Dwarf II Smart Telescope

[Astro_Dad]

This popped into my Indiegogo feed today - haven’t searched properly on here to be honest but curious as to views on this from an EAA standpoint, and if anyone has been involved or experienced the original model. Not looking to acquire one at all but  just for pure interest in the tech.  

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dwarf-ii-smart-telescope-astro-nature-photography--2?utm_content=campaigns_one_column_hero1_title&utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bck-07152022friday&gs_variant=2021_Friday#/

[DaveL59]

actually looks pretty neat, like the design of the telephoto side and the early price makes it very affordable for a wider market.

[ONIKKINEN]

Really had to scroll down to find out the specs, which are: 100mm FL and 24mm aperture. Id say it will be very underpowered for anything other than the handful of bright big objects out there. I cant help but feel it should be a bit bigger even if the price doubled.

The pictures shown in the site are from bortle 4, which is much, much better than the average sky condition for most so those examples are more of an upper limit than your average consumers shot.

Its not looking great IMO, but i dont think the target audience is the amateur astronomer but instead the tech enthusiast social media person or something like that.

[rnobleeddy]

For the price, it may well be a solid starter kit, in the same that a £100 telescope might not satisfy the needs of people here, but will amaze a lot of other people.

But it's ALT-AZ and I can't imagine it will work well on anything other than a few select targets.

 

[Vulisha]

I have opened this thread while it was only kickstarter but thread was deleted for some reason... 

I backed this invention and I beleive it will be something if they make it properly. It is basically cheapest goto setup. Perfect for introduction to astronomy and perfect travel device. If results as bellow are possible it could be top item! 

Small lens does not mean bad performance, this has been imaged with  Meopta Anaret 20/90mm, f4,5 @f5,6 which is effectively 16mm...  with EOS500D

https://flic.kr/p/2i7sSmr

and

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Vulisha

[heydad]

They posted a live video and it looks interesting, have you seen it?

DWARF II Telescope Live Streaming of DSO Shooting. - YouTube

 

[Vulisha]

I saw it, and they only image without infrared filter, that kicks colors out bit it is good for low quality skies. I am interested in real color imaging for galaxies. 

Luckly they will add 1.55 filter adapter, so you can add any filter you want. 

Also neat trick will be putting it oj tripod so it acts partially as eq mount to reduce field rotation, hopefully

[Anthony1]

It looks like this live stream is having some fun. 😬I've never used such a small telescope before.

[heydad]

I saw a picture posted by their Instagram account, the Western Veil Nebula, captured in bortle 7.I think they must have used a UHC filter. The result is very interesting. 

[Vulisha]

Indeed result is not bad, but it has a lot of spherical aberation maybe some blend ti reduce f ratio will help with that. 

[FaridHa25569097]

On 15/07/2022 at 19:39, ONIKKINEN said:

Really had to scroll down to find out the specs, which are: 100mm FL and 24mm aperture. Id say it will be very underpowered for anything other than the handful of bright big objects out there. I cant help but feel it should be a bit bigger even if the price doubled.

The pictures shown in the site are from bortle 4, which is much, much better than the average sky condition for most so those examples are more of an upper limit than your average consumers shot.

It's not look great IMO, but I don't think the target audience is the amateur astronomer but instead the tech enthusiast social media person or something like 

they shot it in 7 and 8 class skys but I do agree on the rest am going to buy it since I want to take it to different countries and field trips 

[Astro_Dad]

Thanks @Chris for this review, interesting instrument. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Astro_Dad

[PeterW]

Another under sky review, looking interesting, especially if the company keep listening and adding features to make it more out the box impressive for newbies and with enough pro features to satisfy the EEA community. Low cost and satisfying the newbie and pro community would be good. Could also be very good for outreach events too?!

Plenty of improvements and good suggestions going in. 

Not sure there is an iOS version yet 😞

Peter

[ONIKKINEN]

Looks like a decent product actually, ill have to eat my words from my previous comment where i just bashed the product based on the numbers alone. From Tokyo the image Cuiv got seems pretty good for the price and i cant think of anything that competes in the price category.

[PeterW]

You come up with lens hoods, plastic to do flat frames and other bits and pieces for it. Would be good to see how it handles filters, especially narrower band ones. Maybe that pixel binning could help avoid wierd colour issues. They need to improve the object finding and maybe add the ability to provide coordinates or links to other planetarium programmes. The existing products seem well received, though costly, this could provide an alternative.

Peter

[Alien 13]

One day ALL telescopes will be like these, I kid you not..

Alan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Interesting, especially for large targets, but for smaller targets there is no replacement for aperture.

[Alien 13]

8 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Interesting, especially for large targets, but for smaller targets there is no replacement for aperture.

Sort of but even a modest 3 inch refractor with a CMOS camera can easily out perform the Palomar 200 inch scope with its photographic plates, who knows what technology will come next..

Alan

[Elp]

I saw Cuivs video. No one's mentioned the 15s limit for exposures, isn't that a hindrance?

[Vulisha]

That is a limit induced by chip, but since mount is alt-az, longer do not have much sense. 

[Alien 13]

Have been thinking that a scope like this would make a superb meteor cam..

Alan

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

9 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

Sort of but even a modest 3 inch refractor with a CMOS camera can easily out perform the Palomar 200 inch scope with its photographic plates, who knows what technology will come next..

Alan

That's a wrong comparison, because it suggests a big scope cannot be equipped with a modern sensor.  Besides, to quote Scotty: Ye cannae change the laws of physics, captain". A big instrument captures more photons and has a higher resolution than a smaller. My APM 80 mm F/6 triplet is optically outstanding, but cannot match the resolution the 8" C8 has on planets. There is simply no contest. A 30mm scope will not show as much detail as, and will capture 4 times fewer photons from the same area in the sky than a 60 mm, this means the S/N is half as good. Resolution-wise, a little 30 mm lens will not be able to capture the moon like this:

Click for full resolution.

No amount of AI-driven enhancement will change that, simply because the information isn't contained in the data. A colleague of mine showed a paper in which it was shown that a deep-learning-based sharpening method on astronomical data hallucinated several objects (i.e. created objects out of noise). Whilst adding some freckles, or misplacing hairs in AI super-resolution applications to old portraits is quite tolerable, in scientific or medical imaging this kind of creativity is unacceptable.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Just to put things in perspective, the Rayleigh limit for a 24mm aperture is 5.75 arc seconds (way worse than the seeing disk), my 80mm boasts a 1.73 arc second limit, and the C8 0.68 arc seconds (only ever achievable with lucky imaging, of course). Stars will hardly be pinpricks in the 24 mm. Using the Dawes limit we get 4.83", 1.45" and 0.57" respectively 

[Paul M]

I'm intrigued by this product.  

It most certainly has a market. It's simple enough for a beginner to operate but requires some astronomical insight so maybe good for a young, budding astronomer?

I agree, it is the future! Robotic scopes that is. Never mind all this nefarious kit hanging off a complex mount, dripping with cables. None of it wanting to cooperate any other part!

The only choice you'll have is sensor spec and perhaps some aspect of the optical train. Fixed physical housing but interchangeable lenses.

[bomberbaz]

I own the eVscope and compared to that it is vastly underpowered. If I was just buying one for night time viewing then I would probably not buy this. 

However I think there is a good market for it as it is both terrestrial and night time, extremely portable and overall very ubiquitous. It would be great for astronomy clubs for outreach, schools and college for similar, there is definately a market out there for it.