Meet the telescope designed to replace me. This is Stellina. Is it my enemy? I mean this thing
does everything I do to take pictures of space but it does it faster and it does it without me.
They call Stellina an observation station, it's not just a telescope but also a camera and a computer
that processes images in real-time. In many ways this represents the future of amateur astronomy,
for those that can afford it of course. So this fancy robot thinks it can replace me, my 10 years
of astrophotography experience and a traditional deep sky astrophotography rig - we'll see about that.
Yes there is an 80-millimeter refractor telescope in this pillar right here and a light pollution
filter and a camera. See, I know that astro photographers will immediately say 'well I
can buy a telescope like the one in there and the camera and take better pictures on my own'.
Trust me I get it but that's not at all what this thing's about. In fact, it's intentionally
designed to make you not think about how the whole thing works, just this magical robot that delivers
real-time images of space to your phone. Honestly, for my astrophotography friends, the die-hards
I've got news for you this isn't for us and I think that's the point. So what's eve..I mean
Stellina got under the hood? So you're just going to turn off in the middle of a video ...
An 80 millimeter f5 doublet refractor shooting at 400 millimeter, an astro modified sony CMOS
camera sensor, a built-in light pollution filter, built-in alt az mount with automatic plate solving...
Show off. Automatic focuser, built-in dew heater, water-resistant body, built-in battery lasts up to
five hours, smartphone tablet control with internal processing. Okay so suddenly building a comparable
system with everything this has going on doesn't seem like it would be that much cheaper actually.
Hey Hey. Stellina sets up on its own, finds out where it's pointed in the night sky and then
delivers you a list of objects you can see in the sky right now from your location. There's no
polar alignment, star alignment or any user input needed to get going. Once it figures out where the
deep-sky object is, it starts taking pictures of it in real-time and stacking them internally so the
picture you see gets better and better over time. Or you can simply take the raw photos captured
by Stellina and process the image yourself. My wife Ashley is a beginner astrophotographer and she's
went through the process of capturing images the old-fashioned way and now with Stellina. What did
you think of Stellina the first time we used it was it easy, did you have fun, what did you think?
Yes to both of those questions. I thought it was really easy to get started once you get the app
fired up. It basically walks you through every step necessary in order to get up and running which was
really awesome and yeah it added a whole different element, like it's so different than you know
setting up a full rig. I really enjoyed reading all the educational information while I was
imaging that particular target and I thought it was a lot of fun being able to hold your phone and
see the images that were coming through real-time being stacked and everything. Yes it's easier, but I
think in the long run, much like you Trev, the whole ritual of setting things up and just going
through all those challenges and still getting that image at the end it's like you've overcome
so many obstacles to get to that photo and I think it just means that much more. It's more rewarding? I
think so yeah. I've had a few nights to test the Stellina now and it's really designed for the
brighter nebulae in galaxies and that's exactly what I went after. Stellina really blurs the line
between observation and photography, obviously there's no eyepiece to look through on Stellina
but you're essentially seeing near-real-time pictures of the objects the telescope is pointed
at. Unlike a deep-sky astrophotographer that spends multiple nights on a single target, the Stellina was
designed more to hop around and explore. And that five-hour time limit reminds you of it.
To me, the Stellina was clearly meant for people that have never seen these objects
before. Do you remember the first time you saw the Andromeda Galaxy or the Orion Nebula?
The Stellina is facilitating that experience on a massive scale and i think that's a good
thing for the hobby overall. When the Stellina first arrived i was skeptical about the quality
of the pictures that it would take and they're actually pretty impressive. That's a big deal to
me, I guess you could say I have high standards in terms of image quality, I'm spoiled. Overall,
I was pretty happy with the results that Stellina was able to capture from my light
polluted backyard but i was curious to know what others thought from their location.
Hey Trevor, thanks for having me on the show. So you want to know what I thought of Stellina the robotic scope.
To be honest, when I first saw her I was a little bit scared. This is the anti-biscuit but
having spent three nights, no two nights on this roof in London battling the robot, my respect grew.
Her design is actually quite good, it's quite clever. I'd say if you've got
a few grand and you're not interested in spending a couple of nights tearing your hair out trying
to get astro gear to work, then Stellina isn't a bad option. Fair play to the robot, she does work.
So if Stellina is the anti-biscuit and it's my arch enemy, why is it worth talking about?
It's a dramatic innovation that has a ripple effect into how the public sees the astronomy
as a hobby overall. The idea of effortlessly accessing nebulae and galaxies in the night sky
has a way of enticing newcomers to the hobby. Think of someone with mobility issues that couldn't
physically do what I do to take pictures of space. Now they have an option for a real-time astronomy
experience they can do on their own that didn't exist before. Think about an astronomy club doing
public outreach not wasting a single second of precious time, scaling the astronomy experience
to multiple people at a time and inspiring young minds. You can connect several smartphones and
tablets so everyone can share in on the experience at the same time together - no more lining up at the
eyepiece. I know it's not the same but it does work really well and it's a lot of fun. It shouldn't
be this easy. In my mind the Stellina will never replace a full-blown deep sky astrophotography
rig that you've built yourself. I mean depending on how that's going though because if you haven't got
everything to work and you're driving yourself crazy, maybe you are looking for something that
does it all for you. The bottom line is this is not a replacement for the deep-sky astro rigs we
obsess over every detail for. Even if the Stellina did take better pictures than I did there are some
challenges like selecting the right filter for the job that I want to do myself, and probably
a lot of you do too. I like knowing what each component of my deep-sky astrophotography rig does
so i can tweak and upgrade things when i've identified an opportunity to improve. But
what do I know? Maybe you want a complete package, maybe you don't need to know where each piece of
the astrophotography puzzle fits. You just want to see the Ring Nebula or the Andromeda Galaxy
and you don't have the time or the interest to watch filter reviews by some clown on YouTube.
You want to skip over the part of the hobby that our community loves and get right to the point.
Space - the big picture, the wonder. Stellina will get you there. So if it's between Stellina,
the grand universe, and unlimited possibilities. Or a borderline unhealthy obsession with taking
pictures of space through a Frankenstein rig of new and used parts, I choose the way they got me here.