ZWO is expanding its smart telescope lineup with the new Seestar S30 Plus, an entry-level model that instantly becomes one of the most affordable smart telescopes available.
Priced at $499/€499 (introductory $469/€469) and available from November 10, the Seestar S30 Plus arrives after the discontinuation of the original Seestar S30, launched in 2025, and sits below the Seestar S30 Pro as a new entry-level option for beginners. It launches a few months after the flagship Seestar S50 Pro.
The Seestar S30 Plus is positioned as a potential upgrade for existing S30 owners. At just 3.6 lbs/1.65 kg, it’s also designed for travel. Like the original, it has a dual-lens imaging system combining wide-angle and telephoto cameras. Crucially, both produce 1440 x 2560 (2K) pixel images — a step up from the S30’s 1920 x 1080 (HD) resolution, but short of the S30 Pro’s 3840 × 2160 (4K) resolution. All images can be output as JPEGs of lossless FITS files. The telephoto system offers a field of view of about three degrees for capturing deep-sky objects, while the wide-angle camera expands it to about 43.5 degrees. Unlike the Seestar S30, the Seestar S30 Plus’s wide-angle camera can also capture star trails, as well as Milky Way and constellation images.
It also gets an optics upgrade. Though it retains a 30mm aperture, it incorporates a four-element (instead of a three-element) apochromatic optical system and adds ED low-dispersion glass. Elsewhere, the Seestar S30 Plus retains much of the original, including 64GB of internal storage, with around 45GB available to users. The standard package comes with a compact tabletop tripod and a magnetic solar filter.
Users will benefit from recent Seestar app upgrades, including scheduled shooting and an in-app post-processing suite that turns captured images into share-ready photos without requiring a separate editing workflow.
Will ZWO follow up with a Seestar S50 Plus? With the recent discontinuation of the Seestar S50 — the original budget smart telescope that grew the market when it launched in 2023 — that remains to be seen, but with the Seestar S30 Plus, ZWO may now be starting a new product roadmap.
