The Dwarf3 Smart Telescope

I came across a Dwarf2 smart scope during an astronomy event that I hosted last year. I was quite enamored with it and went to the Dwarflab website. By that time the Dwarf3 was already out, so I took the plunge and ordered one. I've been loving it!

It's by no means comparable to the astrophotography setup I have in my observatory, but it gets amazing images. It has a lot of benefits which I'll discuss in this post.

It's pretty compact! It includes a telephoto lens, a wide-angle lens, and comes with a solar filter for solar astronomy. You run it completely from the Dwarflab App, which, as a first-time user, guides you through initial setup and usage. It doesn't come with a tripod, but Dwarflab offers one. However, you can use any camera tripod to be honest. The more stable, the better.

For astro use, there are several modes. The main tele astro mode lets you shoot the moon and deep sky objects. It has a built-in atlas, where you can search for objects and allow it to go to them and start tracking. In alt-az mode, you can shoot 15 or 30 second exposures and get very good images. It comes with built-in filter set, including an astro filter to pull out nice, contrasty images. You have complete control over exposure time, gain etc. or you can let the app automatically suggest the best settings.  You can process the final images in the Dwarflab app itself or export the individual .FITS files to your laptop and run them through more advanced processing, like in PixInsight. 

The Double Cluster. 30x15-second frames.

There is also a DuoBand filter built into the Dwarf3 which you can select through the app to target those lovely hydrogen-rich objects. 

Additionally, you can configure the Dwarf3 into equatorial mode, which will allow for longer exposures and better tracking. I've used this a lot and just simply presents better images overall, even for short 30-second exposures. When you go longer, the Dwarflab app will guide you through taking dark frames where you actually use the included solar filter. Each Dwarf3 unit already has flat and bias files created for each unit at the factory.

The California Nebula. 3 hrs of 30-minute frames, Duo Band Filter, EQ mode.

Solar mode is great! You simply turn on the scope, connect with the app, slap on the included magnetic solar filter and search for the sun using the wide-angle lens first, then allowing the Dwarf3 to center the sun into the telephoto lens' field-of-view. It selects the correct setting and then starts taking frames. 

The Dwarflab app allows you to process images in different ways using its Stellar Studio functionality. This includes an auto function, star removal and star collection. Like me, you can also run the final stacked, processed image through Lightroom, Snapseed etc that you may have your phone. Again, you can download the captured .FITs files and stack and process using your own software. 

There is also a Mosaic mode. This is where you can select an area of the night sky that is larger than the standard field of view, and have the scope collect the entire area and mesh it all together. You can select the number of frames per area, and just let it go to work.

The Heart Nebula. Mosaic Mode. 3 hours of 30 second exposures. Duo Band filter.

Another feature is scheduled shooting. You can use the Dwarf's calendar function to ask it to shoot various objects during the night. I haven't tried this yet. 

Just a note that you can use both the telephoto and wide-angle lens systems to capture the night sky, so there's a lot of functionality.

A recent feature release includes the ability to capture star trail images using the wide-angle camera. It does a very nice job with this, and also creates a time lapse, progressive video for you.

Two-hour time lapse aiming at Polaris.

Outside of astronomy, there are other ways to utilize this scope. It has a very cool tracking feature, and I use it to capture aircraft flying overhead. I've captured aircraft as high as 40,000 feet, and have taken it to my local glider field to capture video of gliders landing and soaring high above. I am not quite sure it will work at airshows where your targets will be moving fast - it's limited there. Below is a video of a tracked Lufthansa aircraft flying over my home at 40,000 feet.

You can also use the Panoramic mode to capture wide vistas. You select the area you want to capture, and it goes to work and stitches the individual frames together to produce a final, high-resolution picture.

Test Panorama of Melbourne Citty from Mt Dandenong, Australia.

One other last thing I will mention is its portability. It's really quite small, even when inside its provided case. I took it to Australia twice last year to shoot objects down there and despite a few questions about it from airport security, it travelled very well and provided a great opportunity to shoot stuff I wouldn't have dreamed off.

At time of writing, a new update came out for the software with some interesting-looking features. I'll provide another write-up about that soon. The beauty though is that the scope is extendable and scalable thanks to the software. More features will be released over time, allowing you to try out new techniques and target new objects.

Other smart scopes exist as well, such as the SeeStar, Vaonis and Celestron models to name a few. The beauty of them is that they are democratizing astrophotography. Instead of folks spending thousands of dollars on astrophotography setups and spending hours to learn the night sky and processing techniques, smart scopes like these allow people without any experience to obtain terrific images almost instantly. It also teaches them about the night sky and basic photo and astrophoto techniques. I've introduced this particular model to several friends and within minutes, they have acquired great images of various deep space objects. In turn, they've order these for themselves, and I've seen them produce stunning results.