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One of the more exciting releases for astrophotographers is the the new QHY miniCAM8 system. It's a handy way to add a compact imaging setup to an existing rig and a perfect step up for those start to get serious about their astro photos.  It's an affordable and easy to use way to add to a mono or colour astro imaging camera to your telescope along with: A built-in filter wheel Commonly used filters customised for the miniCAM8 Integrated cooling system  Powerful camera 512 MB of DDR3 RAM to handle data transfer of even large images 1.25" and 2" nosepiece adaptors This combination is a small but powerful astronomy camera for both deep-sky imaging, an eight position filter wheel in about the same form fact you'd normally find a five position filter wheel taking up. There's also built-in electronic cooling for dropping the temperature of the imaging system by around 45C. This helps reduce electronic noise for much sharper and clearer images.  The camera itself is the IMX585 sensor, well known for its exceptional sensitivity which means its well suited to even challenging conditions and tricky targets. The system also features anti-dew control and zero amplifier glow  The miniCAM8 is available in two variants, a one-shot colour camera with four filters included. These have been customised by Optolong Optics. They are: Light pollution filter Heavy light pollution filter Four-channel enhancement filter UV/IR cut filter The custom filters included with the colour version of the QHY miniCAM8 The mono version both LRGB and SHO narrowband filters for deepsky imaging, all designed by XiMei Filters. The filters included with the mono version of the QHY miniCAM8 Both the colour and mono filter sets are19 mm x 12 mm * 1.1 mm in size which makes them a perfect match the for the miniCAM8 camera and filter wheel. The QHY miniCAM8 is supported by wide range of software such as N.I.N.A and SharpCap We're expecting both models of the QHY miniCAM8 Imaging Systems to become available next month and for a limited time we're offering free shipping to all parts of Australia. Check them out via these links: QHY miniCAM8 Colour Camera - Deepsky Combo QHY miniCAM8 Mono Camera - Deepsky Combo You can also secure one with  25% deposit. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 8th January 2025 Specifications Model miniCAM8 CMOS Sensor Sony IMX585 Mono/Colour Both Available BSI/FSI BSI Sensor Size 1/1.2inch Pixel Size 2.9μm*2.9μm Total Pixel Area 3856*2180 Effective Pixels 8 MP Full Well Capacity 54ke-   Linearity HDR Mode: 46ke- Readout Noise 0.76 – 7.8 e-   Linearity HDR Mode: 1.0e- Peak QE M: 92%   C: R: 82%; G: 87%; B: 75% Dynamic Range Linearity HDR mode: The dynamic range reaches up to 46,300:1, equivalent to 93 dB or 15.5 stops. A/D Dual 12-bit (output as 16-bit) Full Frame Rates Full Resolution: 41.5FPS@8bit，23.5FPS @16bit ROI Frame Rates Full Resolution 1080Lines, 82FPS@8bit, 47FPS@16bit；640Lines, 177FPS@8bit, 105FPS@16bit Exposure Time Range 11μs-900sec Shutter Type Electronic Rolling Shutter Built-in Image Buffer 512MB DDR3 Computer Interface USB3.0 Telescope Interface 1.25 inch Optic Window Type AR+AR Filter Wheel Built-in 8-Position Carousel Back Focal Length 17.5mm Cooling System Dual Stage TEC cooler:   Long exposures (> 1 second) typically -45℃ below ambient Weight 480g  

UPDATE: 13th January - Movie of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) looping around the Sun as it passes through Perihelion. Seems intact and no major signs of breakup or disintegration. Things are looking good for a decent show in the early evening Australian skies later this week. Image via SOHO, the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory. More here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Comet with the very poetic name of C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is about to have a close encounter with the Sun and if it survives  - and this is a very big "if" - could be one of the most spectacular astronomy events of 2025.  When was this Comet discovered and why do so many comets now seem to have "ATLAS" in their names? It was found on the 5th of April 2024 by the automated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system. This is an asteroid impact early warning system that scans the entire sky every night looking for moving objects that could pose a threat to us folks here on Earth. It's one of several early warning systems against incoming hunks of space rocks. You can read more about the ATLAS program here. As a result of scanning the sky so regularly and comparing it from night to night, the ATLAS program often finds comets when they are a long way from the Sun and appear as stars, giving away their true nature by the movement against the background of Milky Way stars.  Why the big "if"? Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) is a sungrazing comet. Detailed observations revealed it to be a long period comet, meaning it's not a new arrival from the Oort cloud. It's visited the inner Solar System before. It will make its closet approach to the Sun, called perihelion, on January 13th, where it will be well within the distance that Mercury orbits the Sun at some 13.5 million km from our nearest star. The very closeness of this approach to the Sun is what makes C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) an exciting object to track and follow.  