Wider views with the Seestar S50

 The IMX462 imaging chip used with the Seestar S50 limits the field of view to 1.27° x 0.71°.  ZWO has included in their Seestar imaging app an automatic mosaic creation tool called "framing" that can double or triple the single-shot field of view.  

I tried the framing mode with two subjects that are a little too wide for a single-shot exposure:  the Double Cluster in Perseus, and the galaxy pair called Bode's Nebulae (M81 and M82) in Ursa Major.   This mode works remarkably well.  The biggest drawback is that it requires considerable time to complete.  The two examples shown here each took 20 minutes before the exposure was ended.  The field-of-view expansion factors were 1.4x and 1.5x.

M82 (left) and M81 (right).  Cropped from the original 1.4x mosaic.

Both of these galaxies were previously captured with the Seestar S50, but are too widely separated to fit into a single frame.  The framing mode nicely captures both at the same time.

The Double Cluster: NGC 869 (bottom) and NGC 884 (top). Cropped from the 1.5x mosaic.

In spite of what I consider to be a long acquisition time, the advantage of the Seestar is that I was seated comfortably in the warm house monitoring the progress on my iPad while these automated exposures ran to completion.

Here is a finder chart showing the location of the two galaxies (Bode's Nebulae) relative to the Big Dipper and Polaris:

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com