NEAF 2025 - astronomy and space news from Sunday 6th April 2025

The North East Astronomy Forum  - NEAF 2025 -  is the world's largest gathering for astronomy and space fans. 

There's always new products and announcements and 2025 was no exception!

We'll be adding to this post over the coming days, keep checking in.

ZWO 

The release of new Smart Telescopes continues and ZWO have announced the first of their Pro series, the Seestar S30 Pro telescope.

What's new compared to the current Seestar S30?

The main upgrade is the addition of the Sony IMX585 (Starvis 2) to the main camera as well as a Sony IMX586 to the wide angle camera. (The Seestar S30 has two cameras and optical systems.)

The main lens in the Pro is now a four element APO in place of the three element design.

There's also been an upgrade of internal storage to 256Gb.

Fans of Milky Way wide angle astrophotography will be chuffed to learn that the wide angle camera on the Seestar S30 Pro is now fully capable of capturing deep-sky views up to 84 degrees wide in full 4K resolution.  Combined with the new EQ (equatorial) mode with Polar Alignment assistance that's been rolled out to all ZWO Seestar owners, the new S30 Pro is likely to be the astronomy tool to capture expansive images our wonderful southern skies. Bear in mind these S30 telescopes are tiny critters and easily fit in a shoulder bag  - many folks might the S30 Pro a possible replacement for a heavy DSLR camera and lens, star tracker and tripod when travelling to grab Milky Way shots.

In fact, there will a be dedicated Milky Way mode in the Seestar app as well as a star trail mode.

Head of ZWO, Sam Wen, posted some test images taken with the main camera and upgraded sensor of the Seestar S30 Pro.

This is an image of the Lagoon and Trifid Nebula (M8, M20) region in the constellation of Sagittarius. This is the result of just 4 minute of exposures, highlighting the potential of this new telescope. 

We'll have pricing and availability of the Seestar S30 Pro soon, but it will be a few months away.

ZWO also announced the ASI585MC Air and the ASI2600MC/MM Air. 

These are all-in-one cameras that now include a built-in ZWO ASIAIR  This enables the camera to handle the entire telescope mount control, astro object tracking, telescope focusing, image processing and more via phone or iPad/tablet app. 

Small but super handy upgrades for astro imagers from ZWO is their new 30F5 Guidescope that's already been announced, as well as the new ZWO EAF that now has an internal battery and on-board buttons, reducing the need for an external hand controller.

Celestron made their product announcements ahead of NEAF and were highlighting their new releases on their stand.

The Celestron 6" RASA (Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph) is a compact, widefield telescope that's dedicated to astrophotography. The fast f/2.2 optical system can take wide angle, highly detailed deep-sky images in minutes. You can read more about the RASA 6" on the BINTEL website here.

This new telescope has a great combination of portability and optical design to make it a popular choice for serious astrophotographers, especially when you need to travel to dark sky sites. 

Cheers,

Earl White 

BINTEL

6th April 2025