Tuesday August 11 2020
Smart Telescope Shipped!
There's one thing about OPT. They're a great reliable company for ordering telescopes and astronomical equipment. The order was just placed online during the weekend when they were closed and on Monday they immediately shipped the telescope!
I have a tracking number and the parcel is shipped by UPS International Expedited, which means the package will arrive in only 3 days on Friday. Today is Tuesday. If the box zips through Customs, I should have it for a weekend of astronomical imaging and viewing. There's not much I need to do to prep this new telescope - just charge the built-in battery, check mirror alignment and lock in the focus using the provided Bahtinov mask. The telescope was designed by professional astronomers so they literally thought of everything.
I have raw sample Unistellar telescope data for image processing practice and honed my skills while waiting for the telescope and clear skies. I've memorized screens, procedures, recommendations and operating usage. I upgraded the computer OS and half the image processing programs stopped working but I installed a whole slew of new compatible ones and chose the best of the bunch, alreading conquering the learning curves. I have upgraded my iPhone and iPad and installed the latest upgraded version of the eVscope app.
I had dozens of questions which research resolved most and the few remaining were answered by Unisteller. The company is exceptional, sticking by their product and improving it over time. The smart telescope is the eVscope from Unistellar, which is 100 times more powerful than a classical telescope. The tiny light weight (under 20 lbs) scope is all electronic and uses the same CMOS sensor found in the ZWO ASI224MC camera, for ultra low noise, color, and high speed imaging. The electric views from the 4.5-inch aperture f/4 telescope compare favorably to a 40-50-inch telescope visual views (when comparing apples to oranges). The sticker price for this technology is about $3000 for the scope, $300 for tax, and $260 for shipping.
The eVscope is designed to image through extreme light pollution and the user does not need to do any calibration. The smart telescope does everything. No polar alignment needed. It does plate solving with millions of known stars in its data base. Owners say it takes about 3 minutes to set up the telescope and turn it on. One of the best features is the way it handles the night sky. Let's say you go out and are greeted by a half sky. The other half is cloudy or obstructed by skyscrapers. You just tell the telescope where the clear section of the sky is located (using a triangle in the app) and it does the rest. It has some of the most accurate goto results of any telescope according to reviews.
