Bill Schlosser
The eVscope is a completely unique product as far as telescopes go. It seeks to offer the user access to both long-exposure astrophotography and eyepiece viewing previously only within the realms of experienced amateurs with large telescopes. The telescope was developed by Unistellar in partnership with the SETI Institute, and is primarily geared towards participating in citizen science projects.
With its unique features and design, this is a telescope we were particularly keen to test.
The eVscope is quite unusual in its design; unlike a standard telescope, this one uses a combination of optical and electronic imaging technology to form the image you see through its eyepiece. The secondary mirror has been replaced by a CMOS image sensor – the Sony IMX224MC. The telescope’s eyepiece is also unusual in that it is an OLED display viewed through a small eyepiece-like viewer on the side of the telescope.
Power for operating the scope comes from a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that offers around ten hours of operation time – easily enough for a long observing session.
The telescope also has USB ports for phone charging or for charging the telescope itself. The telescope sits on a single-arm alt-azimuth fork, which at first glance looks more than adequate for its small size. The telescope unit sits atop a sturdy, fully adjustable, lightweight aluminium tripod with integrated bubble level. When setting up, which takes just a few minutes, the whole scope is impressively lightweight, and can be moved around easily.
Lastly, but importantly, you’ll need to download the Unistellar app and install it on your phone. We used a Samsung S10+ for running the app, with no issues encountered. Once that’s done you are ready to get out under the stars and see what the Unistellar eVscope is capable of. Once the app is downloaded and installed, you can begin controlling the telescope. When you first open the app, it asks you to select your sky quality level to help it gauge what objects would be well suited to your sky conditions. You then need to connect to the eVscope itself via its WiFi connection. The telescope emits its own signal, which you can connect to quickly and easily. Once this is done you are ready to start observing. The app user interface is very user friendly and contains a wide variety of features. Almost 5,000 objects are available, while there is also the option to point to your own custom coordinates. The app also has other sections for transient events, comets and asteroids for those looking for more unusual targets to try their hand at.
Alignment with the sky is accomplished via an automatic align procedure, completed in under a minute with just the push of a button. Our first test was actually in partly cloudy conditions, and even then it managed to achieve proper alignment. Using its clever Autonomous Field Detection software, it can automatically identify where it is pointing in the sky, even from light-polluted areas where few stars are visible. Once aligned it automatically begins tracking at sidereal rate to keep the object centred within the telescope field.
Our first test object was Messier 2 in Aquarius. We punched in the designation on our phone and clicked the slew tool command, and off the telescope went, quickly slewing to the target area. During the slew, it refines its pointing by identifying star fields close to the object to ensure your target ends up very close to the centre of the field of view. The whole slew takes around a minute, and the app notifies you when it completes. From then on you can click the Enhance View button and the telescope will begin building an image in real time, which you can watch through either the small eyepiece viewer or your phone screen.
Viewing objects directly through the eyepiece viewer is especially nice as you see the view in the way you would via a normal telescope, but in addition you quickly see details emerging in the view as the telescope takes and combines many short exposures. Even after 60 seconds
The tripod is sturdy, but lightweight for portability
The telescope uses a CMOS sensor in place of a secondary mirror, all bundled up in a sleek tube you could see an impressive amount of detail in the cluster.
We then moved to Messier 27, the Dumbell Nebula. The bright planetary nebula is a wellknown target and one of the brightest such nebulae in the sky. As before, the telescope quickly slewed and centred the target, and you could immediately see detail and colour in the object in the live view. When the Enhance View button was pushed, we once again watched as the telescope began combining lots of exposures to build a colour image. Vivid red and blue colours were evident – something impossible to see in a normal telescope of this size.
Images taken with the telescope can be automatically saved to your phone. The images themselves aren’t comparable to what you would get with a dedicated high-end camera, but nonetheless the images are of good enough quality, showing plenty of colour and detail in the objects we photographed with the telescope.
Observing with the telescope is surprisingly enjoyable, and it’s great fun to peer into the eyepiece viewer watching your chosen object appearing before your eyes. That said, we find it hard to understand where the Unistellar eVscope really fits into the grand scheme of telescopes and equipment available to amateur astronomers. It has a rather conflicting position. Its premium price tag puts it firmly in the category of equipment more experienced and advanced observers would be looking at, but it is likely of most benefit to those wanting to take their first steps into astrophotography.