martes, 10 de enero de 2017

domingo, 8 de enero de 2017

EVscope





I want to tell you about a new product that can be a great revolution for all amateur astronomers like me.



The astronomy club to which I belong has had the opportunity to have the demonstration of this new product called eVscope, which is a project of the French company Unistellar, founded by Arnaud Malvache, Laurent Marfisi, and Antonin Borot. Which were the ones that were doing the demonstration?



Laurent tells us the origin of his inspiration to invent the eVscope (Improved Vision Telescope).

It is as follows; I still remember my disappointment when I saw the galaxy of Andromeda, through a telescope, I have about 14 years old. After an hour of patient, scouring the sky and carefully pointing my telescope, I finally saw a strange misty gray spot, where I expected to see a disk of vibrantly light and color. Many years later, my friend Arnaud shared a similar memory with me.

Nevertheless, I had an idea. What if we progressively intensify the light we see through the eyepiece of a telescope with a low-intensity light sensor?

We quickly decided to make a prototype to get an idea of the final result, and in designing it we added the other features that make the UNISTELLAR telescope so different. For astronomy to be entertaining and enjoyable for all, we decided to make it compact and easy to use, while allowing participation in Citizen Science projects.



After this introduction, I'm sure you're probably wondering what this eVscope is?... I will explain it to you.

The goal of eVscope, in short; is to make processes that require a lot of; Time, knowledge, experience and equipment (money), makes it simple and easy. eVscope, focuses on three major aspects that I detail.



  • Citizen Science Projects

It will allow us to cooperate with projects of international institutions to collect information and images of events, in a simple and intuitive way. For example occultation, transits, TNO etc.

They comment to us that they were working with a former member of the UN Planetary Defense Task Force dedicated to Near Earth Objects, to apply this feature to asteroid observation thru our telescope.



  • Intensification of light.

This is the part that changes everything. By activating this option the system begins to accumulate light and to process the images that are accumulating, meanwhile, the system star to correct automatically the following factors; Speed at which our telescope moves, light pollution, state of the sky, etc. All this is done progressively and directly giving us the opportunity to see the image increase progressively and in a matter of seconds through the eyepiece of the telescope, to obtain in the end an optimal configuration that is constantly updated allowing us to enjoy the colors and shapes of the objects of the sky.



  • Augmented reality

This option is incredible since after all the above process the system is able to recognize the images that we are observing and gives us the opportunity to name them automatically. And if it is not able to recognize them allows us to send them to be processed since most likely it is something new that you discovered.



This is a video where you can see a demonstration



 I know the video is in French ,but you can see the product in operation.




Options and extra informacion 


  • Yes, have something like a computer inside. (But could not give details because patent)
  • You will be able to save all the images in the memory either the original ones or with all the modifications (still in process if it will be external or internal memory)
  • Ability to make video and photo
  • The battery would be interchangeable and rechargeable, would last about 4 hours.
  • Wi-Fi & Bluetooth connectivity
  • It will have USB ports (not confirmed if 2.0 or 3.0)
  • Insert GPS information into video and photos
  • Size is yet to be defined, but at this point, all descriptions are that it would look like the size of a mobile.
  • It is compatible with both sizes of binoculars.
  • It is compatible to make observations of the Moon and the Sun (the latter with protective filter)
  • We would need a computerized telescope capable of tracking objects automatically.
  • It is not necessary but it is recommended that it be a telescope with an equatorial mount.
  • Technically, it works with any size, but they advised minimum 144mm or 4 inches aperture




I leave the link to the website of the company




Let me know what you think about this new product