ZWO's best pro smart telescope to date is perfect for astronomy and solar imaging, with a price to match.
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The Seestar S50 Pro is ZWO's best, most sophisticated smart telescope yet. It produces stunning images of deep sky objects, and is compact and light enough to stow away without issue. But the S30 Pro is a better option for those wanting to save hundreds of dollars.
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The ZWO Seestar S50 Pro was released on Aug. 25, 2026. It's a smart telescope that ships with everything you need to get started with astronomy and solar observations, eliminating the need to buy any other accessories.
It is controlled through the Seestar app on a smartphone and offers automatic slewing and autofocused views of galaxies, nebulas, star clusters and more. That said, in our experience, it sometimes needs manual adjustment with the on-screen joystick to perfect centering.
This being the Pro version of the original S50, which released three years prior, it's more expensive; you'll be paying $450 more than the original S50, with the S50 Pro coming in at $999. For that you get double the storage capacity (128 GB instead of 64 GB) and a higher resolution (4K not Full HD). ZWO claims the Pro has an extended battery life of nine hours, though we can't test this yet because the app version responsible for this uplift from the originally stated seven hours (version 3.3.1) wasn't released during testing.
So are these upgrades enough to warrant the extra spend?
The Seestar S50 Pro is instantly recognizable as a smart telescope. A neat, rounded and glossy plastic casing protects the fragile but automatic optical and electrical insides that power this pocket rocket. Only two buttons are found on the entire device: a large power button on the side enveloped by a ring of light that glows when powered on, and a small reset button on the bottom of the telescope.
Image resolution: 8.3 MP (3840 x 2160)Aperture: 50mm (1.96 inches)Focal length: 260 mmStorage: 128 GB internalField of view: 2.8 degrees (tele) / 63 degrees (wide)Mount: Motorized alt-azimuth (EQ mode supported)Battery: 9 hours (currently untested)Weight: 6 pounds (2.72 kg)
The carry case that the S50 Pro ships in looks like black compressed polystyrene but has neat latches and a red handle that tucks away in a slot at the top, making it easy to pack — similar to a drone case. This is much better than some of the bags you can buy for smart telescopes as it feels more rigid and secure. The S50 Pro and its tripod and solar filter all ship together and are snugly held inside.
It's light, too. We weighed it all, and the whole setup weighs 8.6 pounds (3.9 kilograms) fully packed, 6 pounds (2.7 kg) of that being the S50 Pro itself. It's also small; we measured it at 5.7 x 10.6 x 5.4 inches (146 x 270 x 138 mm), including the rubber feet on the bottom. Incidentally, we like that because it means you don't have to use the tripod if you don't want to.
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We even received a bunch of ZWO-branded stickers that, if we were so inclined, we could pop on the telescope. But we're probably going to give them to the nephews.
Everything is controlled via the Seestar app, the same as all the other ZWO Seestar telescopes. This is typical for smart telescopes, which are almost always operated via an app.
