Equinox 2 Smart Telescope for Light Polluted Cities with Unistellar Telescope Backpack Bundle (2 Items)

OK.1. This telescope is part of a next-generation wave of "smart telescopes" focusing on imaging instead of physical viewing (through an eyepiece). So, you don't get the same "hands-on" experience of looking through a telescope.BUT that shift pays off in many ways: first, what you "see" with this telescope is FAR more detailed than you can get with the human eye with a much larger (and very expensive) telescope. In just a few seconds, you see details you'd almost never get looking by eye - there's really a WOW! moment for some objects.2. Everything is controlled by your phone or tablet. That's an OK trade-off. The app is a little clunky but doesn't take that long to master: after say two observing sessions, you'll have it down pat. The scope has its own WiFi - you connect your device to that in the field. What's REALLY cool is that other people (I think up to 7-8) can ALSO connect to the telescope (but only one person has control of it), and all the images that are produced are shared to everyone connected. I find this to be particularly nice because people now get to take away an image of what they've seen without almost no effort.3. The scope's performance is really amazing given that it only has a 4.5" aperture. With a few minutes exposure, you easily can get down to magnitude 15-16. The onboard software has tech that is designed to aid in removing sky brightness so it's particularly good at sites that aren't terribly dark. The image of M101 (attached) was taken during a nearly-full Moon! Also (attached) it had NO problem detecting Pluto.4. The FOV is about 47'x34' and the pixel size is just under 1"x1" and that can't be changed (the camera is at prime focus, no eyepieces). So, planets are NOT its strong suit. Supposedly they are doable (I haven't tried it yet), but the disk of say, Saturn would be about 20x20 (by my calculations).5. The camera takes (up to) 4s exposures then co-adds them to get the long-exposure. The combined image is what's sent to your phone/tablet (PNG format). However, the "raw" data is stored, and post-observing, you can upload everything to Unistellar and then request the raw data "back". This sounds weird but it sets up a VERY interesting circumstance (see below). So, if you want to do your own post-processing (and many people do), you can, with a little effort. (Unistellar is planning to offer access to users/owners through their site to make this easier.)6. One of the scarier things about the scope is that you DO have to maintain the primary mirror collimation (although I haven't had to adjust anything yet), but there are videos to show how to do it. You also have to use a Bahtinov mask to focus (included) and that's actually really easy to do.7. The price tag. Yes, it's not cheap - I got my 8" Celestron for about 1/2 the retail price (look for sales - they do happen), but by the time I got better eyepieces, and other things to use with it, it really was about the same price, ditto if you want to dabble in astrophotography - a decent camera will set you back $1000, and then you have all the very precise setup to take a shot. So, IMHO this is a reasonable trade-off: I can be out in the field and ready to go in about 5 minutes, and honestly, since I've started using it, I haven't taken the Celestron out once. I am having SO MUCH FUN with this.8. Unistellar has ALSO set up several observing programs to do "citizen science": you can observe asteroid occultations (where you can estimate the size and shape of an asteroid), get positions of near-Earth asteroids (to better determine their orbits), exoplanet transits, and other things. ALL of these are actually vitally important to astronomical research, and you can be a part of it. The supernova in M101 was imaged by MANY people (just because it's a popular target), and the pooled images (sent to Unistellar by the scope) were used to produce a light curve before, during, and after the eruption. That sort of coverage is UNHEARD OF typically (discoveries happen after the explosion has occurred). So even "casual" observations might have research-level significance!If you've never owned a telescope before, I can't say this would be a good starter scope, given the price tag. BUT I feel confident in saying that if you DO get this scope, you will want to use it every opportunity because the "instant gratification" is really there for very VERY little "work". You won't be unimpressed by "dim gray smudges".Note that NONE of the images I attached required hours of tinkering "to get right" - mostly they're exactly what I took off my phone, just with some labelling.Also note that the cheaper competitor scopes are FAR smaller, and are more-limited in what they can image: they're OK, but this scope has a much wider range of capabilities. The company is VERY responsive and the user community is HIGHLY engaged (check out the FB channel).Have I mentioned I really like my new more-than-just-a-toy?

On-line operating guide and suggested troubleshooting hints are helpful.

Backpack zipper failed the first time used. Backpack doesn't seem tall enough for equinox 2. Ordered telescope & backpack together. need to figure out how to retunr the backpack alone.