Sensor: Sony lMX662

Resolution Tele:1080x1920   Wide:1920x1080

Aperture: 30 mm

Focal ratio: f/5

Focal length: 150 mm

Optical lens: Apochromatic triplet

Mount type: Alt-azimuth

Slew rate: 1X - 1440X

Exposure length: 10s / 20s / 30s (Telephoto), Auto Exposure < 200ms (Wide Angle)

File format: JPEG & FITS (image) , MP4 & AVI (video)

Focuser: Built-in 

Dew Control: Built-in

Storage: 64GB еMMC

Transmission Mode: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 5G/2.4G, USB Type-C

Working temperature: -10°C~40°C (Recommended)

Battery capacity: 6000 mAh (up to ~6 hours on full charge)

Power input: Type-C

Net weight: 1.65KG

Size: 210mm x 140mm x 80mm

The Seestar S30 includes everything you need for a night of astrophotography and takes only minutes to set up. After fully charging the battery, turn on the device and place it on a stable, reasonably level surface. Open the Seestar App on your phone or tablet, connect to the telescope’s built-in Wi-Fi, and follow the prompts. The S30 will automatically align itself using plate solving—no star charts or manual alignment required.

The heart of the Seestar experience is this companion app, which transforms the S30 from a simple telescope into a full “smart observatory.” With just a few taps you can switch between Stargazing (nebulae, galaxies, clusters, the Moon), Solar System (Sun, planets, Moon), or Scenery (daytime or wide-angle views). The built-in sky atlas offers thousands of objects plus curated “Tonight’s Best” suggestions, making target selection intuitive even for beginners.

Once you choose a target, the app commands the S30’s motors: it slews to the correct coordinates, auto-focuses, tracks the object, and begins live-stacking short exposures to gradually build a cleaner, more detailed image—visible in real time on your screen. You can refine framing or focus manually if needed.

For even more flexibility, the app’s Plan Mode allows you to schedule multiple targets so the S30 can image them sequentially while you sit back and enjoy the night.

In short, the Seestar App doesn’t just add convenience—it completely redefines the stargazing workflow, making astrophotography accessible, interactive, and social, bridging the gap between traditional imaging and visual observing.

The Seestar App offers several options for processing your image data. The easiest is to let the app handle everything automatically: it live-stacks your sub-exposures in real time, lets you apply basic enhancements such as noise reduction and contrast, and saves a final JPEG to your device. These app-generated images can look quite good under ideal conditions (no satellite trails, no passing clouds), but they don’t fully showcase what the S30 is truly capable of.

For more control, you can export the full live-stack FIT file, which contains all the integrated data and is ready for deeper processing in software like PixInsight, Photoshop, or Siril. And for advanced users, the S30 also allows access to individual sub-exposures and raw data, enabling full manual stacking and processing with the tools of your choice. As illustrated on the left, significantly more detail and dynamic range can be extracted when processing the data yourself. 

Over the past three months, I’ve tested the S30 on a wide range of targets—from the Moon and planets to galaxies and various types of nebulae—and the following images (processed in PixInsight) demonstrate just how much performance you can unlock from this compact instrument. From top to bottom and from left to right: Messier 16 (Eagle Nebula), Barnard 312, Saturn, Moon, Messier 15 (Pegasus Cluster), Sharpless 122, NGC 869 & NGC 884 (Double Cluster of Perseus), Messier 45 (The Pleiades), Messier 31 (Andromeda Galaxy), vdB6 & NGC 654, Sharpless 33, Messier 57 (Ring Nebula), comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), NGC 6946 (Fireworks Galaxy), IC 146 (Cocoon Nebula), Messier 27 (Dumbbell Nebula), Sharpless 74, Sharpless 174 (Medusa Nebula), comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN), and Messier 8 (Lagoon Nebula). 

After several months of use, the Seestar S30 has proven to be an impressive instrument—especially at its remarkably low price point of $350 USD. While its focal length is slightly shorter than that of the Seestar S50, the difference in cost is simply not justified in my opinion: the S30 delivers comparable image quality and is every bit as capable for deep-sky, lunar, and solar work. For most users, the S30 is unquestionably the better value.

Where the S30 truly shines is in accessibility. It’s perfect for beginner astrophotographers, casual stargazers, travelers, or anyone who wants to enjoy the night sky without dealing with the significant learning curve or technical challenges of traditional astrophotography—no assembly, no polar alignment, no focusing hassles, and no struggle to find targets. For those on a budget, the S30 opens a door into astrophotography that used to require far more equipment, time, and money.

For experienced astrophotographers, however, the experience can feel almost too easy. Since the app handles virtually everything—tracking, focusing, plate solving, live stacking—the process can be a bit frustrating or even anticlimactic. Speaking personally, some of the “fun” disappears when all the manual work is removed. But that is, of course, a matter of personal preference.

Despite this, the quality of the data and the simplicity of the app are undeniable. The Seestar S30 offers an elegant, affordable, and highly capable gateway into the universe—one that lowers the barriers without compromising the results.