Comets are often referred to as "dirty snowballs", meaning they're loose clumps of water ice, frozen gases and other materials from the early stages of the Solar System. As they loop around the Sun during their orbit, some of this material is heated up and thrown into space. A thin atmosphere surrounding the comet expands into space where it can be seen as a fuzzy ball.  Material thrown away from the comet becomes the tail and shines either because of direct reflection of light from the Sun (a comet's dust tail) or because some of their gases are excited by the Sun's energy and emit their own light (the ion tail). It's not uncommon for comets to appear to have more than one tail, sometimes spreading at different angles to the comet itself. Even though comets themselves are usually only a few dozen km in size, their brightly illuminated tails can stretch out over millions of kms, sometimes even being larger than the Sun itself.  The behaviour of even regular cometary visitors to the inner Solar System can be hard to predict. Just how much material is thrown into space and how that will behave is an educated guess. It's even harder to say with certainty exactly how sungrazer comets will behave. As they travel close to the Sun, larger amounts of these comets are ejected into space and more likely to make a big splash in the sky.  Some of the most spectacular comets ever seen were sungrazer comets, such as Comet Lovejoy in 2011 and the even brighter Comet Ikeya–Seki in 1965.The downside of skirting so close to the Sun is that comets can be completely torn apart by this journey and then drift off into space. We had high hopes for C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) last year, however it was demolished by the Sun. Read more about sungrazers here. Sungrazing Comet Ikeya–Seki- in 1965 near Kitt Peak Observatory.  Image via  Roger Lynds/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/ – taken on Kodak Ektachrome We'll know shortly after C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) passes close to the Sun on January 13th whether it has survived somewhat intact and will be then visible in the coming weeks.  What could I see and when can I this comet? (Assuming it scoots through ok...)  It's estimated the comet will become visible in the evening sky in Australia from around the 16th or 17th of January, where it will be heading away from the Sun.   UPDATED: The spot in the sky where Comet Atlas (C/2024 G3) should be visible on the evening of the 20th January 2025 around 8.30pm. It will appear a little higher in the sky each evening and still be visible as the evening darkens, although it will also rapidly fade.  It should appear as a bright spot with a tail fanning out away from the comet. Full Moon is on 14th January 2025 in Australia, so the Moon will be below the horizon when the comet is visible early in the evening and won't interfere with viewing.  When will we know whether Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) has it made around the Sun intact? Given the potential for this comet, there will be a lot of interest about its behaviour after perihelion. We'll be keeping a close eye on any observations and sources like the Astronomer's Telegram and others for the latest news. I'll update this article as soon as we know more.  What do I need to view this comet? Our general advice with bright comets is to use binoculars. These give a nice wide field of view and are ideal for seeing the finer details of a comet's tail, especially if it's large and spread over several degrees. A telescope will give a close up views of a comet's coma, but won't be able to fit the tail into the field of view if it's spread over a larger part of the sky. Nikon Aculon 10x42 binos at BINTEL - more info here.  They don't need to be fancy either. Try the ones you have at home or look at the Nikon Aculon range here at BINTEL. These are affordable (starting at well under $200) and offer sharp clear view of the night sky and are ideal for day time viewing of birds, nature and sports.  I've read this is the best comet of 2025. Why are folks saying this? There are no periodic comets due to appear in skies for the rest of the year that will be bright enough to be seen with just your eyes, so yes, C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) could be the best comet of 2025. However, comets have a habit of surprising us and with any luck, the next Great Comet might dazzle us later in the year. I'll be updating this article with more charts as more info becomes available.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  6th January 2025

January 20th 2025 - Update: it's not just the 25th of January - no need to rush! We've had quite a few folks contact us up about this planetary alignment, how to see it and when it will be visible. Some were worried that they should travel someone on the night in case it was cloudy where they lived or were planning work or social events around it!  Please remember that while many websites and social media postings are saying the date is the 25th of January for this event, as mentioned below, planetary alignments like this event are slow moving and there's no need to rush. Venus, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter will visible in the sky on that night and for quite a few afterwards. No rush - plenty of planets to go around! It's visible in sky NOW and will be for some time after the 25th of January.  