Smart Telescopes: The Final Frontier

November 19, 2025

What is a smart telescope? Well, it's something great for amateur backyard astronomers! For about the price of a decent digital camera, you can get one of these. They are small - as in the size of a pair of binoculars - so you can take it with you wherever you go. It communicates with an app on your phone. What you do, is you set it up in a good location, away from obstructions and glare, switch it on, switch on your app, and it'll let you know what objects will be in the sky that particular night. Choose your objects, and you schedule them to be viewed/photographed. Leave the telescope powered on (I have it on an external battery pack that lasts all night), and go to bed! Yes - it's set it and forget it! The next morning is a treat - well, most of the time, unless some clouds showed up. It's amazing what you get - like pictures out of National Geographic or something! Note, this is not designed to look at planets; it's for deep sky objects - nebulas, star clusters, galaxies. Smart telescopes turn anyone into an astrophographer! These can also be used during daytime viewing for looking at wildlife and other distant objects. It has really opened up my world a bit! I highly recommend them. I have two of them - the Dwarf III and the Seestar 30 - The Dwarf is having trouble, at this writing, scheduling my set it and forget it sessions; the Seestar has no problem with any of it. Dwarf has a long way to go with the UI on their app - and I think that's most of the problem. This should be on any backyard astronomer's wish list.