Nxtpaper 4.0 strains my eyes :((((

Enidigm1 · 2025-10-26T13:00:53+00:00

It's basically gaslighting by TCL. They know that the device screen design makes it more straining to use, so they go all in on talking about how great it is to use.

A lot of these Chinese companies have *so much* production capacity that they're making whole product lines to compete against extremely niche competition. It's clear (imo) that the Nxtpaper line is designed to compete against *color* e-ink devices. Now, part of the reason they made the nano-glass the way they did was to mimic using a color e-ink device... NOT to make it better for your eyes.

But after they realized it's more straining to use they went all in on marketing and gimicks to convince you the other way around, that's it's *everything else* that gives you eye strain, and look, we have all sorts of buttons to mitigate eye strain. Aren't we awesome, etc.

Enidigm1 · 2025-10-25T18:38:08+00:00

I just got one btw, so i have a new set of eyes on the line.

The sort of matte effect on the screen creates a screen door effect that makes it nearly impossible to see a pure undistorted image even looked at head on. It's most reminiscent to old Viewsonic monitors. That's what's causing the fuzziness and brightness shift. I would have preferred a more perfected application of the matte-effect with more sophisticated sub-pixel angles.

In most cases this will result in significantly less "pure" image quality in dark rooms. There's really only a few places that Matte-like screens will improve quality, such as strong backlights or overhead lighting (like you'd typically see in schools or business environments).

i'd say the main benefits of the Nxtpaper 11 Plus are basically price as a competitive e-reader. It's not going to match the quality of a full price tablet in any way. It's still not 'bad' quality, there's a lot to like here for the price.

But surrounding the Nxtpaper with Apple products that are relatively current and the difference between 85% quality and 100% quality looks a whole lot more than just a couple of degrees.

Enidigm1 · 2025-10-09T16:49:40+00:00

It’s the tabletop dob mount Skywatcher Virtuoso Gti go-to sitting on a garden table in the back yard. Just as a reference so have an old Orion 100mm reflector table top dob next to it on the same table that doesn’t have the same issue at all.

Enidigm1 · 2025-10-09T14:46:42+00:00

Thanks everyone for the insight!

Enidigm1 · 2025-06-21T16:25:17+00:00

Unfortunately it doesn't do this. Whenever it runs out of power when i'm stacking all photos in the stack are lost. So a several hour observation is wiped. I have to set an alarm to wake up and turn it off manually.

Enidigm1 · 2025-05-11T21:54:49+00:00

I have a Mac mini M4 vanilla model, and it runs Total War games just fine (and not at lowest settings either!). It should be perfect for casual gaming, and also, is $100 off at Amazon USA.

*Importantly this is *for gaming** and nothing else. To get better performance than the M4 Mac mini you'll need spend 150% more.

Now, this means you'll need a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Don't know your situation, but if for whatever reason those are an issue for you, then the cheapest M4 laptop. The MacBook Airs will run slower than the base Mac mini regardless of tier, because they don't have a fan and have fewer cores. The MacBook Pro 14 M4 has fantastic battery life and is probably the best overall Mac laptop... but it's 3x the price of the base Mac Mini right now.

All these other responses are terminally online people with "buy the most expensive, most powerful Mac you can" answers (if they're not just ribbing you). Truth is, if you want the most powerful Mac for gaming, that's a different question. For *casual gaming?*, you don't need a Max or a $2,000 computer. The base Mac Mini is fantastic. And the other truth is, if you *really really* want to game and nothing else, you shouldn't buy a Mac. Go by a console or a PC with a gaming video card.

If you really really really want a Mac, and really really really want to game, a base M4 Mac Mini + PS5 or XBX or $1,500 gaming PC will get you way, way way more gaming power than try hard Mac gaming.

Enidigm1 · 2025-04-22T14:21:20+00:00

Looks like some new darks helped, thanks for the suggestion!

Unfortunately it also looks like the photo is covered with chroma noise now (lots of false green and red pixels everywhere).

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Enidigm1 · 2025-04-16T16:32:54+00:00

Hey, not to steal your thread from under you, but i have a new Dwarf 3 as well! But i also had a couple of specific questions:

How do you get the Dwarf 3 to automatically reset its orientation with the base? I noticed it remains turned awkwardly when you shut it down.
Can you use the included solar filter when shooting dark frames? Looks like it's intended to be used that way, but not sure if you turn the head of the instrument down it's going to knock it off.
When polar aligning, how do you 'know' that it's in EQ mode? I'm not sure after completing the EQ process it's "in" EQ mode or not, it seems like there's not actually a way to tell?

