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Mirrosky Smart Telescope: opinion / review
Published on: 17-10-2022 / Modified: 17-10-2022
I financed about twenty projects on Indiegogo or Kickstarter and in the vast majority of cases, the projects were successful and this allowed me to discover very interesting products before anyone else. Today I will look at the Mirrosky Smart Telescope which is available on Kickstarter until the end of November 2022.
Campaign link: Mirrosky / Kickstarter.com
Mirrosky: what is it?
The Mirrosky Smart Telescope is, as its name suggests, a smart telescope that makes sky observation accessible to everyone. You can thus ask the telescope to point to any celestial object and then film or photograph it. It is not the only product of this type on the market, this concept of telescope has already existed for a long time and can be found at Celestron or Meade to name only the best known brands.
How is this telescope different? From a purely technological point of view, this telescope brings nothing more than what already exists, its interest lies in its price. For around 500€ you have a 127mm Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope with motorized mount, battery, 200mm viewfinder, 3 eyepieces, tripod, camera and necessary cables. The telescope is comparable to the Celestron NexStar 127SLT with a focal length of 1900mm instead of 1500 with the Celestron.
Who is the builder?
The team behind the project has been around since 2020 but I can't find a trace of the Mirrosky company before 2022 (creation date: May 5, 2022). I can't find any trace of its leader either (Chak Ming Chapman), no trace on Google or on LinkedIn even if Kickstarter claims to have verified his identity. This does not necessarily mean that there is a problem but these are points of attention to take into account in your decision;
Mirrosky Smart Telescope
The Mirrosky Smart Telescope is a Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, this type of telescope is characterized by a fairly short tube which offers a certain ease of use for those who want to get started in astronomy. I have a Newton type telescope, it is a much bulkier telescope than the Maksutov-Cassegrain. Apart from its size, this type of telescope offers other advantages such as a fairly low level of chromatic aberration and good contrast. Its main shortcomings are the time needed for it to adapt to ambient temperature and small fields of vision.
This projector has a main mirror of 127mm, it's a fairly average size knowing that there are almost as many sizes below 127mm as above. The size of the tube is important for light collection, the larger the tube the more light it is able to collect, but the larger it is the more cumbersome it is. 127 mm therefore represents a good compromise.
This telescope has a focal length of 1900mm, the focal length is comparable to a zoom level because the higher the value, the greater the magnification, but a high magnification also results in a reduced field of view. With a very large zoom, your field of vision is much narrower than an optic with a low power zoom. Why is it important. With a focal length of 1900mm, this telescope is primarily designed for planetary observation.
The telescope comes with a Sony IMX 355 LQN camera which is specially designed for observing the sky. I never had the opportunity to test on another device, Sony develops many cameras including some models used in astrophotography on Google phones. These phones deliver superb nighttime images, but that's largely thanks to Google's artificial intelligence processing. The camera can therefore produce beautiful photos, but if the processing of the captured images is not up to par, the end result will be poor.
An opinion?
Basically, if I only look at my usual selection criteria, I could consider that the risk for this product is higher than average because there are many unknowns but which makes me think that the risk is just average this is the following video:
I've been this YouTuber for a while and it's not the YouTuber who tries to please with nice pictures and commercial speech. He has a Mirrosky at his disposal and he explains quite well what this telescope is capable of doing, I find his demonstration to be quite convincing. The quality of the images looks good and the application used to drive this projector seems to be quite advanced already.
There is obviously always a risk that this project will not succeed but the fact of having a telescope and a functional application shows that the project is already well advanced.
LAURENT WILLENHead of myself on this blog
I share my passions on my blog in my free time since 2006, I prefer that to watching nonsense on TV or on social networks. I work alone, I am undoubtedly one of the last survivors of the world of blogs and personal sites.
My speciality? Digital in all its forms. I have spent the last 25 years working for multinationals where I managed digital teams and generated revenues of over €500 million per year. I have expertise in telecoms, media, aviation, travel and tourism.
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