As an added bonus, if you have a clear view to the west, this week you should be able to see Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) not too from Venus. More here ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a look towards the western and northern skies this month and you'll see a line of fellow members of our Solar System strung across the horizon in the early evening sky. This is simply an alignment of planets as seen from the ground here on Earth and they haven't moved towards each other in any significant way. Moving from left to right, you'll see Venus and Saturn close together when it gets dark. This will be the last chance to see Saturn before it emerges in a pre-dawn sky in a few months. By then, its rings will be even more edge on and harder to see. (We'll be talking a little bit more about that later in.) Jupiter is higher in the sky and will be visible for much of the night. Apart from the Moon, it will be the bright thing in the evening once Venus sets and looks like the lighting on a incoming airliner flight - except you'll notice after a while it's not moving.  Mars will also be rising and is coming into the best time to view the red planet until its next opposition in 2027. You'll notice in the chart that the outer ice giant, the planet Uranus, is listed. This won't be visible to you eyes, although you should be able to see it in pair of binoculars. The other ice giant, Neptune, appears close to Venus and would be quite difficult to spot.  Mercury is lost in the Sun's glare and would be below the horizon as it starts to get dark.    Do I need a telescope to view these planets? Not really. You should be able to see all of these bright planets with you eyes and they'll all be bright compared to the background stars. However, once you spot them, they'd be well worth checking out with in binoculars and telescopes of any size will show more.  Is there a certain time or day I need to view this line up? This is generated by Stellarium for the 25th of January 2025 around 9.15pm local time. If you'd like to generate your own chart for your location, visit their site here. However it will be visible in the days before and after this date, so no rush. Cheers,Earl White  BINTEL 3rd January 2025

2024 was a very special year for BINTEL First of all, we celebrated 40 years since the shop first opened in 1984 in the Wynyard Station arcade. It’s been an amazing journey and can only thank our customers, suppliers and the many others who’ve helped us get this far. The BINTEL Sydney store 40 years ago 2024 also saw the roll out of new products continue, and along with a few long term favourites, made this year a stand out for how we could help our customers expand their interests in astronomy, bird watching, nature discovery and more. Here’s BINTEL’s “wrap” for 2024* Smart Telescopes We’ve written a lot about Smart Telescopes over the last few years, and with good reason. These all-in-one telescope, mount, camera and control systems are changing with the way astronomers of all levels of expertise view and photograph the night sky. There were three major Smart Telescope updates during 2024 and all of them are worth a mention here.Celestron Origin Intelligent Home ObservatoryThis new telescope was released by Celestron at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in January of this year. It’s a high end smart telescope and the result of years of R&D by Celestron. Definitely a long term project from the world's largest telescope manufacturer. Celestron Origin We’ve now sold dozens of these Celestron Origin gizmos, with excellent feedback from our customers along the way. I know my eyes glaze over whenever something is described as a “game changer”, but this new Celestron Smart Telescope is exactly that. Find out more here.There’s been several sub-$1000 Smart Telescopes available to astronomy enthusiasts for the last couple of years. The popular DWARF II morphed into the new DWARF 3, which is a major hardware and software upgrade for around the same price while ZWO introduced their new Seestar S30 which is selling for only just $649. ZWO Seestar S30 Smart Telescope  We were also impressed that ZWO met their promised mid to late December delivery target for this new little Smart Telescope and we were able to dispatch some to our customers before the end of 2024. The DWARF 3 Smart Telescope What 2025 will bring in terms of Smart Telescopes is looking exciting. I’d say that the few years has probably seen more astro photos taken with these new telescopes than were taken in the last two decades with more traditional astrophotography rigs. Binoculars ZEISS were the stand out binoculars at BINTEL for 2024. Their ZEISS Terra ED line up are well priced for those after an introduction to quality binoculars without the high price tags and this has seen many become ZEISS owners over the last 12 months. ZEISS Terra ED 8x42 BinocularsFor more serious birdwatchers, the ZEISS SFL binos have been a revelation. Bright and crisp images combined with lightweight bodies make a perfect combo when you’re out in the field. ZEISS SFL 8x40 Binoculars 2024 also saw the release of the new ZEISS Conquest HDX binoculars. Mid-priced with a new optics and weather proofing have made them popular with those after a genuine all-around set of optics. ZEISS HDX 10x42 Binoculars The Kite Optics APC Stabilized 14x50 ED lifted the bar for image stabilised binos. A combination of new image stabilising tech, large ED (Extra Dispersion) quality glass and built-in Lithium-Ion battery that will last an entire season make these Kite binos a must have for long range viewing. Kite ED 18x50 Image Stabilised Worth a big mention too has been Gerber binoculars. These are possibly some of the best value products we have at BINTEL. Great views for the money! 