Astrographic Nights

Smart telescopes are all the rage. They deliver off-the-shelf technology that changed amateur astronomy. The advance was incremental. Computerized mounts that point and track your telescope from menus are over 30 years old. In the same time, cellphone cameras provided multi-megapixel images. The two came together. 

Spiral galaxy Messier 81 (center) with M82 (right).
Pedernales Falls State Park. 8 Aug 2026. 
The two "grand design" galaxies are in 
Ursa Major and at visual right angles
revealing their structures.  

The four best known brands of astrographs are Vaonis, Unistellar, DwarfLabs, and Zwo. At our local star parties, club members set up their Vaonis Vespera, Unistellar Odyssey, DwarfLab, or Zwo SeeStar to capture images while the astronomers enjoy direct viewing with their lenses and mirrors. I borrowed a Seestar 30 from the Austin Astronomical Society and took it to two of our public star parties at Pedernales Falls State Park and also set it up in my backyard.

NGC 6960 called "Witches Broom Nebula"
by amateurs. 110 minutes exposure.

That is a significant point because it takes a few (long) minutes for the astrograph to build its images. The newbie asks, “What am I supposed to do while I am waiting?” and the stargazer replies, “Get yourself a telescope.” 

The Orion Nebula
10 October 2026 0306 AM
16 minutes exposure,

Also on that note, the stargazer wants to praise their astrograph and their neighbor replies that as Official US Taxpayers we already paid for the Hubble and James Webb and several others all of which deliver evermore stunning images. 

Messier 8. The Lagoon Nebula.
27 minutes exposure
11 August 2026. 

And that is true, but it is not actually the same thing as knowing where to find the Andromeda Galaxy and then looking at it with simple instruments not much more complicated than your own eyes. And the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the deep space objects that can be seen naked eye from within a city and certainly a suburb. (The others are the Pleiades, the Beehive Cluster, and the Orion Nebula.) 

The Andromeda Galaxy
with M110 below to right
16 minutes exposure 
from my backyard

And then there are the planets—which the astrographs do not present well. They were designed to gather faint light from clusters, nebulae, and galaxies. Planets are too bright. Even stars can be too bright. Albireo in Cygnus the Swan (Northern Cross) is one example. The stunning gold and blue pair, enjoyable in even a 50-mm amateur refractor washes out in a postmodern astrograph smart telescope.

Albireo (Beta Cygni) lacking in glory.

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