First light with a tiny scope

First light with a tiny scope: Smart scopes have been getting smaller and smaller and when I saw such great results from images taken with the Dwarf Mini weighing in at just 840 grams and being so reasonably priced, I couldn't resist getting one! As soon as it arrived I was fortunate to have a couple of clear nights to try it out and found it incredibly easy to use. With the moon a few days old, that was the first logical place to start, so I set up on a tripod in Alt/Az mode and in no time at all had found the target in the wide field camera and then aligned it to the tele lens, focused it  and began taking data. In a very short time I had a very respectable stacked image of the moon comprising 20 subs, so I then progressed to the Leo triplet which the scope found effortlessly from its sky catalogue. I took 15s subs over a half an hour or so using my phone to watch the image gradually take on more definition as more and more subs were stacked. Due to sky rotation in Alt/Az mode causing loss of data at the edges, I then set up in EQ made using an MSM wedge to align roughly on the pole. The Dwarf Mini then guided me through more precise alignment, until it was good enough for longer subs, so I progressed to 30, 60 and then 90s subs imaging several targets. I also tried out the ND solar filter for solar imaging the next day and experimented with "Stellar Studio" - Dwarf's onboard editor on the Markarian chain which produced a quick and appealing result. For somewhat better results I was able to stack the Fits data saved to the device and used conventional stacking and processing software like Autostakkert!4 for the Moon and Pixinsight for deep sky objects to get improved results. The wide field is particularly appealing for larger nebulae and it will come into its own for taking abroad for objects I am unable to get from the UK. A cracking little scope that really delivers, that will be a boon for astro travels!

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Chris Bowden