I've been around telescopes since I was ten or eleven. At first it was a very cheap 50mm refracting telescope my Merchant Marine uncle picked up on a trip to Japan. It had a tripod but, along with its terrible optical quality, was ill-suited for looking at the night sky. I loved looking at the moon with it. The next step was discovering my Dad's 6x35 binoculars were much better suited to the task and, in with a dark sky Montana or Alberta sky, were great for looking at the Milky Way and star clusters. And finally a homebrew eight inch Newtonian with an equatorial mount to compensate for the Earth's rotation.
The eight inch was a standard size for amateur astronomy. You usually had to grind your own mirror by hand and that was a good compromise of cost and not having to build a machine to do the grinding. The tube was nearly six feet long (long story about a jumpy highway patrolman) and the mount was made of steel and concrete and weighed nearly as much as I did. It would go into the back of the family station wagon for the ride to a good enough area. It took about fifteen minutes to set up and align to the Earth's spin axis (the North Celestial Pole .. a point near Polaris). Then you'd wait another fifteen minutes for the optics to temperature stabilize before using it. Finding something to look at meant pulling out the Norton's Star Atlas and looking for nearby stars that you could see in the 50mm guide scope. Centering the object usually meant it would be in the field of view of the main telescope. The eyepiece was opposite the mirror (Newtonian reflector), meaning you had to be something of a contortionist for some areas of the sky.
It was great fun. I knew the Northern Constellations and more than a few deep sky objects well and loved using it just for the beauty of the sky. I tried some astrophotography, but the clock drive on the mount wasn't accurate enough for anything more than a two minute exposure. There were issues with film and good amateur astrophotography was the domain of serious amateurs who had money and/or outstanding mechanical skills.
Times have changed. Other than a few college 'scopes I moved on to larger telescopes that weren't mine for doing science. Everything's digital at the major observatories and most of their operation is entrusted to dedicated staff. The only time a real astronomer notices the beauty of the night sky is being outside the dome looking up at the Milky Way.
Amateur astrophotography has also changed. Everything's digital. Usually one buys a computer-driven mount that points the optics to what you want to look at. A special purpose digital camera is attached to a telescope and long exposures are taken either as a single long exposure (if you have a great mount) or by taken hundreds of shorter (say 10 or 15 second) exposures and "stacking" them to create a final exposure. Getting good results usually takes at least $4k and some expertise.
A years ago small turnkey computational "smart" telescopes appeared. Small enough to throw in the trunk of a car, they could be set up in a couple of minutes. They had small optics - 60 to 85 mm for the early units - but used the image stacking trick. Control was usually through a smartphone and you could watch the image build as the exposures were stacked. Pointing was extremely easy - select an object on a digital star chart and bingo. Even though they weren't (aren't) inexpensive - generally $2k to $5k - there were year-long waiting lists at first.
Recently Celestron, one of the major amateur astronomy companies, announced what amounts to a second generation smart telescope. The six inch main optics are much larger and, given the company, likely to be high quality. They've spent time working out the user interface and experience. At $4k it costs about the same as the higher end first generation scopes. It does some image processing on its own, but you can export RAW files and do your own if you prefer. The removable camera suggests it's upgradable. - a quibble is there are newer and better image sensors from Sony that could have been used for not much more money. That said it still looks very useable.
I don't have the money, but if I had that to spend on something it would go for this rather than an Apple Vision Pro:-) Here's a link to the product page. I'd wait for trusted reviews in places like Sky and Telescope, but for someone looking to make nice images and an excuse to be out in dark areas at night, this could be just the ticket.
It will be interesting to see what smart telescopes are like in five years! My guess is six inch class with quality optics will be at this price point, but with better image sensors - probably monochrome with color filters that move in and out of position to generate full color images. Somewhat smaller refractors are possible, but fast quality optics are much more expensive. We'll probably see more sophisticated image processing on the iPhone or iPad in the field.. or you could use Photoshop with custom filters.
Wonderful post as always Steve. I have been looking at these devices and will pull the plug on one if/when they get cheaper and I have confidence. I did not realize that Celestron introduced one. Since I have a bit darker skies and some decent sky area I am more psyched than ever. Of course I need the reviews but your post gives me hope!
Posted by: Gregg Vesonder | 02/29/2024 at 10:56 AM