligning and focus all sorted out. What I like is being able to quickly hop outside when the weather clears for while, or just to pick up the Seestar and move it to a different part of my property where I can view the target I want. I have spent more time imaging with the Seestar, and got more in the last 2 months than I have in the last year with my conventional setup. It just isn't worth setting up the more complex stuff in a changeable climate unless you have a really good night's weather. I see Sam just popped out at 5am to take a picture, that just about sums it up.
Exactly! It’s hard to argue with the convenience
Would love to see a heavy duty AM mount that could handle 75+ lbs.
the market is severely lacking those! The only option currently is the rainbow astro rst300 with that kind of payload
we have any tech gear for bird watching
I wouldn't say so. They are quite focused on astrophotography. No binoculars or anything optical that would be useful for birding
They have a good ecosystem, but it is a pity that years after they insist on abusing an open source base to build a completely closed system, contributing back so little to the community. I put my hopes in qhy to do better
Such a relaxed and informative interview—well done! The ASIAIR and camera integration really helps bridge the gap for those moving from smart telescopes to more advanced astrophotography. Keep up the great work, Luca. Clear skies!
Thanks for the walk around Luca, appreciate the time and energy you have for the hobby.
Happy to share!
Hi Luca. Great interviews from NEAF :) I just came up with a very good idea for ZWO. I wish I had it before so your could have asked Sam about it. The idea is... Put the ASIAIR in the mount (instead of the cameras) and have all the USB and power connectors in the saddle. This way there is only one powercord that goes to the base of the mount and no cables at all between the base and the rotating part of the mount and telescpoe/camera ect. This could be for the AM7 and next versions of AM3 and AM5. An idea for the next-next gen innovation could be to make dovetail bars with build-in USB and power connectors, so that you can take everything off the mount without disconnecting any cables. The engineers should be able to solve how to make the mount saddle and the dovetail bar connection :) Regards, Tony
That is an interesting idea and a number of people have suggested that. Then again, a large number of people would not be happy with it, because they use the AM5 with other controlling systems. The benefit of course would be being able to use different cameras. In an ideal world, it could have the asiair built in, but still keeping the regular USB interface. I wish they would've been able to do that for the camera as well, to keep the ASIAIR only as an option. I know it works over Alpaca, but in my experience it is way too slow - it is really meant to be used as an all-in-one
@ I see what you mean. Well, then they could at least make the saddle a power and USB hub so that we don’t have to place the computer on the scope. I have the AM5 and I wish I could use the Eagle 6, but I can’t because load capacity.
@Youtuber-Nuuk it's an expensive solution, but one option would be to install a Pegasus Saddle Powerbox in place of the dovetail clamp on the AM5. They do sell an adapter puck specifically for the AM5 so this would be easy to do, and you'd get the USB hub etc plus it's handy for powering as well. It may be an overkill though
ZWO have opened astrophotography to the masses - than you Sam and your team for that...
Did You listen something about a bigger seestar? Great interview¡
thanks! There was some - very unofficial - chatter about a larger model, but I know very little and I can't say it anyway :D Regardless, we don't know when it's coming yet, so probably not anytime soon
@the_space_koala We have two great telescopes at the moment, so we'll be ready for any launch. Personally, what do you prefer: vespera or seestar?
Both have advantages but I believe currently the Seestar offers far better value for the price. I thought this before, but with the equatorial mode it's not even a competition anymore
@the_space_koala Thank you for your honesty!🙂
Today I used my new S50, I took images of M67 with the sky full of clouds… how was that possible?!
I imagine the clouds were thin? I mean if it was completely overcast you wouldn't have taken it outside for sure. If you're skeptical try inside (it won't find anything as it can't see starts) or cover the lens after it has found the target (won't be able to stack)
Clouds come and go, and move all the time. Seestar just keeps trying, tracks continuously and captures and stacks when there are openings. What it reports as the total exposure time will tell you a lot about how cloudy it was. If you let it run for say 30 minutes, and it says it was a 5 minute exposure then it means it only could see the target 1/6th of the time (ignoring processing time, which makes it less than 100% efficient even with a clear sky). The main issue with clouds is if you're in an urban area they will catch the light of the city and that will add noise to the image that is hard to remove. A few clouds in a rural area aren't usually a big problem. If there was true full cloud cover you would never have been able to start the capture in the first place, as it wouldn't have been able to do the initial 3 point calibration.
Ojalá se atrevan a sacar un Seestar S100 😍 Gracias por la entrevista!