Neat.

Smartphone-Controlled Telescopes.

An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina…and a New Telescope from Vaonis

Astrophotographers who have created deep-sky panoramics can attest to the hours of work needed exposing frames and guiding the telescope, along with the complex post-processing workflow required to produce such an image. Now, Vaonis is looking to automate the process with its new ‘Mosaic Mode,’ which will soon be available to existing users in a 2021 app update.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Neat.

Smartphone-Controlled Telescopes.

An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina…and a New Telescope from Vaonis

Astrophotographers who have created deep-sky panoramics can attest to the hours of work needed exposing frames and guiding the telescope, along with the complex post-processing workflow required to produce such an image. Now, Vaonis is looking to automate the process with its new ‘Mosaic Mode,’ which will soon be available to existing users in a 2021 app update.

Already some existing? Most large telescopes are operated remotely these days. Many can only be operated remotely. I’m not sure it makes much difference whether they are operated from Windows, Unix or Android app.

Will look at article later.

Hey, I recognise that photo. That’s the belt of Orion.

Talk about wide field! That telescope photo is somewhere in the range of 20 to 25 degrees across, some 40 to 50 times the diameter of the Moon.

That’s not the Carina region.

> This 550-million pixel mosaic covers 10 by 7 degrees of the southern sky, and required more than 208,000 photos to create. Conceived by Vaonis technical director Gilles Krebs, the mosaic project was carried out over 336 hours of cumulative exposure time spanning many, many nights.

> It’s a common scene at star parties, post-Christmas. As darkness falls, someone approaches us with a new telescope, often in still unassembled. “I can’t figure this thing out,” is the inevitable refrain. “Can you show me how to use this @#$%! thing?”

The telescope. Smaller than I expected.

> an 80mm aperture, apochromatic doublet refractor/reflector hybrid with a f/5 focal length, providing a generous field of view nearly one degree square.

Only 80 mm. :-( By “refractor-reflector” in this case do they mean Schmidt, it doesn’t look like a Schmnidt lens.

> The entire acquisition and image stacking procedure is automated from alignment to capture, stacking and controlling field rotation: the user simply selects the object from the free Stellinapp, which suggests best targets for the evening, and Stellina does the rest. No tedious auto-guiding or dealing with flat, dark and bias frames.

Sounds like my type of telescope. Unless avoiding flat, dark and bias frames means significant loss of image quality.

> Stellina also comes equipped with a built-in light pollution filter, another plus.

Nice.

> Vespera will offer a 50mm (2-inch) aperture, f/4 refractor as the heart of its optical system (versus Stellina’s 80-mm f/5 system)

Even smaller. My 35 mm camera almost has a lens that big.

> the Vespera telescope will come with its own optional backpack. This would also meet carry-on travel restrictions, making for a complete lightweight travel package.

Carry your telescope as cabin baggage on a plane. :-)

Interesting little telescope for people like me who would have trouble identifying the big dipper. But with deeper pockets than me.