ZWO has added a new entry point to its smart telescope lineup. The Seestar S30 Plus went on sale Nov. 10 for $499 — $474 for a limited time — undercutting the S30 Pro by $200 and making it the cheapest Seestar available.
“Many people are interested in astrophotography but hesitate when they see the equipment and setup traditionally involved,” ZWO founder Sam Wen said in a press release. “With S30 Plus, we wanted to give beginners more room to explore and create without taking away the simplicity that makes Seestar easy to start with.”
What’s new?
Since the original S50 debuted in April 2023, the Seestar line has continued to grow, most recently with this year’s 4K S30 Pro and S50 Pro. The S30 Plus heads in the opposite direction from the Pro models — and with the original S30 reportedly discontinued, it now holds down the entry-level slot.
Effectively, the new Plus model is an S30 Pro with a few features stripped out to meet a lower price. Like the Pro, it carries two cameras: a telephoto for galaxies, nebulae, and other deep-sky targets; and a wide-angle for broad sweeps of the night sky. The telephoto camera keeps the Pro’s 1.2-inch (30 millimeters) aperture and four-element apochromatic lens, including an element of extra-low-dispersion (ED) glass.
The biggest change is to the sensors. Both of the Plus’ cameras shoot 1440×2560 images (3.7 megapixels, or roughly 2K), versus the S30 Pro’s 8.3-megapixel 4K output — still a step up from the original S30’s 2.1 megapixels. But the difference in sensor size doesn’t mean less detail — only a difference in field of view. The Plus has the same pixel size as the Pro, so zooming in on your photos reveals the same level of detail.d
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On the telephoto side, the Plus swaps the Pro’s larger Sony sensor for a 1/1.8-inch SmartSens SC485SL chip. Both have the same 2.9-micrometer pixels behind the same 160 mm lens, so the Pro’s bigger chip just spans more sky: about 4.6°, compared with the Plus’ 3°. That’s still enough to comfortably frame targets like the Pleiades star cluster and the Orion and Rosette nebulae, along with the Moon’s full disk — or the Sun’s, with the included solar filter in place.
The wide-angle camera uses the same 1/2-inch Sony IMX586 sensor as the Pro, behind a lens with identical specs (6 mm, f/1.75). But where the Pro takes in a 63° view, the Plus crops it down to the same 2K format as its telephoto sensor, covering a smaller 43.5° field — still wide enough for the Milky Way, whole constellations, star trails, and time-lapses.
The Plus does give up a few of the S30 Pro’s handier features. The Pro can run both cameras at once, stacking a nebula through the telephoto while the wide-angle captures the Milky Way and landscape around it; the Plus only shoots with one at a time. Its wide-angle camera also can’t stitch Milky Way panoramas, though a telephoto mosaic mode for larger deep-sky targets remains. And onboard storage is halved to 64 GB.
In the box, buyers get the scope, a tabletop tripod, a carrying case, a USB-C cable, and a magnetic solar filter. The 3.6-pound (1.65 kilograms) unit runs up to 6 hours on a charge and has UV/IR-cut and duo-band light-pollution filters built in.
How to use it
Like every Seestar, the S30 Plus is driven entirely from a phone through the Seestar app. Users simply pair the device to their phone, let it calibrate, and then pick a target — or let the app suggest one. The S30 Plus automatically slews to the target, centers it, and begins tracking and live stacking, with the image building in detail on screen as frames accumulate.
The app can also identify and label constellations in the wide-angle view, and it can queue up automated imaging plans to run through the night. Finished shots can be tweaked and shared straight from the phone. For those who’d rather process elsewhere, the scope saves stills as JPEG and FITS files and video as MP4 and AVI.
The Seestar S30 Plus is available now for $499 through Seestar’s and ZWO’s online stores, Amazon in the U.S. and Europe, and authorized dealers worldwide. It’s now the cheapest way into the Seestar ecosystem — and owners who outgrow it can easily step up to a Pro model.
More details are available at ZWO’s product page.