2024 - Year of the spotting scope? We’ve always been a destination for anyone with a decent view they’d like to see up close. This year we seem to have had a stream of people calling and visiting us who are living near the water or with scenery to explore. The BINTEL spotting scope range - small telescopes optimised for going beyond what binoculars can achieve - has been expanding this year. Apart from evergreen offering from Celestron, Nikon and Swarovski, we’ve welcomed new spotting scopes from Kowa, ZEISS and Pentax to our shop. The KOWA TSN-88 Spotting Scope   Best optics of the year? I’m a bit torn on this one! Two remarkable spotting scopes arrived at BINTEL this year. The KOWA TSN-88 with its crystal fluorite lens has jewel-like optics and the carbon fibre BORG 90FL is the Swiss army knife of small telescopes that lets you configure it for anything from birdwatching to astro imaging. BORG 90FL Telescope Set CR (Carbon Tube) Telescope Mounts New and upgraded Harmonic Drive mounts continue to arrive at BINTEL. One that impressed us is the updated ZWO AM5N mount. This added to the popular AM5 mount a swag of new features and capabilities as bumping up the load capacity. ZWO AM5N Harmonic Drive Mount Dobs are back! (Actually, they never went away….) While electronic telescopes of various kinds grab a lot of attention, there’s nothing like the simple joy of observing the night sky with your eyes through a decent sized telescope. We’ve seen plenty of new telescope owners opting for the handy Celestron StarSense Explorer tabletop Dobsonians this year. The saxon full-sized Dobsonian telescopes were especially popular for Christmas, and we expect this to continue into 2025. saxon 8" Dobsonian Telescope  Books Astronomy 2025 is the last edition of our favourite star gazing annual. This has been a standard resource that has informed and entertained astronomers in Australia and across the world since the early 1990s. While the 2025 production is the final edition from the team at Quasar Publishing, it's no doubt one of their best effort. Everyone here at BINTEL would like Quasar for the wonderful publication that's served our community over the decades. Events The total Solar Eclipse that crossed the USA on the 8th of April 2024 saw a vast number of people travel to the eclipse's path to experience this rare display of our nearest star, the Sun.  The April 2024 Solar Eclipse as seen from Texas, USA. It was also a timely reminder that there will a Total Solar Eclipse in Australia in July 2028 - and it will cross directly over BINTEL in Sydney!SpaceX launched its BIG rocket. The largest rocket ever built, Starship, flew a number of times in 2024, with the next flight due in January 2025. Each flight saw the reliability and capabilities increase with each launch including the "chopsticks" capture of the main booster.  Starship 5 launch from the SpaceX facility Locally, Gilmour Space received the go ahead for the first permit for an orbital launch from the Australian mainland from their facility in northern Queensland.  Other highlight space missions were the launch of the Europa Clipper to explorer the suitability of one of Jupiter's large moons and the close encounter of the Parker Solar Probe as dived close to the Sun over Christmas. The NASA spacecraft survived and first results are due in the coming days. Happy New Year! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL *2024 Wrap? Sounds like a plan. I wonder if anyone else does that? 

Happy Summer Solstice - Why is the Sun  One of the delights of summer in Australia is enjoying the longer days as the Sun sets later and later.  The reason why the days vary in length throughout the year is because our Earth orbits the Sun at an approx. 23 degree angle. This causes the Sun to spend more time in the southern part of the sky during our warmer seasons and less time during the colder months.  On the Summer Solstice, the Sun reaches the furthest south in the sky and begins its journey into the northern part of the sky. It also marks the longest day of the year.  This year the Summer Solstice is the 21st of December 2024. (It can change a day from this date from year to year.) From then on, the days begin to get shorter, until we reach the shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice. The Autumn Equinox in March is when all parts of the Earth experience the same amount of day and night time. How long your day will be in major capital. Image via weatherzone.  While the days begin to shorten in length from this coming weekend, the time the Sun sets gets a little later until early January. Don't worry - those long and lazy summer evenings will continue for a while yet.  For this coming summer, the Sun will set just after 8.00pm during January while starting to rise a bit later.  For example, in Sydney the sun will set around 8.09pm local time while the time it rises changes from 5.47am as 5.45am the days begin to get shorter post Solstice.  You can read more about the rise and set times at this website here. (Please note that times given do not include daylight savings. You'll need to add an hour if your location uses it.) Path of the Sun in the sky.  As we orbit the Sun during year, where the Sun appears in the sky changes each day.   Image via César Cantú / AstroColors If you were to take a photo of the Sun at the same clock time every day over a course of the year from the same location it would produce the same same every year. The roughly figure-8 pattern the Sun traces out is called an Analemma. This Analemma is a result of our orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth.  For this Summer Solstice, the Sun's image would be as far south as it gets for the year. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL

