Unistellar’s new Odyssey Pro telescope offers access to deep-sky astrophotography in a small portable package.
Access to the night sky has never been simpler. The last half decade has seen a revolution in backyard astronomy, as ‘smartscopes’—telescopes controlled by smartphone applications—have come to the fore. These offer an easy entry into basic deep sky astrophotography even from bright urban skies, albeit at a higher price point versus traditional telescopes on the market. We’ve reviewed units from Vaonis and Unistellar before, as well as wrote commentary on the rise of the whole smartscope movement. Now, Unistellar has a new entry on the market in 2024: the Odyssey Pro.
The Odyssey Pro is lightweight, at 14.3-pounds (6.5 kilograms) assembled plus carbon fiber tripod. The telescope sets up quickly, with the tube and base securing to the top ring of the tripod.
Specifications for the Odyssey Pro
The telescope at the heart of the system is an 85mm aperture reflector with an f/3.9 320mm focal length. The image sensor (in place of where the secondary mirror would be on a traditional telescope) is a 4.2 megapixel camera. The turret on the side of the tube houses an electronic eyepiece incorporating Nikon’s Eyepiece Technology, providing an enhanced view. The addition of the eyepiece turret is the key difference between the Odyssey and Odyssey Pro.
Smartscopes find and aim at targets using a method known as ‘plate-solving’ in tandem with satellite GPS. This involves looking at segments of the sky, and comparing the star pattern with a known database. You can see this in action as the scope slews from one part of the sky to the next on startup. Unlike, Vaonis’s Stellina, Unistellar’s telescopes give you a live view during the slewing process, and allow users to manually slew around the sky in a virtual joy stick mode, a nice, hands-on touch.
The new app interface for Unistellar is updated as well… I was surprised to actually find all of my old eVscope images in the cloud memory, from years back. The unit is USB-C charged, and offers about five hours of use in the field. The Odyssey Pro has 64Gb (gigabytes) of internal storage memory.
The company offers a free backpack with each purchase. The Odyssey Pro runs for $3,999 USD, and the company frequently offers discount sales.
Odyssey Pro Versus the eVScope
The Odyssey Pro is smaller (85mm aperture, versus 112mm) than the eVscope, but similar in operation. The Odyssey features auto focus technology: no more Bahtinov mask manual focusing like with the eVscope. We also got to try out the smart solar filter for the unit. The filter clicks magnetically in place of the front of the telescope. I’d keep a close eye on the unit when using it this way during public observing, as curious hands could easily snag or pull the filter off during observation. While there’s no danger of blinding a viewer, a few seconds of unfiltered Sun could easily damage the telescope. The unit easily found and slewed to the Sun, then focused and color corrected the image.
What we like- Like the Unistellar eVScope, the Odyssey Pro just works as advertised: set it down, power it up, and you’re slewing to targets within minutes.
What we don’t like-The newer app seems a bit ‘balky,’ and I needed a cold boot the telescope during a few sessions to get things up and running again… also, it seems very sensitive to any vibration during enhanced imaging mode, even on solid concrete.
The telescope will wifi bond with the app in the field without a dedicated internet connection. This is a must for using it at a remote spot.
But the real magic happens when you engage the enhanced vision mode. This initiates a process where the scope starts to stare at a target, stacking and cleaning up the image. The longer it runs, the brighter and sharper the image gets. Unistellar’s new method is known as ‘Vivid Vision’ and compares and refines images versus the user database to validate what the telescope is seeing. Color correction for stars and validation also uses Gaia’s latest DR3 catalog.
First Night Out
Our first night out with the Odyssey Pro saw us showing off about a dozen deep sky objects to a small group under the bright lights of downtown Bristol, Tennessee. Ironically, while you can view the Moon and planets with the Odyssey Pro, its relatively wide (33.6 x 45’, a little larger than a Full Moon) field of view really shines when viewing deep-sky nebulae and clusters.
The Bottom Line
Are smartscopes worth the price? I’d say the Odyssey Pro (or any smartscope) has three key advantages:
-Finding objects: the whole plate-solving slewing method really puts me out of a job… and that’s probably a good thing. Rather than spending time star-hopping and studying star charts to find an object, the Odyssey Pro simply goes there and centers the target in the field.
-Imaging from urban sites: The Odyssey Pro puts fainter objects in reach of urban viewers.
-Use for public outreach: At a star party, folks can gather around and watch as the view emerges. No more queuing up to the eyepiece, refocusing for every user, or explaining how to look through a telescope. I can spend more time talking about space and what we’re seeing, rather than fussing with gear.
Also, Unistellar is alone in building an amazing science community around its worldwide network of smartscopes. Users are now tracking asteroids, following comets and even generating exoplanet light curves and more, all in real campaigns to contribute to science, all from their own backyards.
Be sure to give the Odyssey Pro a try, as a great introduction to smartscope astronomy.
65 kilograms is lightweight?!
Nevermind, 14.3-pounds = 6.5kg – phew!
Hi James,
Yup. A decimal point got lost in space there. Fix’d!
