{"id":44803,"date":"2023-05-17T14:50:48","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T14:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=44803"},"modified":"2023-05-30T12:15:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T12:15:17","slug":"unistellar-evscope-equinox-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2023\/05\/17\/unistellar-evscope-equinox-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Unistellar eVscope eQuinox 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
FIRST LIGHT <\/h5>\n\n

Unistellar eVscope eQuinox 2<\/h2>\n\n

Powerful, light pollution-busting smart scope for painless one-click imaging <\/p>\n\n

WORDS: JAMIE CARTER <\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n

VITAL STATS <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Price<\/strong> \u00a32,199 <\/span>
\u2022 Optics<\/strong> 114mm (4.5-inch) reflector <\/span>
\u2022 Focal length <\/strong>450mm, f\/4 <\/span>
\u2022 Sensor<\/strong> Sony Exmor IMX347 <\/span>
\u2022 Mount <\/strong>Motorised single-arm, altaz, Go-To <\/span>
\u2022 Power<\/strong> In-built lithium-ion rechargeable battery <\/span>
\u2022 Tripod<\/strong> Aluminium, adjustable height <\/span>
\u2022 Ports <\/strong>USB-C for power; USB-A for charging <\/span>
\u2022 App control<\/strong> Unistellar (Android and iOS) <\/span>
\u2022 Weight<\/strong> 9kg <\/span>
\u2022 Supplier <\/strong>Unistellar SAS <\/span>
\u2022 Email <\/strong>contact@unistellaroptics.com <\/span>
\u2022 www.unistellar.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

Smart telescopes like the Unistellar eVscope eQuinox 2 have a lot in common with the smartphones used to control them. This new second-generation version of Unistellar\u2019s most affordable smart telescope comes with upgraded electronics, a new sensor and lots of new features \u2013 just as the latest smartphones tend to offer every year. But there are some genuine reasons to invest in this latest and greatest smart telescope. <\/p>\n\n

As with its predecessor, eQuinox 2 has no eyepiece so no way of getting the original photons from stars, galaxies and nebulae into your eyes. This is about astrophotography. At its core, the eQuinox 2 is a 4.5-inch (114mm) reflector telescope mounted on a motorised altazimuth mount that autonomously aligns with, and tracks, the night sky. <\/p>\n\n

Inside is the latest Sony IMX347 image sensor, which is used to take short exposures of deep-sky objects. Its onboard computer then stacks those images in real time, gradually revealing an ever-clearer image, with greater contrast, on connected smartphones and tablets. It\u2019s then easy to share framed (and auto-captioned) images and JPEGs on social media, though it\u2019s also possible to take lossless images in raw formats to store on the eQuinox 2\u2019s 64GB hard disc.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Easy does it <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n

If you think smart telescopes like the eQuinox 2 are controversial then you may be behind the times. It\u2019s modelled on how most robotic professional telescopes work and, besides, it\u2019s difficult to imagine that the cutting-edge Autonomous Field Detection technology it uses won\u2019t soon dominate the telescope market. Autonomous Field Detection is a thing of beauty. With its nine-hour onboard battery recharged using a USB-C cable and its lens cap removed, the eQuinox 2 images the stars above and plate-solves them with a database, automatically aligning in seconds.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever been frustrated when aligning telescopes, the eQuinox 2 is aimed at you. The only time it fails is if there\u2019s cloud, but even then it has to be thick cloud as, in our test, it aligned even when barely any stars were visible to the naked eye. However, it\u2019s not a completely autonomous affair; before making observations, it\u2019s wise to choose a bright star from its 37-million-strong database and use the Bahtinov focus mask hidden in the lens dust cap to achieve a sharp image by aligning the diffraction spikes of the chosen star. <\/p>\n\n

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Top murk-mastery <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n

The eQuinox 2 is easy to use and that\u2019s partly thanks to an all-new version of Unistellar\u2019s control app that offers over 5,000 celestial objects ranked according to your location. With the eQuinox 2 pointed at the Orion Nebula, its Enhanced Vision technology performs a slow reveal of the detail within this huge star-forming region. Every few seconds, dustier detail, brightness and incredible colour within 6.2MP images is evident \u2013 and all this from the centre of a light-polluted city. Light pollution does make a difference when it comes to fainter nebulae, as does the sky transparency, though the main criticism of eQuinox 2\u2019s images will be that they\u2019re a little soft. <\/p>\n\n

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With one click, the eQuinox 2 captured M81, Bode\u2019s Galaxy (top) in 26 minutes of data gathered from an urban location. The Orion Nebula (bottom) is from 16 minutes of data, making full use of the scope\u2019s Enhanced Vision tech <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

What this version can do that the previous couldn\u2019t is photograph larger objects, such as the Andromeda Galaxy and the Pleiades, thanks to its slightly wider 34 x 47-arcminute field of view. Another new feature on the eQuinox 2 is planet mode. It\u2019s something new for smart telescopes, which until now have been strictly deep-sky-oriented. During testing, only Mars was visible to us, though the results were lacklustre. Rather than the Enhanced Vision technique, planets use \u2018lucky imaging\u2019, whereby lots of very short exposures are taken in the hope of one being taken when the atmosphere is calm. Alas, that didn\u2019t prove possible.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Despite some new features and small upgrades, there are three reasons to buy the eQuinox 2: its automatic alignment, its incredible sensitivity (a limiting magnitude of 16 in light-polluted cities and 18.2 in rural skies) and its ability to pretend that light pollution isn\u2019t the big problem we know it is. If you live in or near a city and you want to get more from the deep sky, the eQuinox 2 is a fine way to go about it. <\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Be a citizen scientist <\/h4>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Unistellar\u2019s eVscope range of smart telescopes \u2013 of which the eQuinox 2 is the latest \u2013 are increasingly being used to crowdsource astronomical observations. Over 30 eVscope users around the world observed the impact of DART on Dimorphos and the behaviour of the asteroid immediately after the impact. Their findings were gathered and the users credited as co-authors on a paper published in the journal Nature <\/em>in March 2023. <\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s a big moment for smart telescopes, and scientific observations are now front and centre of the new Unistellar app. As soon as you\u2019ve signed up, you can attempt to capture an asteroid occultation to help NASA\u2019s Lucy mission, confirm exoplanet transits spotted by NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and make observations of passing comets. In our test, it worked well for collecting data on comet C\/2022 E3 ZTF for 20 minutes, though it\u2019s also very simple to enter your own coordinates if you merely want to image a comet or something off-catalogue.<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>
\n
KIT TO ADD <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

1. <\/strong>Unistellar eVscope backpack
2. <\/strong>Portable battery to keep a smartphone charged up
3. <\/strong>Instagram app to share images <\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n\n

VERDICT<\/h4>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

PHOTOS: @THESHED\/PHOTOSTUDIO X 3, JAMIE CARTER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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