The largest planet in the Solar System as close as it will come to Earth in 2024 right now and it's the perfect time to view and photograph Jupiter.  During closer approaches when the Earth and Jupiter are the same side of the Sun (called "opposition") it's the 3rd brightest object in the night sky behind the Moon and Venus.  Jupiter has been known by peoples from all parts of the world since ancient times.  Viewing Jupiter With your eyes alone: Jupiter shines as very bright star not far the constellation of Orion this summer and is inline with Betelgeuse, the deep-red star that forms one of the "shoulders".  Where Jupiter can be found this weekend (7th and 8th of December 2024) around 10.30pm local time You won't be able to see any details on Jupiter nor will you be able to see any of the four largest moons*.  Where the Sun, Earth and Jupiter are aligned during this year's opposition. Illustration via NASA Binoculars: With just about any pair of binoculars Jupiter will start to be no longer be a single point of light but start to have a definite circular shape. There's a very good chance you'll also spot as many as four small "stars" spread out either side of Jupiter.  These are the planet's largest four moons, first definitively recorded by Galileo in January 1609 and independently a day later by astronomer Simon Marius. Marius didn't write about his discovery for time afterwards. While we refer these collectively as Jupiter's Galilean moons, we use the names for them proposed by Marius: Callisto Europa Ganymede Io Each of these moons is a world in itself, with complex geological processes and even oceans. NASA's Europa Clipper mission launched some weeks ago to investigate the suitability of Europa as a place for life.  Telescopes: Even a small telescope will start to reveal the darker bands and lighter streaks that run across the surface of Jupiter. What you're looking at are icy cold regions of ammonia and water floating on the planet's atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. With telescopes of 150mm aperture or larger you'll even see a vast storm, larger than the Earth, called the Great Red Spot. As Jupiter rotates every 10 hours, the position of the Great Red Spot will change throughout the night or might even disappear as it heads behind the planet and out of view.  Eyepiece upgrades: Solar System planets like Jupiter are ideal astro objects for using higher magnifications. Many telescopes are supplied with a 25mm for wide field views and a 10mm for higher magnification.  We can help with suggested individual eyepieces to suit you telescope. Another option is to buy a Barlow. This sits between your telescope and the eyepiece and effectively decreases the focal length of the eyepiece, which means it increases the telescope's magnification. For example, this $49 Celestron T-Adapter-Barlow Lens 1.25 inch would double the power of each eyepiece. Find out more here. While Barlow lenses are not a perfect solution, they offer an affordable way to increase the range of your telescope.  Motorised telescopes and taking photos:  Any telescope with a computerised and motorised tracking mount will make extended visual observing of planets much easier and open up options for taking detailed photos of them as well. Solar System planets were some of the astro objects that amateur astronomers turned their early digital cameras to a few years ago and they quickly produced images that were far superior to even the best film cameras of the time.  The reason fairly low-cost planetary cameras can produce such planetary photos is because of a technique called lucky imaging. It you look at the stars at night you'll night they "twinkle". This shimmering of these points of light in the sky is caused by minor disturbances in the quality of the atmosphere. Wind currents, patches of warmer and colder air and other factors means amount of twinkle, or "seeing" as astronomers call it, varies from not just night to nigh but throughout the evening and sometimes even moment to moment. If you look through a telescope at a telescope at a planet like Jupiter, it might appear to wobble around or be blurry. Then suddenly, the view will be razor sharp for a while and then go back to being a big dodgy.  A planetary camera attached to a tracking telescope like this Celestron NexStar 4SE doesn't take a single image like you would with your phone. Rather, it takes a video and using software to examine the quality of each frame and then combine the clearer and sharper views captured and discard the less than ideal frames. It then combines them into a single image - with often amazing results. Celestron NexStar 4SE - more details here. ZWO ASI678MC Colour Planetary Camera- more details here Whether you're looking Jupiter with just your eyes, a binocular or telescope or even planning to photograph the gas giant, think about the complex and expansive world above our heads tonight.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 5th December 2024 *Yes, there are some folks who claim to be able to see these moons with their eyes along and without binoculars or a telescope. They are just on the outer edge of human visual capabilities under near perfect conditions, so grab a pair of binos or a small telescope and enjoy them.

