Best Smart Telescopes In 2024 | High Point Scientific

If you’re looking for a fun, interactive, and hassle-free astrophotography experience, smart telescopes are the way to go. These all-in-one systems take the complicated nature out of astrophotography by condensing a camera, mount, and telescope into a singular unit.

Our experts tested the most popular smart telescopes on the market and curated this list of the best smart telescopes for 2024. Let’s dive right in!

Table of Contents

00:00 - Introduction
01:31 - Best Ultra-Portable
02:29 - Best High-Resolution
04:10 - Best Bang For Your Buck
05:12 - Best Overall
06:22 - Conclusion

#highpointscientific #astronomy #astrophotography #smarttelescopes

[bartholomule]

I have a few of those -- 2 seestar s50's, origin, and still have the dwarf (2 instead of 3). I approve of the ideas, but I think the Origin is in serious need of some bug fixes (app and firmware) before it should be recommended.

The scheduler should ideally make the origin way better than the seestar, but with all of the bugs, I can't get a full imaging night out of it if anything at all goes wrong because transient clouds, wind, wifi glitches, etc. will all cause it to report an error in capturing and abort whatever target it was trying to capture instead of just dropping the frame and retrying like the other smart telescopes. Also there is no way to move images off of the device while it's capturing, so when it fills up, it's completely done until everything can be moved to usb storage. With the seestar, I can move files over the wifi network to a desktop or laptop while it's still capturing and not have stop everything (which cannot be resumed). It takes 40+ minutes for it to move files even on a fairly fast USB drive and the move process in itself frequently fails if wifi is marginal or the device running the app goes to sleep. More than once have I moved the files to USB, waited >60 minutes, saw no more indication of the move process, deleted the files from the Origin, and later when I looked at the drive I found most of the files were actually completely empty (zero-byte files).

For me, the power usage on the origin is WAY higher than something with a zwo cooled camera, am5, and an asiair. Even a large powerbank (~288Wh) runs dry in less than a night with the just the origin when I can use it to keep two seestars plus a bigger astro rig (am5, asiair, focuser, cooled camera, guider, filter wheel, ...) going at the same time all night long. If you want more than 3-4 hours with the origin in colder weather, you'll need a massive external battery or access to AC power.

ZWO and DwarfLabs have been great with app/firmware updates. Celestron not so much (at least not so far), although their support does seem sympathetic and responds fairly quickly when I report a bug (and I've got a bunch more I need to report after a few nights of solid use in the past week).

[marvinwhisman]

Delay on Dwarf3 is 18 weeks according to manufacturer. Hope I am wrong as I really am looking forward to mine.

[pedalajones]

I own a Dwarf 2 and today I should (finally) receive a Dwarf 3 ordered blindly when orders open. I would also like to try an Origin but it's really expensive!

[johnherman]

Great comparison! I have a Seestar S50 and absolutely love it.

[davebrennan]

Great Video. I ordeed my Dwarf 3 in July, sugested delivery January 2025.

[diogenes]

Why no consideration or mention of UniStellar eVscope or Odyssey?

[StarPicturesMiami]

The Seestar is the best option for the money. I love the quality of the images and the ease of use.

[JohnBeeblebrox]

Good reviews, well done and thanks for the post.
I decided to go with a Seestar S50 mainly due to the state of play of (so called) smart telescopes.
We're in the early stages of another paradigm switch and I believe the S50 is a decent all round workhorse.
Am a semi pro astronomer with 50 odd yrs experience - was getting a bit bored with spending a fortune on kit that takes an inordinate amount of time to set up and operate. Plus, not really into freezing my b*lls off any more.
I reckon when the next gen of smart comes along (3-ish yrs?) I'll just give away my S50 and ramp up my game/kit.
At present we are in the early adopter phase.
Just my 2p worth.
YMMV
;-)

[ChuckBigbie]

I have the dwarf 2 and the dwarf 3. I've been exceptionally happy with them. I have a celestron origin, and I built A8 inch celestron. SCT with the ASI air, I have been more satisfied with the 8 inch celestron. SCT that I built than all of them, they seem to have rushed out the software for the origin, they've enhanced certain features slightly like finally fixing the transfer to a thumb drive. But they still lacked lots of improvement in their software. I don't know if they're actually going to work on it or improve it, they don't seem to have anytime frame to get that out. I ordered an origin in january and I received it in august.With a long time to wait from announcement to actually bring it to the market, how long will it take them to actually get the software updates and fixes out?They don't seem to be in any hurry

[perry]

im sure after the s50 sales taper off the s 60 will be released and so on every year

[Leopez]

Dude I love your mpoustaches! How I can get that like moustaches too? Please tell me! But about of telescopes I've been looking for a good space telescopes since 2023, but still haven't found any good ones so maybe this video helps me to find a great smart telescope! What's diffrences a normal space telescope and smart telescope have is it because you can put your phone on it? That Seesta looks nice to me i would like to try it thank you for a really interesting video once again for us the space nerds! 🔭🌠

[David_Brinkerhoff]

I dont understand. The photons dont go into my eyeballs. These are not real telescopes.