I used to own a used Celestron 8" telescope some 30 years ago. It took time to set up the tripod, wedge, and scope then align it. One major problem I had was that the views were less than spectacular. Very bright stuff (e.g. Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, star clusters, double stars) looked decent. Nebulae and galaxies just looked like puffs of smoke. Very quickly, I realized I needed to photograph stuff to have any resemblance to what I saw in magazines or on the internet. This, of course, needed a camera - an additional expense, and developing film :) . I also needed an atlas and had to hunt down what I was looking for (half the fun of astronomy). The Celestron 8SE is better with automatic tracking. Having said that, you still see images like in the old telescope. You still need a camera - now one that can replace the eyepiece but... it needs to connect to a computer/laptop with stacking and enhancing software - another expense. It becomes an expensive endeavor adding hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cost of the telescope. This Dwarf 3 makes all this MUCH easier. Using telescopes, especially away from your house, becomes a matter of weight and size. Sure, a 14" telescope is nice, but weighs alot for the scope and mount, needs room in your car, and may require 2 people to set up. This scope is very small and only weighs a couple pounds - even a child can do it. It naturally photographs stuff to your phone I believe. With stacking, it can image lots of stuff directly. If you want better images, you can use a PC and software, although recommended, is not necessary. It can also take terrestrial images and has other features. Just imagine what it would take to drag an 8" telescope somewhere on an airplane as opposed to a carry-on.
Absolutely! While my other scopes can handily beat this in a shoot-out the cost is easily 10x and requires a lot of careful adjustments and planning; and its not even fully automated yet (yikes!). This is 100x easier to use and get good results and I'm playing around this week with the automated planner and its pretty much set-up and it will go all night, and then the next night, etc... only clouds seem to stop it (which I have tonight with some rain).
I’m toggling in my mind between buying the SeeStar s50 or the Dwarf 3, from what I have seen, the images you get are rather similar and with the SeeStar , these seem to be straight out of the box, but there are features in the Dwarf 3 that aren’t available with the SeeStar. I am a total beginner and novice and want to get into astrophotography , but I find post photo processing daunting , frustrating and complicated, I have tried it on my ordinary photographs but I just can not get my head around it. I use an ipad now and this has a very basic but uncomplicated photo adjustment program built in. So what is my main deciding factor is, which is the most user friendly and needs the least complicated post photo processing to bring out the photographs to good acceptable standard … which in your view would this be?
SeeStarS50 is the most user friendly of the two and you can get great photos with an hour or two of exposure on many popular targets. I have a video coming out (maybe today, maybe the weekend) where I show more in-depth Astrophotography sessions of a few hours on various targets I’ve been doing over the summer. And the SeeStarS50 is available today. The dwarf 3 looks on paper to be very good, but its predecessor the Dwarf 2 is more a “beginner/intermediate” device whereas SeeStars50 is dead easy to use.
@@EmberSkyMedia Many thanks for your reply, I actually went with and ordered the D3 , from what I have heard from many sources the D3 will be as easy to use as the SeeStar, they have apparently made it a much more a user friendly ‘Click&Go’ unit with a lot more of the processing being done automatically in the D3 its self. The Search and find is going to be much easier for beginners and will be able to photograph much larger DSO’s whole ( which the SeeStar can’t do at the moment) automatically. I think they have looked at the SeeStar and thought “🤔hmm , we need to capture that novice market “… we will have to wait and see of course, especially me since I have one on order, but I’m crossing my fingers it delivers what has been said about it.
Took my dwarf2 back had it 6 months it won't turn on at all but when I put power to mains battery lights flash as charging,anyhow ended up doing a straight swap 4 the dwarf3 when it arrives in August
I received another $50 discount from Dwarf Labs since I had purchased a Dwarf2 from them. A good upgrade and will gift the Dwarf 2 to a family member so they can enjoy the night sky. Does anyone know what happened to Astro-Dwarf Adventures? Haven't seen him online in quite awhile.
No idea unfortunatly to the fate of Astro-Dwarf. Yes I'm going to gift my Dwarf II to a family memeber once I get some side-by-side comparisons done between the units,
Lots of words but no actual side by side real photograph comparisons. Or did I miss that as I kept fast forwarding through all the specs and talking? What l want to see is something like a photo of Orion nebula that's as spectacular as what I've taken with 2, and then be blown away with the Orion nebula taken with 3. Simple. If it doesn't do that, and it still can't do planets, then for me it's not worth upgrading.
