Can the Seestar S30 capture nebula under city light pollution?

Is astrophotography from the city even possible, with nebulae so faint?
And if it is, do you really need expensive cameras, telescopes, and special filters?

You might think so.

Where was this image taken?

at the Tomita Observatory.
One interesting detail: the North America Nebula in Cygnus sits at a declination of +44°, placing it north of Oita. You can clearly see the northern sky glow, especially after it crosses the meridian.

Seestar Nebula & Star Cluster Modes — Shooting Plans Explained

There are two ways to image nebulae with Seestar:
1. Stargazing Mode
2. Plan Mode

Stargazing Mode is better suited for outreach events or live viewing — it’s great for introducing targets and enjoying real-time stacking on the spot.
That works fine, but since I planned to leave the setup running and go to sleep, I used Plan Mode instead.

Plan Mode

This mode is similar to the Plan Mode on ZWO’s ASIAIR. You can schedule the target in advance, and once the plan starts, Seestar will capture everything automatically exactly as planned.

When you select a target, a star chart is displayed, allowing you to preview the actual field of view of the image.
You can define the imaging window by choosing when to start and end the session, and whether to use a filter. 

The built-in Duoband light-pollution filter can be enabled directly in the app.
Once started, Seestar automatically platesolves, slews to the target, centers it, and begins imaging.

Equatorial Mode

Before discussing Equatorial Mode, it’s important to understand Alt-Az mode.
Seestar is designed as an automated Alt-Az imaging platform. While tracking in altitude and azimuth, celestial objects still move from east to west. As they cross the meridian, their altitude rises to culmination and then falls.
Because of Earth’s rotation, Alt-Az tracking introduces field rotation, causing the image to slowly rotate within the field of view, as shown below (Stellarium screenshot).

For longer imaging sessions, an equatorial mount is typically used. (Here, we focus only on Seestar’s Equatorial Mode.)
Seestar is tilted to align with Earth’s rotational axis. This prevents field rotation during tracking, keeping the framing fixed throughout the session.

Adjust Exposure Time and Light Frames

Next, in other settings, you need to do two things:
1. Extend the exposure time (up to 60 seconds)
2. Save the images during image enhancement

You can save each frame during enhancement (light frames, 60s each); otherwise, only the stacked image is kept.

Imaging

Run your prepared sequence. You can watch live, but I usually let it run overnight.

Image Processing

When connected via USB-C, Seestar appears as a storage device. The _sub folders already contain the saved light frames.

The spectral data was processed to create the first image of the North America Nebula.
I used PixInsight, the global standard for astrophotography.

Conclusion

So, how was it?
Honestly, even in areas with heavy light pollution, the smart telescope and filter performed very well. At first, I wondered, “Can it really capture so many images?” — but the results were surprisingly good.
And if you take it to a dark site, how long will it take? I thought the same. I’m confident it will do great!