It's not long until Christmas and binoculars are always popular gifts for exploring nature, enjoying summer and for close up views at sports or event concerts. Here's some of our suggestions for 2024 Under $300 The Nikon Aculon Range of Binoculars We're super happy that Nikon have kept their Action EX Binoculars affordable for those after viewing quality and rugged construction. These feature the usual Nikon quality multi-coated optics with, with waterproof o-rings and filled with nitrogen. This will prevent the from fogging up internally even under damp and less than ideal conditions.  They would be handy companions for: Bird Watching Nature Viewing Whale and dolphin watching Camping and hiking Sports and concerts Around the water and boating Night sky and astronomy Discover Nikon EX Binoculars at BINTEL here. For example, the Nikon Action EX 10x50 is a full sized pair of binoculars that would be suited for longer distance viewing and especially handy for taking out on the boat this summer. You can find more details here. Under $700 The ZEISS Terra ED line up offers ultra crisp and clear optics in a more compact body style. We've had a big 12 months with ZEISS here at BINTEL and received some positive feedback from our customers about their binoculars, especially birdwatchers and those travelling to demanding locations such as Antarctic islands or even on safari.   Read more about ZEISS Terra ED Binoculars here. Some of the ZEISS Terra ED Binoculars available from BINTEL These would be a step up in terms of image quality compared to the Nikon Action binos mentioned above, and definitely more compact.  Ideal for: Bird Watching Nature Viewing Whale and dolphin watching Camping and hiking Sports and concerts Travelling, both local and overseas Night sky and astronomy ZEISS Terra ED binoculars include a semi-rigid case for additional protection. One suggestion would be the ZEISS Terra ED 8x42. This is perhaps the classic size for birdwatchers especially and would offer years of service in the field. You can read more our these binoculars here. What's the best size binoculars?  There's no one set size you should use for any particular activity. In other words, despite what you might read online there's no one size that all the bird watchers use or one size for whale watching etc.  There's two factors to consider. Binoculars are described like this: 8x25 10x42 7x50  And so on. The first number is the magnification or how much the binoculars increase the size of the image as you see it. While it might see the highest number is always the best option - after all, the point of binoculars is to increase the size of things in the distance, isn't it? - but higher magnification also means a narrower field of view when searching for fast moving things like birds or sports action as well a emphasising and hand movements or shakes.  The second number is the diameter of each front lens in mm. For example,  10x32 and 10x42 binoculars would both produce the same size image to your eyes but the 10x42 binoculars would gather more light due to the larger lenses. This would make them better for low light conditions or for use during dawn or dusk as well as producing a slightly sharper image. They'd also be heavier and likely more expensive.  Here's a few suggestions for sizes and their uses. This a rough guide and have a chat with us to fine tune the right model binoculars just for you: Bird Watching - 8x42 or 10x42 for more experienced birders Scenery viewing from land - 10x50 or 10x42 Whale Watching on the water - 10x42 Sports - 7x50 or 10x50 Concerts - 10x32 Travelling - 8x32 Compact/pocket sized - 8x25 These are only a rough guide and we're always more than happy to chat about specific binocular models and sizes to get one that's just right for you.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 5th December 2024

Always want to discover the Universe? BINTEL takes the confusion out of buying a telescope for you or the family. Get REAL advice for telescope buying for Christmas 2024.

One of the favourite deep southern sky object, the Large Magellanic Cloud or LMC, has long been regarded as a satellite galaxy of our own but now thought by many to be just passing by - and has the scars from the encounter.

It's been an amazing year in the Smart Telescope arena. When I wrote the the 2023 BINTEL guide to Smart Telescopes almost 18 months ago, we knew they were becoming popular but even the crew here at BINTEL has been thrilled by new technologies and the wide variety of both new and experienced astronomers and nature fans who've flocked to these exciting devices. First of all, a quick recap - what exactly is a Smart Telescope? We generally think Smart Telescopes are all-in-one units that combine the telescope themselves, a fully computerised "GOTO" mount, camera and the associated tech needed to manage image capture and processing. This app looks after the alignment of the telescope in the night sky, which is done by  knowing where on the surface of the Earth it's located and performing a quick scan around the sky to get its position. Once this is done, you select what you'd like to view or photograph. Last year this was mainly carried out by selecting an astro object from the Smart Telescope app's database, but for 2024 we're also seeing further integration of comprehensive star atlases that lets you explore and photograph a vastly expanded selection of the night sky above our heads. Aside from a few specialised devices, you cannot "look through" a Smart Telescope. What it photographs will be seen on your device's screen. (More on this soon....) ZWO Seestar S50 When our 2023 Smart Telescope guide was published, the ZWO Seestar S50 had just been announced at the NEAF show in the USA. It began shipping some months later. Since then, they've become a global success story and we've sold a huge number of them here at BINTEL. For example, we've had multiple occasions where more than 100 of these little Seestar S50 have been shipped to customers on a single day.   