There’s a relatively new company called Unistellar that has created a telescope that is revolutionizing amateur astronomy. It permits one to see faint objects even from light-polluted areas, has the ability to conduct star-viewing sessions remotely with participants throughout the world, and provides the opportunity for a large amount of “citizen science” to be conducted by non-professional astronomers. I bought one of their telescopes “on the spot” after being shown its capabilities from a light-polluted parking lot following one of my public presentations. See the photograph below, where I show the telescope on its tripod.
The original version of their reflecting 4.5-inch telescope was called the eVscope, where “eV” stands for “enhanced vision.” Basically, what you see through the eyepiece is an image of the celestial object you are viewing collected with a CMOS detector, which is very sensitive (compared with a human eye) to light. Moreover, the detector continues to gather light during an exposure, rather than obtaining a new image roughly every 1/30 of a second (the way the eye/brain combination works). This “enhanced vision” allows you to see very dim celestial objects. The automatic software also does a good job of removing scattered moonlight and city glow that can make the uncorrected sky very bright.
You operate the telescope via its free App, installed on your smart phone or tablet, using a WiFi network generated by the telescope. No external internet is needed, so you could run the telescope from the top of Mt. Everest if you had one there! Also, the CMOS image appears on the screen of your device, as well as on the screens of other nearby people’s devices if they downloaded the free App and opened a WiFi connection to the telescope.
But here’s another amazing thing: if you have an active phone connection, you can share your screen via Zoom with anyone in the world, if they are on the Zoom call! This allows you to conduct a star-viewing session with people remotely. During the past year of physical distancing owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, I used this feature with great success for my class “star parties” and special viewing sessions that I organized for friends. I will continue doing so even after the pandemic ends, for people who cannot physically be present at the viewing sessions.
You can also save the images while you’re observing. I show some examples below, so you can judge their quality for yourself. (I think the quality is really high, and I’m a professional astronomer!) Some of the objects, such as the spiral galaxy M51 and the Crab Nebula, have very low “surface brightness” (brightness per unit area) and are difficult to see well even with quite large conventional telescopes. From the image of the Moon, you can tell that the field of view is about 0.5 degree (though it’s actually a rectangle when you’re looking at your screen, a bit larger than the Moon in one direction and a bit smaller in the perpendicular direction).
Setup of the telescope and finding celestial objects couldn’t be easier. You put the tripod on a surface, making sure the tripod is level by looking at the bubble level that’s on its top. Then you put the telescope itself on top of the tripod and tighten two screws. Remove the lens cap from the top end of the telescope tube. Then turn the telescope on (the rechargeable battery lasts most of the night, by the way), connect your operating device to it through an internal WiFi connection, and point the telescope (with a joystick option on the screen of your operating device) a few degrees away from overhead. Then you tell the operating device to identify the star field. An image will be obtained with the CMOS detector, and after automatic comparison with its catalog of stars, you’re done! Thereafter, whenever you want to go to a specific celestial object (from an extensive catalog, or you can type in specific coordinates if you wish), the telescope will slew to the approximate location of the object, take an image, make a correction based on a comparison with its star catalog, move a little, take another image and compare, and typically make one more small correction before indicating that the object has been found. (I sometimes make an additional tiny correction with the joystick to perfectly center the object in the field of view, but often this isn’t necessary.)
The telescope is reasonably light and highly portable. You can buy a backpack for it from Unistellar, or you can purchase a Pelican (or other) very durable container if you’re checking it in for a flight or transporting it on a rugged road.
“Citizen scientists” have been banding together to obtain really useful data that have been incorporated into professional research. For example, they monitor the brightness of a particular star over the course of many hours, detecting the slight apparent dimming of the star when a planet orbiting it crosses in front of the star, along our line of sight. (This is called a “transit,” and only about 1% of stars have planets with orbital planes that are perpendicular to our line of sight and thus can undergo transits.) They also monitor the shapes of comets as they approach and recede from the Sun. Another activity is tracking the positions of asteroids, so that their orbits can be more accurately determined (in an attempt to detect, and ultimately deflect, potential “killer asteroids” that might hit Earth). There are other projects as well, such as monitoring the brightness of an exploding star (supernova).
The eVscope is currently sold out, but an updated version, the eQuinox, is available to order. The main difference is that the eQuinox doesn’t have an eyepiece — but that’s okay for most purposes, and I personally rarely used the eyepiece. (I have a friend who owns an eVscope and didn’t even realize it has an eyepiece until I pointed it out to him!) For those who prefer having an eyepiece: the eVscope will become available again in a few months.
One of the founders of the company used to be a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley, and we’ve been friends for many years. He arranged a special deal with me, so if you were thinking of ordering a telescope from Unistellar, contact me first (see the “Get in Touch” section of my website) and I’ll happily provide you with a unique discount coupon code that you will be able to use during the checkout process on the Unistellar website. Trust me, this telescope is a “game changer”!
Alex Filippenko 