This $500 Smart Telescope Shaped Like a Periscope Can Spy on Galaxies or Backyard Birds

Of each the astute telescopes we’ve seen that deficiency eyepieces, astir inactive look similar telescopes (or perhaps, successful the Vespera telescope’s case, similar the turrets from Portal). The $460 Dwarf II Smart Telescope, with its rectangular design, proved that we don’t needfully request a conical-shaped instrumentality to spot distant stars and galaxies. Now, the company’s coming on with the Dwarf 3, a plan that’s conscionable somewhat larger than before, but Dwarflabs promises acold amended long-distance shots acknowledgment to a amended lens and much enactment for photography both nighttime and day.

Most higher-end astute telescopes tin outgo thousands of dollars for a ample body, adjacent without an eyepiece. Take Unistellar’s $2,300 Odyssey with its automatic celestial entity tracking, adjacent little than its eQuinox 2 from 2023 astatine $2,500. The Dwarf bid is simply a constrained, contained rendition of the astute scope with its small, walkman-shaped assemblage and rotating lenses with a 35mm aperture. The devices are meant to beryllium hands-off, with auto-focus and modes to automatically find adjacent nebulae, prima clusters, oregon planets done an app.

The $500 Dwarf III is taking what already worked with the Dwarf II, but present it tin instrumentality wide-angle video and pictures that should beryllium amended for daytime environments. The tiny astute scope could already instrumentality immoderate awesome 4K imagery of stars, nebulae, oregon distant planets. The institution promises the caller mentation tin usage AI tracking to photograph moving birds oregon different animals. 

Image: Dwarflabs

Regarding specs, the Dwarf III seems similar a amended rendition of the plan than the Dwarf II. It’s sporting the newer Sony IMX678 8.86 mm sensor from 2024. This time, it’s utilizing 150mm telelens compared to the 100 mm from the Dwarf 2, though its wide lens shrunk to 6.7 mm from 6.8. Dwarflabs claims it tin sprout equivalent to a 737 mm telephoto lens, and it present supports Astro and dual-band filters arsenic good arsenic VIS for a clearer representation of the nighttime sky. The wide lens besides supports Astro, but that lens is amended for targets connected Earth.

The Dwarf III tin instrumentality higher-speed video with some lenses than its older brother. It tin present bash 4K video astatine 30 FPS and 1080p astatine 60 FPS done the telephoto lens. Before, it was restricted to 25 FPS and 30 FPS astatine the respective resolutions. The wide-angle lens has been upgraded to bash 1080p video astatine 30 FPS. It inactive takes telephoto images astatine 3840 x 2160 resolution, but the wide-angle present shoots astatine 1920 x 1080. It doesn’t dependable excessively large compared to what you whitethorn get with dedicated devices. I tin ideate it’s utile for hiking and looking for a spot without immoderate airy pollution; it whitethorn beryllium an fantabulous mode to drawback wildlife snaps successful the airy of the mounting prima arsenic you prop yourself up for immoderate nighttime photography. 

If you’re retired and about, you’ll besides payment from the caller 10,000 mAh battery, astir doubly arsenic overmuch arsenic the Dwarf II’s replaceable 5600 mAh. This one’s built-in, however, truthful alternatively of swapping retired the pack, you’ll request to person a powerfulness slope adjacent if you commencement moving low. Previously, you had to walk astir $600 for the “deluxe” variation with an other battery. At least, this mentation present comes with 128 GB of onboard retention compared to the past 1 that included a 64 GB micro SD card.

The Dwarf III’s size is simply a perk for photography. However, if each you privation to bash is look into the nighttime sky, determination are small-scale astute binoculars similar the $800 Unistellar Envision that deficiency immoderate photography capabilities whatsoever. We besides recovered the Dwarf 2 was acold amended with the ECH filter that came with the deluxe variation to assistance debar ambient light, positive a star filter for taking snaps of the Sun. We contacted Dwarflabs to spot if those are coming aboriginal oregon if they’re compatible with the caller version.