If you're interested only in astro imaging, the ZWO Seestar S50  might be your best option for an affordable Smart Telescope.  It comes in a sturdy foam carry case, a table top tripod, internal filters and an external Solar photo for taking photos of the Sun and its sunspots. While it's now 18 months old, ZWO have offered multiple upgrades to the Seestar S50 via app updates with more on the way.  ZWO Seestar S30 This is the newest smart telescope, with full details only being released to the public on the 1st November 2024. The smallest member of the ZWO Seestar family carries many of the same design ideas as the larger S50 - all in one body, camera and telescope - and uses the same app to control it. It has a 30mm diameter main lens compared to 50mm on the Seestar S50. The S30 differs in two main areas compared to the S50. The physical size is much smaller than the S50 which makes it more travel friendly. ZWO are reminding everyone that the Seestar S30 weighs much less than a 2l bottle of soft drink. ZWO Seestar S30 - great size if you're travelling Full details of the ZWO Seestar S30 are available here. DWARF Lab  Our friends at DWARF Lab have been busy over the last 12 months! They produced and shipped the very popular DWARF II Smart Telescope.  This was smaller and even more portable than the ZWO Seestar S50  and while it didn't produce as detailed images as the S50, it could capture a wider field. It also found a home among bird watchers and nature photographers. The new DWARF 3 which has just started shipping brings a swag of new features. The DWARF 3 (left) compared to the DWARF II (right) - a smidge bigger but far more powerful Without a major increase in overall size, the DWARF 3 now has a 35mm vs 24mm main lens, more than doubling the telescope's light collecting ability compared to the DWARF II. The camera has also received a major upgrade to a Sony IMX678 sensor, a better battery and more. The DWARF 3 has also seen major software updates and capabilities including extended exposure time in EQ mode, image mosaics and improved automatic object tracking - useful for birds, planes, shootings stars and even maybe the odd UFO or two.... You can now also use the widefield camera for astronomy photos and this combined with the mosaic mode could see the DWARF 3 as an affordable yet capable alternative to the traditional DSRL and star tracker methods for photographing the Milky Way. Probably the best part of the upgrade to the DWARF 3 is they've kept the price pretty much the same as the DWARF II. We haven't seen too many telescope where the manufacturer increases the diameter of a model's optics by 40%, upgrades just about every feature of the outgoing model AND keeps the price the same. You can read about the DWARF 3 here. ZWO Seestar S50 or DWARF 3? If you're only interested in astro imaging, the slightly larger ZWO Seestar S50 still has an edge compared to the DWARF 3 for closer up and more detailed images. The arrival of mosaic features will blunt the advantage of the wider field of the DWARF 3.  However, the addition of astro features to the wide angle camera on the DWARF 3 for even larger panorama shots might be of interest to you. Plus even the slightly larger DWARF 3 is still much smaller than the ZWO Seestar S50 and this could be a factor for portability and travelling. Either way, there's simply no other other way for less than $900 to obtain the deep-sky astro photos that these two cool little devices can produce. ZWO Seestar S30 or DWARF 3? Ok, this is a much trickier problem! At the moment, the S30 is almost $200 cheaper than the DWARF 3 and this alone could be a deciding factor for some folks. The DWARF 3 has a better camera and its ability to be used more easily in EQ mode might see it producing better astro images than the S30.   Both of these tiny Smart Telescopes have dual lenses for wide field and close up images. The DWARF app has a number of features that make it appealing to nature and wildlife photographers, however ZWO is catching up in this area.  ZWO have also recently released to the public their version of mosaic capabilities for the Seestar app for both the S30 and S50. They call this feature framing and initial reports look good.  We haven't been able to put the DWARF 3 and the new S30 head to head ourselves and will be doing so soon. If you're unsure or just want to toss up a few ideas, please give BINTEL a call. We'll be more than happy to discuss all oof these entry level Smart Telescopes in detail.  Vespera II and Vespera Pro French company Vaonis produced one of the first Smart Telescopes, the Stellina which was followed up in 2023 by the original Vaonis Vespera. This device was larger than a ZWO Seestar S50,  oozed style and character and offered a significantly better optics and electronics. The Vaonis app and user interface is both more powerful and easier to use than offering offerings. In 2024, Vaonis has upgraded the Vespera to the Vespera II, as well as introducing the new Vespera Pro model. The Vaonis Vespera lineup for 2024 Cameras were a large part of the upgrades to the Vespera model for 2024. The Vespera II has a four-fold increase in megapixel size compare to the original Vespera and the new Vespera Pro has a further 50% bump on top of that. This has seen a large increase in the size of the images that can be produced. This has also brought the resolution or sampling down considerably allowing much finer details to be imaged.  The Vespera Pro can capture image details as small as 1.6 arc seconds. While versions of various mosaic or image stitching abilities are due to appear at some point on the the sub $1000 Smart Telescopes, the Vaonis CovalENS multi-imaging system is mature and fully featured.  