SeeStar, or rather see moon and galaxies

Last night we finally had a night clear enough (although still somewhat hazy) to have a play with our latest telescope.

It's computer controlled, and calibrates its position automagically, presumably using GPS to get everything it needs.  It has a range of preprogrammed things to look at, and can autotrack (this is cheating, really, but great fun!).

First, of course, is to have a look at the crescent moon.  Everything is controlled through a phone app, including taking pictures of what it sees.  So here's a screenshot:

lovely craters along the terminator

We then moved on to looking at some galaxies.  M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, is always an interesting view.

When we first looked at the phone screen, there was very little to see.  But this image is after integrating the view for 5 minutes.  Nothing seen here was visible with the naked eye: the Plough could be seen through the faint haze, but not much more.  This is really impressive.  Also, there is a satellite track across the image, visible early on in the integration, but here integrated away by the time we took this one.

We're looking forward to a properly clear night, when we should get much better images.  And we'll need to get a tablet for better pictures, too!