Taking advantage of another clear night on September 9th, I set up the ZWO Seestar S50 telescope to capture a pair of remarkable deep-sky targets. To make sure the imaging session ran smoothly without any battery limitations, I connected an external power supply to keep the smart telescope running continuously.

Messier 31 (The Andromeda Galaxy)

Description: Messier 31, commonly known as the Andromeda Galaxy, is our vast spiral galaxy neighbor in the local universe. Containing hundreds of billions of stars, it appears to the naked eye as a subtle, hazy smudge under dark skies. Through long-exposure smart telescope imaging, its bright central core and surrounding spiral dust lanes stand out in great detail.

Sub-exposures / Frame Count: 233 images stacked (10-second exposures taken over several nights from Sep 2 – Sep 9 2026)

IC 405 (The Flaming Star Nebula)

Description: Located in the constellation Auriga, IC 405—widely called the Flaming Star Nebula—is an expansive cloud of cosmic gas and dust. The nebula gets its distinctive, fiery appearance as light from a runaway star ripples through the surrounding interstellar medium, causing the gas to glow like smoke surrounding a flame.

Sub-exposures / Frame Count: [Insert frame count, e.g., 180 images stacked]

Setup: ZWO Seestar S50 with External Power Supply | Location: Rockingham, NC