This allows you to frame exactly the region you'd like to photograph and watch the large panorama build in real-time. For example, the Vespera II using CovalENS can photograph a patch of the night sky more than six Full Moons wide. UPDATE:2nd Oct 2024 - CovelENS gets an upgrade. Vaonis have released information on major updates to the software. Of interest to astrophotographers how like to produce images of faint objects  with intricate details will the new multi-night observation mode. This lets you shutdown your imaging session for the night and seamlessly re-commence photographing the object on the following or later night. There's also major updates to their mosaic image composition system and features to plan you  what you photograph during your imaging sessions. More on the Vaonis website here. Apart from the more powerful camera, extra features of the Vespera Pro compared to the Vespera II include larger internal storage, a longer life battery, a complete range of Vaonis accessories and even an anti-theft system. What advantages does do the Vespera Smart Telescopes have over lower cost options? The main advantage is the quality of the images produced by both Vespera models is significantly higher than those produced by DWARF or Seestar S50.  The Vespera is larger and heavier, however it's still extremely portable and easy to set up, especially in the dark. The Vaonis  app, Singularity, will make take astro photos much easier even for complete beginners while having advanced features for those with more experience. Finally, the Vespera is a  elegant device and we have more than a few users even have them as part of their home decor. Celestron joins the party. The Origin Intelligent Home Observatory None of the current suppliers of Smart Telescopes have any real history of making telescopes of any kind - with the exception of Celestron. Based in California, Celestron have been the world's largest supplier of telescopes and associated gear for decades.  They also have a long history of introducing computerised mounts and telescopes for amatuer astronomers. It's no surprise their first Smart Telescope, the Celestron Origin, immediately become the most powerful and fully featured Smart Telescope on its release in January 2024 at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. Unlike all other current Smart Telescopes,  the Celestron Origin is somewhat modular and based around a number of technologies that Celestron has been perfecting in other models for some years.  For example, the telescope itself is a style of reflector called a  RASA.  This has an extremely fast focal ratio of f/2.2 that provides an extremely wide field of view and can capture deep-sky details in a much shorter time compared to other devices. The aperture of the Celestron Origin at 150mm (6") is much larger than other other Smart Telescope, meaning it has the ability to image fainter targets and product finer details on brighter astro objects.  Unlike other Smart Telescopes, which are limited to upgrades only via software, some of the Celestron Origin's hardware can be improved via hardware updates and add-ons. Celestron have stated that camera upgrades are on roadmap as well as wedges and autoguiders for more accurate and longer exposures. Apart from being the most expensive Smart Telescope available today, the Celestron Origin is larger and set up and transport is similar to traditional astrophotography setup. Check out the Celestron Origin here. Is there anything you can't photograph well with Smart Telescopes? Yes. They all have relatively short focal lengths. This makes them well suited to deep-space astro objects such as star clusters, nebulae and even galaxies beyond our own Milky Way. Solar System planets take up a small amount of space in the sky and typically need a long focal length telescope to view or capture them. You can take images of Jupiter and Saturn through Smart Telescopes but the results won't be as impressive as deep-sky images obtained with them. Are Smart Telescopes replacing more traditional astrophotography platforms? The short answer is no, however there's a little bit more to it. We don't know of any of our customer who are seriously into astrophotography who now use a Smart Telescope instead of their existing astro imaging rig because they produce better astro photos.  Smart Telescope photos are not as good as the very best obtained conventional telescopes, astronomy cameras and mounts along with a decent amount of experience. In fact, I think it's going to be a long time before that happens. Our experience with Smart Telescopes of different types over the last few years is that while a large proportion are ending up in the hands of newbies just starting out in astronomy, a significant chunk are being purchased by experienced astronomer who want an astro system that can be produce decent images with little hassle,  are easy to set up and even fun to use. Can the images produced by Smart Telescopes be further improved? Yes. The data collected by all Smart Telescopes is processed in software to reveal as much detail as possible. Their apps can produce some quite amazing result and all models now allow you to download the "raw" data for processing on your device or even using an external program such as Siril or PixInsight. Finally - are there new models due soon? Should I buy a Smart Telescope now or wait? Of course there's new models and features on the horizon. Smart Telescopes have been a success for telescope makes but they need to keep up. They're facing new products from existing suppliers and possibly even emerging players. Like other "hot" areas of tech, their engineers and designers hard at work on the next generation of their products. If you say "I'll wait for whatever is coming next" you might put off for quite a long time the start of your astro journey. Sure, there's new gear that will be launched in the future, but the current generation of Smart Telescopes are the easiest and most effective way that have ever existed to get seriously into astronomy and start discovering the Universe. For ever the most seasoned astronomers, that's a truly wonderful thing to have happening around them. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 18th September 2024