Canine Comparisons
I like to tell people my smart telescopes are like good hunting dogs. They identify, track and find the faint traces of stellar objects even amid the wash of the Bortle 9 skies I live in. I’ve named my first two smart scopes: The Champion (eVscope) and The Challenger (Vespera) after some sporting dog pictures I hung in my room as a child. I have a nice new Seestar too and I just call it, Little Sister. The Seestar is amazing, but it’s not as good a hunter as the others at all. It still requires a bit of fussing to help it find objects even as obvious as the Sun.
I’ve had my Hestia now for a few days. I have the honor of being backer #2 because I've been quite impressed with what Vaonis can do, especially with the most important component of these things: software. I call my new addition Canis Minor, because it’s like our new family puppy. This miniature dachshund pictured above is smart for a dog, is compact, and should have amazing tracking abilities. But, it still needs lots of training and I wouldn’t rely on it to be too predictable. It will take time and patience.
Dark Sky Hunting Session 1 Under Bortle 9 Chicago Skies
Here are my take aways from my first night out with Hestia. My Orion Nebula above was my first object. I think I know that I’m on the right track with solar observing and have added those initial comments in a PS below. Night time, however is going to take more work. Here’s are some do’s and don’ts I learned last night.
Don’t take that little plastic finder out with you into a dark place. I almost lost mine and it would have been useless for night time observing anyways. It’s essential for the Sun, so don’t lose it or break it.
Don’t go out if it’s too windy. This thing is so light it struggles when the winds buffet it. In my case it was already 34 F and with a 10 mph wind and higher gusts. Though beautifully clear, it proved to be a challenging session. Canis Minor is a very light puppy and, like all smart scopes it can easily be damaged if it has an unplanned gravitational interaction with the ground. In this case it could easily launch your valuable smart phone to the ground as well.
Speaking of smart phones…. Don’t expect to be able to interact much with your phone while this is in place on Hestia. Maybe I could have, but I was afraid to check my other star maps online once I had the phone secured.
Don’t try the supplied light-weight tripod on a grassy landscape. I did and it was not stable enough. I’m actually surprised I did as well as I did. Telescopes are only as good as their mountings.
Do get your phone installed and centered by viewing a distant house or light while horizontal. That worked well for me and I was able to insure the manual lens focus was pretty good.
Do make sure that your magnets are holding the bottom of the phone well or else when you go to altitude the phone will slip down and out of alignment. This happened a couple of times for me an you could probably hear me from the other side of the park as I practiced my Italian … “Accidenti!”
Do rehearse adjusting the tripod knobs so you can control them deftly in the dark. I haven’t practiced them enough and being able to loosen and tighten them at the correct time is really important. Often I had the object on the screen and then it slipped off as I fumbled around. I also learned that this little tripod’s mounting will come unscrewed.
Do plan to use a more robust tripod on open ground at night. I have a sturdy carbon fiber one, and I think I have another pan tilt head for it. The tripod that came with the scope is adequate, but just barely and I am only going to trust it for solar observing and on firm ground.
Do expect that the “plate solving” when chasing night time objects will fail periodically and lead you on a wild goose chase. It took me a while to notice that it was failing so that the directions and movements it was indicating were often way off target. I think if the night had been less windy and I had more patience I would have just waited for the app to tell me that it was identifing star fields okay.
Do start with a star and once you’ve found it use the focus helper. I did that on Betelgeuse and wound up with a good focus. I will add here that I think the quality of the optics is actually quite good. I saw no abberations or distortions at the field edges. It may be a small aperture, but I think it’s designed well to do what it does.
Do enjoy watching it stack a handful of very short exposure frames. It’s fast, but I thought it did a good job and skipped over the poor ones too. My image above is cropped, but the S/N was pretty good across the frame. I was amazed that it did as well as it did in the time it had to work with.
Do adjust your expectations. This is only 1.2 inches in aperture! It’s only supposed to do okay down to about 8th magnitude. I think it will be good at this and do better than many of the typical amateur scopes in this range.
Don't downgrade your software expectations. I know Vaonis can do much better and will. I'm giving them some slack because I believe they wanted to roll this out in time for the NA Solar Eclipse. It will do just fine with that.
Do plan to use it for the Sun, Moon and solar eclipse, but be patient for the night sky until there are future versions of the Gravity app. This is a beta version at this point, but based upon how well Vaonis has done with other apps I have, it will just take a little while until they wrestle this one down and make it more fool proof.
One thing I can’t speak to is how it works with different phones. I use an Apple 15 Pro, which I know is near the high end. But, I don’t really think it should matter all that much since I don’t think we’ll ever be at the resolution limits of the phones.
And, to repeat myself, just make sure and be very aware of your phone so it doesn’t get ejected. If I had any wish at the moment it might be for a bracket that allows me to clamp the phone in place.
In conclusion I also think my hunting dog analogy is an apt one. I truly appreciate how easy it is to find and track objects with my other smart scopes. In fact it’s maybe their most important feature — you can’t image it you can’t find it and track it.
Canis Minor might like to warm itself by Hestia's hearth, but it's going to need frequent walks under the night sky before it's tamed.
Good luck and I wish you clear skies -- especially on eclipse day if you're going to be chasing it..
P.S. For those of you haven’t seen it, here’s a recap of my recent Facebook Posting I did about my first uses of Hestia on the Sun. I keep getting better with practice. Here are a . couple tips:
Sit on a low chair and have Hestia at a comfortable, low height.
Wear a brimmed hat or have a loose dark cloth to shadow the screen.
Whatever you do, don’t get set up on a terrestrial sight, then forget to put the solar filter on! I almost did.
The little finder thingy works quite well for the Sun. Don’t lose it! I wish it clipped in tighter.
Learn to use the tightening screws and tripod level without thinking about them.
Try a manual focus first, then use the helper in the app.
It’s good to zoom with your fingers to see the focus adjustments on a spot or limb if the sun.
I found that other automatic settings seemed to do best. I also learned that the saved image was better than I thought I was getting outside.
I know I’ll get better as time proceeds up to game day, but practicing with this thing is key. It may not be as automatic as Vespera or the others, but the image can be at least as good if not better. We just have to expect to learn how to use it. Good luck.
Комментарии