I’m sure I’d enjoying using that scope. However, there’s effectively no chance I’ll pay $4,000 for that. I find the SeeStar S50 interesting at $500 – any chance you could do a review on that?
Even if I had the money to burn I’ve not seen a good answer to a few things.
The biggest is a matter of how to clean the thing. If the tube is open the mirror is going to get dirty – and you’ll end up with dust on the sensor as well. So how do we clean the thing – and if we have to remove the mirror or sensor to do the cleaning, how hard is it to get the danged thing aligned?
Also, at F/3.9 we are talking pretty fast optics which are inherently prone to significant aberration. Today a 4.2 mega-pixel sensor is really quite small – is that so that it picks up only the central portion of the image circle so that the periphery (which is more prone to aberration) simply isn’t seen?
At just 4.2 MP does the image show up on a modern smartphone as something that fills the screen without looking grainy/pixelated? I use a Samsung Fold 6 which is sort of a phablet and it would be disappointing if the image didn’t beautifully fill the screen.
Also, does the WiFi broadcast to only one device? What I’d really like is to have a smart telescope which would allow control by only my smartphone and broadcast (one way transmission) to anyone in the area. Heck, if I could get a great image which fills the screen of any smartphone in the area? I just might start selling stuff to get that. . .
Right now I favor the idea of getting the Stellina but the price is just as bad. Nice thing is that it has slower optics and with an ED-Doublet the optics should be good enough for me – and a sensor with more pixels to fill the screen a bit better when I choose to move the image around. As a refractor the cleaning should be straightforward.
As someone who found the eyepiece more satisfying but with an eye problem which makes an eyepiece frustrating – I want a smart telescope but haven’t yet found one which matches my budget and desires.
Hi Alkaid,
Thanks, let me reach out to the company and get some deeper answers back to you. I do know that you can multilink Unistellar and Stellina products to multiple devices… I’ve never noticed any aberration on the edges, and I do know that the unit knows to color correct things as needed (You see this in action observing the Sun/Moon/planets). You also get the option to access RAW/FITS files, handy for post-processing. I’ve used Stellina, but preferred the eVscope a little better, as you get a live view immediately and while it’s slewing; Stellina only gives you an image once it starts processing. I haven’t tried the SeeStar S50, will reach out to them.
Thanks,
Dave Dickinson
Much appreciated!
Hi Alkaid,
Here’s a few answers back from Unistellar:
“Dust is generally not a significant problem for telescopes unless there’s excessive accumulation. In most cases, applying dry air occasionally is sufficient to remove the bulk of the dust. The sensor is unlikely to collect substantial dust due to its positioning, which doesn’t directly expose it to environmental elements.”
“The 4.9-megapixel sensor (I came up with 4.2 in research, but this is from the company) actually offers high resolution for astrophotography, where large pixels are necessary to detect very weak signals. The sensor has been intentionally cropped to capture only the area of the optics with minimal aberration. While 4.9 megapixels may seem small compared to modern digital cameras, it’s important to understand that the physics of night sky photography requires larger pixels to detect meaningful signals. This results in fewer pixels per unit area, which is ideal for capturing faint celestial objects.”
David:
Technically I can’t do this as a directly reply so it starts a new comment sequence.
Your help on this is much appreciated.
I do agree with them that for astrophotography, given a specific tech level, relatively large pixels do have a SNR advantage. That is kind of baked into the Physics.
The problem is that while the somewhat larger pixels convey a number of advantages, the relatively small pixel count could result in an un-satisfying image when displayed on a lot of the devices now used by so many (including phablets and tablets).
Like every single astronomical system I think has ever been produced, compromises were made. That’s not a criticism because it is universal. The question each of us will have to answer is what compromises you find most acceptable.
I’m having difficulty with their dust argument. I’ve had a fair number of optical devices (including mirrors up to 20″) and live in an area where a harvest results in months of a very dusty environment. From my perspective you have to clean. A puff of air isn’t likely to satisfy me and a puff of air to the mirror is going to send dust to the sensor.
I don’t doubt that this would be a super instrument for some people and their purposes. Fast optics mean a compact instrument with relatively low weight and bulk. If the viewing device doesn’t have as many pixels as do, mine the images could be very satisfying. The small and fast optics should give a wide field of view which is a bit hampered by the small sensor used to escape the bulk of the aberration. Pretty good compromise for many. It also helps that the company has now been around for a while so one could expect to be able to get replacement batteries and support for some time to come.
It won’t be my instrument, but from what you have presented it should be very worthy for many.
I suspect I’d really like the size of the SeeStar along with its apochromatic refractor optics – but the number of pixels is, I think, far smaller than that of the Unistellar Odyssey Pro and I think would be a bit disappointing when displayed on my devices.
Good points… I’d say the images these types of units produce are good, but maybe not astrophotographer of the year type pictures, at least by modern standards. You’ll note that the stars in the images are bit ‘blown out’ and not pinpoint… but that’s a common issue going all the way back to film. I will say that as I get older, my back appreciates an automatic aiming system, as opposed to contorting at trying to aim at something near the zenith.