For reasons beyond my control I’ve yet to use this new device for astro-imaging, but I had a little play yesterday.
This is another Solar image. I have taken some video with the intention of stacking the frames to increase quality but unfortunately Registax is not playing nice, so a single unprocessed jpeg will have to do.
These next two images were some test shots to see how sharp the telephoto lens is. The Church is just under 1mile from where I took the image. The first image is completely unprocessed and taken straight from the micro-SD card. The second image was taken with the IR blocking filter switched out of the optical path. The only editing was to desaturate it.
Yes, but I preordered it back in early December at a discounted price $495. I know back in March 365Astronomy had about 30 units, and for one weekend they were selling them at the discounted price.
F you check Dwarflab’s website they currently have it discounted for a few days. They have improved their shipping (mine came via a very slow boat from China) and delivery is around 10 days on average. The cost of shipping also includes tax and duties.
As I understand it 365Astronomy and the Widescreen Centre are the only UK dealers but they don’t have stock currently.
ZWO Optics were to have released a very similar setup this month, the Seestar, but they have now delayed the release until September at the earliest. It’s rumoured that originally it was posted on their website it wouldn’t be available until the fist quarter of 2024, but that was taken down within an hour of posting and replaced with the September date for release. Needless to say there are a lot of disgruntled buyers whom have already been charged and were xpecting it this month.
I think you’ll enjoy it as it does many things. I got it to track my Yuneec Typhoon H a few days ago, but my apprentice videographer forgot to press the record button and instead just pressed the single shot button.
The Seestar, from what I’ve seen of the spec might be more suitable for some planetary stuff as it has a larger objective and longer focal length, I think it uses the same sensor as the Dwarf. But the Dwarf is much more versatile, having both a wide angle and telephoto lens, two sensors, shoots 4K video, and it’s intelligent motion tracking. It’s also much more portable being lighter and more ergonomically shaped, it all fits in a bag similar in size to the one supplied with the Mini 2, but much better quality. If you haven’t already done so, and if you do use Facebook, I highly recommend joining the Dwarf2 users group. There are some exceptional results being obtained by absolute beginners to Astro photography, and some seasoned experts providing advice and assistance in getting the best results with post processing.
Some D2 owners have complained that the battery life is too short, I’ve not personally found it to be an issue. However if you need longer use between battery swaps you can plug a USB powerbank into the USB C connector on the base of the D2 and use in conjunction with the internal battery. To be honest I don’t know what the naysayers expect from a single Cell power source, as it has to power the motors, the processors, the internal dew heater, stream HD video to a remote device, etc.
I ordèred one on the 9th of March, primarily for our dark skies holiday in Arizona, Nevada and California in August, but hoping it would be here in time for the dark skies night we have booked in Wales on the 4th of April.
They confirmed today that it hasn’t shipped from China yet, so I think we can rule out April, but they’ve thrown in a spare battery. On top of the 20% St Patrick’s Day (!) Discount, I’m reasonably happy with that!
So they have confirmed that it won’t be here for the April trip and that I can cancel at any time for a full refund, so I may have accidentally ordered a SeeStar S50 which will arrive tomorrow… Quite a lot more expensive, but cheap and in China isn’t much use to me!
