What is the BEST Smart Telescope? eVscope Vs. DWARF II Vs. Seestar Vs. Vespera Full Imaging Test!

Here it is, the 2nd part of our smart telescope comparison to see who's best! The first video went over the physical aspects and the specifications of each smart telescope. This second part covers the imaging of each type of target for astrophotography.
Telescopes compared:

00:00 - Introduction
00:45 - Entering the Ring
01:29 - Deep Sky Battle
04:06 - Lunar & Planetary Battle
07:46 - Solar Battle
10:35 - Conclusion
11:56 - Price Comparison
13:27 - Field Of View Comparison
13:54 - App Comparison

Disclosure: Some of the links on this channel's videos are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, we will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

[GalacticHunter]

Disclaimer

- The eVscope shown in our comparison video is a first-gen eVscope as this is the only one we could get our hands on. Thanks to our friend Patrick for letting us use his! To keep things fair, we have populated the specifications table with the Gen 2 eVscope as it has better specs than Gen 1 and is more up-to-date.

- Several types of these telescopes are available, for example, Vespera comes in different versions (Vespera Pro, Vespera Passengers, etc) and Unistellar sells different versions of their smart telescopes (EVscope, EQuinox, etc). We chose the models we could get our hands on, but please keep in mind that different versions might get better results than shown here!

- The moon picture with Seestar was taken on a different day, because the moon was setting behind the trees and we didn't have time to point the Seestar there after the three others. Overall it shouldn't matter though.

Much more information is available on our written blog post at www.galactic-hunter.com !

[BommeltjeNL]

You need to redo the Dwarf II's session on M42, but now with more seconds exosure and binning off. You'll get a far better result. You had the wrong settings for the Moon (low resolution and exposure). For the Sun you need to adjust the white balance. You can give it any color you want. Orange looks nice to our eyes, but it isn't the natural color of the Sun (which is actually white). The new application for the Dwarf II has been published a few days ago and it makes a huge difference in quality and usability 👍

[BrownCoatFan]

The seestar S50 now has a planetary mode and you can see Jupiter. It's tiny but you can see the bands.

[gomcse]

The Seestar s50 now has a planetary mode and a 4x zoom. It has a better image of Jupiter now than anything you showed in this video. For the price, the Seestar blows away all of these others. It's remarkable.

[alanreid]

The dwarf 2 after firmware update now shoots 4k... wider field of view and fits into the bottom of my backpack when travelling...love it.

[fjrodrick]

Thanks! My Vespera II arrives tomorrow and this makes me feel like I didn’t choose badly. Now off to watch your video on Vespera. . ..keep ‘em coming!

[mcblaze]

Seestar seems to be winning over cost/value. The Dwarf is nice because it's so small and portable. The others cost too much for what they offer compared to those two.

[mikelaw]

I like my Dwarf II as it is a lot more portable and has better field of view for bigger objects. With the new 4K resolution and proper processing workflow, the images come out a lot better than what's shown in this video

[davewilton]

The Dwarf II has a new version of firmware and the app in beta. It allows for shooting in Bin 1 (currently the Dwarf II only shoots in Bin 2), which should greatly improve resolution. Also the new version of the app has an improved UI and a larger database of objects for automatic go to. Once the new software is generally released, it would be interesting to revisit the Dwarf II to see how it stands up to the others.

[lionelmeyer]

The ultimate ? Vespera pro(april) Unistellar Odissey(available), Célestron Origine(summer in Europe) and may be Seestar 80 ... So, we'll see you here another time this year, with pleasure . Thank you for your time and your tests. Kisses from France!

[scotianskies]

Great comparison video guys! I have both the Dwarf II and Seestar and with my back they allow me to do astrophotography again after an almost 3 year hiatus and that makes them both winners to me!

[PresleyTV]

I purchased and recently returned the eVscope2. If it was going to be my only telescope, I would have kept it. The only Newtonian reflector of the group and the largest. While the size didn't really bother me for travel, but having to collimate did. I did not like the focus mechanism or the fact that the eyepiece focus had no "0" setting or indent. The included mask was nice, but the delay from imager to app or eyepiece made it somewhat frustrating and difficult to refine. I ended up going with the SeeStar for the value, included features, and portability. I'll confess I didn't know Vespera had mosaic mode already -- but I'm hopeful SeeStar can add this feature. Thank you for the review.

[jackchesnut]

You guys make a great team. This was a great review. Thanks for posting. I'm a Vespera owner and absolutely love it

[chriskpedersen]

You guys did a great job on this. I would have liked to have seen a galaxy or cluster, but maybe that's asking too much. It's so cool that we have all these choices, and even cooler that we have folks like you willing to test them out and share your enthusiasm for astro imaging. Thanks for all your hard work, and hope you have clear skies.

[glensjm]

Wow - just what I was looking for! Thanks so much! I was comparing the eVscope and the Vespera for my first telescope. You are the first astronomical site I've subscribed to. You've just saved me some bucks! :)

[supergamer]

The vespera pro comes next year with an entire new Chip new lens and more megapixels can you make a new test with vespera pro?

[mattpenn]

One way to generate a "goodness factor" for deep sky extended objects is to compute the number of pixels on the sky times the collecting area of the telescopes... npix * r^2. If you plot this factor on the x-axis, and the price on the y-axis, you will see that the Dwarf2 and SeeStar are in a very different league than eV and Vesp... much more performance per price. If you make the plot on a log-log graph, you'll actually see a line with Vespera, Stellina and eV2... while the Dwarf and SeeStar compare with off-the-shelf cheap systems and the 3d printed "Microscope". Between the D2 and SeeStar you trade aperture vs portability... and you can mount the D2 in equatorial mode to capture objects near the zenith and remove field rotation. Personally I love taking my D2 on hikes and using their landscape panorama feature to get Gigapixel landscape shots; makes incredible posters.

[shusiman]

Having that modest price tag and pretty good IQ Seestar looks like a winner 😉

[busload_uk]

It’s a shame that you didn’t turn off binning on the Dwarf II, which is possible for solar/lunar mode (Astro in the next app iteration). You could have then gotten Sun and Moon shots that are effectively double the resolution of the ones you demoed here.

[craiglowery]

Great review folks. I have the current Vespera for quick access to DSOs and I love it. I process my DSOs with PixInsight. I’m primarily a planetary imager using a C14. I’ve been in this hobby for 50 years. I firmly believe that smart telescopes are the future as technology evolves and prices come down