The Seestar S30 Pro (Smart Telescope)

The world of amateur astronomy keeps changing. On December 31, 2025, ZWO launched the latest smart telescope – the Seestar S30 Pro. This is a long anticipated upgrade to the Seestar S30 with an improved sensor and optics. The Pro is a quadruplet with one ED lens vs. the S30, which is a triplet. It has a 160 mm focal length (520 mm equivalent), and an IMX585MC sensor. The Pro has twice the storage (128 GB vs 64 BGB) than the standard S30.

Both the 30 Pro and S30 have a 30 mm aperture, a pixel size of 2.9um and a 6,000 mAh battery. The filters, a UV/IR cut and dual-narrow band, are the same for both the S30 Pro and standard S30.

With the S30 Pro you get a larger field of view. The larger telephoto sensor does give a wider field of view, and, as such, you will capture more of the sky, although, objects will appear smaller than in the S30. However, if you zoom in or crop the S30 Pro image you will end up with the same size objects as with the S30.

  • S30 Pro: 4.6 degrees field of view and more pixels (2160 x 3860 = 8.3 MP).
  • S30: 2.46 degrees field of view and fewer pixels (1920 x 1080 = 2.1 MP).

The S30 Pro will operate in Alt/Az mode. It will also operate in EQ mode, which avoids rotational artifacts and gives you cleaner images especially when taking long exposures. To facilitate this, ZWO supplies an HT10 fluid tripod head and TC20 tripod, which can be purchased in addition to the S30 Pro. You can also add a tripod leveler – although this isn’t necessary.

Seestar S30 Pro in EQ mode (arm closed). Mount purchased separately.
Seestar S30 Pro in EQ mode (arm open). Mount purchased separately.

One new feature, an enhancement over the basic S30, is the Milky Way mode. This is a wide angle view that can be used for nightscape imaging. You can also “freeze the ground” to display the sky above the ground. The S30 Pro and the just released S50 Pro have identical sensors for these wide angle images. Both have a 1.6um pixel size along with 2160 x 3840 = 8.3 MP. The wide-angle aperture is 3.4 mm with a focal length of 6 mm (35 mm equivalent) giving a field of view of 63 degrees. The wide field view on the standard S30 is 23.2 degrees with a 14 mm (104 mm equivalent) focal length.

Cygnus with labels
Cygnus from Seestar app.
Cygnus processed in Siril

The Seestar app has a sky atlas, which makes it easy to find and locate objects. The app allows you to view a live stacking, which shows the stacked images as they are taken. You can also go back in and re-stack your images for better results. In either case, you should use the AI Enhance option to clean up and process your images within the Seestar app. However, using a third party software such as Siril or PixInsight helps to bring out more of the image details. In any case, dark skies will definitely enhance your images – light pollution always gets in the way.

The Seestar app has a convenient plan mode which allows you to set up an imaging plan for the entire night. Your Seestar will automatically move from object to object based on preset timings and it will auto focus before imaging each object.

Here are a few sample images. Some from the Seestar app (with caption) and others processed in Siril (without caption).

For more information about smart telescopes in general, including the Seestars and those from Dwarf Labs, see our Introduction to Smart Telescopes. For a deeper dive into the Seestar smart telescopes, see our Seestar Smart Telescopes page.

Please note that FAS does not officially endorse or recommend this or any other telescope. We simply provide information that might be interesting and useful for the public.

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Bruce Gavett

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