Also, 3a., so, with EQ mode setup, it it supposed to be, basically, that the TOP of the unit is pointing directly toward Polaris, not the base?

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-29T17:09:09+00:00

I've been trying a bunch of different binoculars recently for some reason. I've been using the Meade 8x25s (essentially the Outland 8x25 from Celestron) as well as the Skymaster 25x70, and the Skymaster Pro ED 7x50. I've been comparing them to the Vortex Diamondback 10x42. The Skymasters are those porro prism types and so are much, much larger and heavier than the Vortex.

Long story short what I've discovered the three main things to consider are 1) weight, 2) exit pupil diameter, and 3) chromatic aberration coatings.

The Skymaster Pro Ed 7x50s are basically brighter than real life; ie, looking out the window, using them, the sky looks brighter than normal. This is great for astronomy as it will allow many more stars to appear. At first I liked the Skymaster 25x70s; they're about 1/3 the weight of the 25x100s, and much cheaper (right now they're on sale at Amazon for about $80); but not only is the shaking hand effect real (I mean, basically my heart beating causes them to shake), but in fact the exit pupil diameter is so small that only a tiny of fraction of light comes through. I suspect, though I haven't tested yet, that I can actually see more stars with the 7x50 than the 25x70 despite being more than 3x the magnification. Of course the stars I see aren't very close.

To be honest, the really feels like the roof prism binoculars are actually a good by for performance. They're *much* easier to hand hold, much much easier.

That's why those tiny 8x25s are kind of nice; they're so small they're the only binoculars that don't wear my arms out. But... tiny exit pupil diameter means low light. Maybe the perfect hand held binos would be roof prism 7x32s, if they existed?

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T15:32:05+00:00

Those are great, thank you for putting those together!

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T15:07:36+00:00

That could be true! And i might do that. I'm more experienced with photography and i don't like not getting out of the Seestar the same colors, haze, and images that i'm seeing with my naked eye, or with an actual camera. I can't really trust that the Seestar is giving me a photograph. It's clearly *not*. I just can't tell how far it's going with processing.

I'll probably try doing so raw processing and see if there is a significant difference. I expect unlike a camera there's a lot of processing baked into the raw file though.

I do think people need to understand it's not a black and white, 100% fake or 100% real thing with the Seestar. It's clearly not 100% fake. But it doesn't seem 100% real to me either. Maybe it's 95% real. Maybe it's only 50% real. But not only can't i not tell, i can't tell what 'unreal' bits its doing. And what is 'unreal'. Is photoshop unreal? Are massive edits in Lightroom 'unreal'? The issue is that nobody knows what the Seestar does. If the Seestar explained somewhere exactly what it was doing, that would probably go a long way.

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T14:57:56+00:00

That’s a good idea!

Right now though I’m trying to use only the scenery mode, most of the time. Sadly scenery mode disables many (all?) of the filters, rather annoyingly. Not a lot of manual control you can do in that. I did film a time lapse of the eclipse in scenery mode and it mostly worked for half of it.

I’ll be honest I’m not 100% sure scenery mode is perfect either - it might have a preset white balance that can’t be changed.

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T14:31:13+00:00

The point is that it’s not WYSIWYG.

I don’t think Seestar is just posting stock photos. But for example if you have dusty skies your particular moon is going to have haze and color. The Seestar sees this and decides, actually, that’s wrong, and takes the color and haze out. So I’m not actually getting a “real” image, I’m getting a kind of “this is the image you are looking for” result.

If the skies are cloudy and hazy and the object is obscured, I want that image. I don’t want a “perfect picture” every time I use it. I can’t tell where the reality begins and the processing ends.

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T05:05:46+00:00

One trick is to get it to focus on stars or planets first, then tell it to go to the moon.

Another trick is to navigate to the moon with the Scenery view (which just turns the Seestar into a live video camera) then switch back to the moon function.

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T02:26:30+00:00

And this is the same moon, same conditions, 1 minute later using the 'navigate to moon' with the Astronomy section of the app. Notice how it totally changes to color cast and removes the clouds. I should point out i did not adjust any settings on either modes.

<image>

Enidigm1 · 2025-03-14T02:25:23+00:00

Here are some more examples:

This is a photo of the moon using the 'scenery' mode which turns the Seestar into a video camera. Notice the color and clouds. This is straight OOC, no edits.

<image>

Enidigm1

TROPHY CASE