Dwarflab Dwarf 3 Smart Telescope - first impressions

5 January 2026Dwarflab Dwarf 3 Smart Telescope - my first impressions & reviewI decided to pension off my old Meade astronomy telescope and investigate possibly replacing it with a 'smart telescope' and quickly realised that the Dwarf 3 seemed to tick pretty much all the boxes in terms of what I wanted.As I'm now well into my sixties, the thought of spending a few hours outdoors on clear but often freezing cold nights isn't that appealing so when I saw that it's possible to set up the Dwarf 3, give it its targets and then head back indoors for more tea and biscuits well I was definitely interested. Luckily there were several online reviews and Dwarflab's own guides to help make an informed decision, so early in December I ordered one from PicStop and very quickly received my new Dwarf 3 smart telescope.On the first day I did a few time-lapse shots and also tested out how the tracking feature works by getting it to video our cats playing about outside - I'd been so focused on the astronomical side that I'd not really taken in just how much more than a telescope the Dwarf 3 is - time-lapse and tracking videos are excellent (and I've not yet dabbled with the panorama picture possibilities).Luckily that first evening turned out to be nice and clear, so I went out onto our patio with the Dwarf 3 on my camera tripod, opened up the app on my android tablet and started to go through the set-up. Although some reviewers mentioned experiencing a few problems with setting up, it took me about 5 minutes to make a few 'fine-tuning' moves of the Dwarf 3 before it gave me the green light to set it off looking for its first target. I could see the Pleiades so chose them as the first target and quickly had what looked to me to be pretty good results, so I then selected a nebula from the suggested target list and, leaving all the settings as the Dwarf 3 suggested, left it alone for 75 minutes.I was really pleased with those first two outcomes but even more impressed when, the next day, I realised I'd left the protective film over the lenses ! (Schoolboy error or an indicator of how bad my eyesight is these days ? You decide)Low cloud on some evenings and then various Christmas/New Year commitments put a temporary halt on my Dwarf 3 learning curve, but a few nights back I was able to grab these images -Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31, M31) taken with Dwarf 3 Smart TelescopeOrion Nebula (Messier 42, M42) taken with Dwarf 3 Smart TelescopeEarth's Moon taken with Dwarf 3 Smart…