Draco Smart Telescope Preview: Goodbye nerdy Astro rigs?
Quick summary· AI-generated
The author argues that DWARFLAB's Draco represents a watershed moment in smart telescope evolution, claiming it may deliver deep-sky image quality rivaling expensive traditional astrophotography setups. The piece contrasts the traditional 'nerdy astro-rig' approach—requiring thousands in gear, cooled cameras, tracking mounts, and complex software—with the app-controlled simplicity of recent smart scopes like the Seestar S50 and Dwarf III, which democratized the hobby. The author presents side-by-side comparisons of images captured with an affordable smart telescope versus a custom rig with a Hope D60, noting visible quality differences. The central claim is that the Draco may close that quality gap, potentially reshaping which tools amateur astronomers choose for deep-sky imaging.
Excerpt from Wido's AstroForum
Normally, I skip previews on Wido’s AstroForum as I prefer focusing on real-world testing from my urban rooftop. However, DWARFLAB’s new Draco smart telescope is different, as I believe it might fundamentally change amateur astrophotography in the years to come. So let me make this exception and explain why, while giving you my thoughts on the technology used in the Draco.
For decades, deep-sky astrophotography was a hobby reserved for true astronerds willing to spend thousands of euros or dollars and a lot of time to master a complex maze of specialized gear. Think of tracking mounts, telescopes, cooled astro cameras, focusers, and autoguiding gear—with plenty of USB cables running to a PC or mini-astro station running astrophotography software just to control everything and capture objects in the night sky.
custom astrophotography rig
For the past five years, there has been a fundamental change where lightweight, affordable smart telescopes like the Seestar S30 or S50 Pro, and DWARFLAB’s Dwarf Mini and Dwarf 3 became available for a couple hundred euros or dollars. These smart telescopes can be controlled using an app on your phone or tablet. All you have to do is select an object, and the smart telescope will automatically slew to and capture it for you in the night sky. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but it was a huge change from the nerdy astro-gear we used before that, and it opened up deep-sky astrophotography for a huge number of people who were not necessarily interested in spending a huge amount of money and time to capture objects in the night sky beyond what you could see with the human eye.
Smart Telescopes
Now, we astronerds have comfortably seen the launch of these affordable smart telescopes, and while some of us have taken this trend seriously and tested them, others have disregarded them as cheap toys to play with. And yes, I often run my expensive astro-rigs and smart telescopes together and capture the same objects in the night sky, where I still see a huge quality difference in the photos I make with an affordable smart telescope versus my much more expensive astrophotography rigs.
Cygnus wall photographed with a S30 Pro smart telescope (left) vs custom Astrorig with Hope D60 telescope (right)
Well, I’m about to tell you that this may change with the introduction of DWARFLAB’s Draco. What if I told you that with the Draco, you can take photos of deep-sky objects which could rival the quality of expensive,…
Products in this article
- DwarfLab DracoBuy at DwarfLab↗
- ZWO Seestar S50 ProView on Amazon↗
- Dwarflab DWARF MiniView on Amazon↗
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