Units have not been released yet, I’ll be getting a unit for review (hopefully) by the end of the month. At which time I’ll be doing side-by-side live streams of the units and more in-depth review. Orion Rises into the sky around late September (unless you like imaging at 4am in the morning then start of September) so I’ll be doing side by side of nebulas like Trifid or Lagoon Nebulas.
The logical next step is to have a motorised EQ mount that automatically polar aligns itself or at minimum the ability to EQ mount it and change from AZ to EQ in the software
Actually given it has 2 cameras on board it should be pretty able to indicate on the app for polar alignment, but yeah it would be cool if it self-aligned.
@@EmberSkyMedia (sorry for my bad english i'm italian) Thanks for the answer :) i think yes, but in this months i think people for the summer buy Seestar o another smart telescope. This moment, in my ingorance, is a perfect moment to buy smart telescope because summer is near and the evenings are perfect to see the stars with friends or better to make public nights with a lot of people (i personally organize two or three public nights in my town). I hope that not miss this perfect moment to ship and sell Dwarf III
@@Paolo14984 Yes, it would be ideal to have the Dwarf III in our hands now vs. later in the Summer. That is always the case but as you learn in this hobby, there is always something new coming up in the east :)
This improvement is great to see. I’m new to Astrophotography as a result of the cloudy solar eclipse experience (Niagara On The Lake, Ontario). I didn’t realize how expensive the hobby can be, as well as complicated. I was hoping to use one of my DSLRs and lenses, thinking I can do it for cheap, LOL. I’m currently in the process of building an OG Star Tracker (3D printed, open source software, about $230 Cdn spent). But, if an all in one, easy to travel with solution can be a gateway drug, and under $1K, it’s worth it. I’m hoping this update to the DWARF pushes for the next gen Seestar50, and get a bit more aperture and a slightly higher price, with the mosaic ability. Then I’ll get that.
Yeah, not sure ZWO’s next SeeStar is going to be, a lot of speculation of S70, S80 or S100. I expect 80mm but it could still be another year or two away as that big of optics will need heavier motor drive to operate.
There are apparently 2 built-in filters and it should come with moasic mode. I’m hoping moasic gets some integration into Dwarf II, at the very least a basic system so it will take the overlapping photos but I doubt it will stack them in camera for the Dwarf II due to limited computing power.
I'm going to get the Dwarf 3. I was one of the early purchasers of the 2 - paid for it back in November of '22 and got it in February of 23. Had a lot of fun with it, but I'm sold on how the 3 has so many improvements. It's an absolute no-brainer.
The wait will be the killer for many. Meanwhile I ordered a Seestar 2 days ago. It arrives today. I had a personal race to see what would come first Dwarf 3 or Mosaic Mode on the Seestar. I'll be able to image all Winter while training on Zwift. For those running a business always undersell, overperform.
As a Dwarf 2 owner I won't buy the 3. Firmware is updated for the 2 also, so sky atlas EQ mode, ufo tracking and what not are already present on Dwarf 2 also. I have the delux version with filters and I think they are fine. Also hate internal batteries. So I save my money for Dwarf 4 which obviously/hopefully will be a bigger improvement compared to Dwarf 2.
I’m guessing (I don’t know) but that should improve the weatherproofing not having ports for the batter and the miniSD card. Now the only “port” is the USB.
Jupiter/Saturn are “okay” but you really need a larger higher magnification telescope to get photos like you see people post with some frequency. For Planetary imaging I lean on my 8” EdgeHD.
Can you really get photographed pictures like that from just a small telescope?? I don’t believe it. Until I actually see it for myself. It’s pretty cheap price for something that takes such…well pictures like that.
It does a surprising good job for the price, I have a series of videos on the Dwarf 2 (as I'm waiting on the Dwarf 3 to arrive) and you can see all the various shots I've gotten with that one. I will have a video out soon as I got some preview images from DwarfLabs to talk about but best would be to wait a bit longer for when I have the unit in my hands as I'll be doing all sorts of videos.
Well when you consider how small a camera lens aperture is, even on say F3 , and some of the amazing astro photographs have been taken with some dslr’s , I imagine you probably can tbh.
Yes : I already have multiple better setups.. But if I was starting astrophotography, I would buy one, especially because of the EQmod (and the price of course)
@@EmberSkyMedia well they cracked some equations and then they can tell you where to move the scope in EQ mode to align it.. it's super convenient; where those automated scopes were lacking is really the ALT/AZ which means too many images of low quality / high noise. But in EQ mode, you can probably go 30, 60 or even 90s. That's more than enough is the camera is clean to get a great signal. As I said, if i was starting from scratch or trying to interest someone to astro without facing the wall of issues and difficulties, I would cleary recommend that too
Built in, given it’s only an 8MP camera that’s plenty of space and you just download the footage off the camera from time to time and transfer it to your mobile or computer for further processing.
@@EmberSkyMedia I own the Dwarf II but DwarfLab offered an incentive loyalty discount so I have bought the Dwarf III, delivery expected starting end of August in time for the cooler clear nights of autumn (UK weather however is unpredictable). I will have a Dwarf II deluxe with 3 batteries for sale in time for Xmas for some lucky person.
I'm very curious, but cautious about this company. They seem to have discontinued the dwarf 2 even though the 3rd version isn't out yet. If I buy the dwarf 3, how long will i be able to use it before the company cuts off support for it in favor of a new version?
I'll have an update video soon, but they have switched over to manufacturing the Dwarf 3, which is an improvement over the Dwarf 2, so my guess is there may be a few along the production route but they are no longer manufaturing the older model. They continue to update the Dwarf 2 firmware and software app, we just got an AI Enhance which I've been testing. So it sounds like they are commited to bring as much as possible to the Dwarf 2 as they can from the Dwarf 3 development.
I’m sure the Dwarf V will be amazing, alas it’s likely a few years off so this is the unit we have today to consider. And it’s likely the best bang for your buck right now.
@@johnsmith-rd9rr yeah the seestar S50 caused the Dwarf II re-sale price to drop. I don't think the 3 had a signficant effect except that more people are trying to sell this week and last, and maybe a blip in September when the units are in people's hands.
@@EmberSkyMedia Yep, the D3 promise’s the same ease of use and better images than the SeeStar, and a wider F.O.V, which is why I have just pre-ordered the D3 instead of the SeeStar tbh, so I reckon the D3 will snatch up a large chunk of the SeeStar s50 market, but it will probably force their hand into releasing another version of the SeeStar with all the bells&whistles of the D3, maybe early next year, but I didn’t want to wait that long really.
That is going to be an interesting test (or mod) is to have it setup 24/7 (or as close as possible to that) which basically needs to ensure the unit is water resistant enough. It won’t be waterproof as it should never be emerged in water. But rain… hopefully it will be able to handle some of that.
In all honesty, as a Dwarf 2 owner looking at the specs, its a AVOID. Why? It has MINIMAL improvements compared to the Dwarf 2 and pales compared to the Seestar, for the same money. It will be nice to see a real review from a non-paid Dwarf Labs content creator.
Just to be clear, Dwarf Lab didn't pay me to make this video (they didn't even know I made it until after), or any of my videos (they did send me a review unit to review but they didn't pay me to say anything in my videos). Improvements are not "MINIMAL" as larger optics + better sensor + EQ Mode 60 seconds should add up to significantly better images. And the ability to use the wide field camera as well is a nice bonus. Should Dwarf II users upgrade, that's a harder question to answer, depends on how much of an improvement it ends up being and if the SeeStar S50 is more your flavour. But honestly the Dwarf II is quite capable and if you own one be happy to use it and not worry about "should you upgrade" until we see some hands-on comparisons, then decide what direction is best for you.
Of course, model 3 is better, and if you buy it as your first device, then of course it’s better to choose model 3 than model 2. But if I already have Dwarf 2, then of course I won’t buy Dwarf 3.👎
Actually the 3’s upgrades are pretty significant it might be one of those rare times where upgrading is truly worth it. But the question becomes how much can you sell the Dwarf II for and right now I’m seeing $250 but by the time the Dwarf 3 is in your hands… resale of the 2 might be like $150 so it is an additional investment.
@Grigorych's comment pretty much sums it up. If you have the Dwarf 2, then wait for upcoming models. Otherwise, the Dwarf 3 is good, since it is more of incremental upgrade to the Dwarf 2. You have to factor in the loss you'll incur by selling the Dwarf 2 and see if that "extra cost" is worth the price of a new Dwarf 3. But hey.. if you have disposable income, please keep supporting DwarfLabs 🙂
@@ntt2k True, its not a completely new telescope that it totally different, it's a solid improvement though. I'm planning to do side-by-side comparisons and then for me at least, a family member has expressed interest in the Dwarf II.
No,its not a significant improvement. And why havent you mentioned anywhere that taking 60 sec subs with the 3 will make the final stacked image even worse than the 2? Field Rotation errors.....@@EmberSkyMedia
At a point, optical design and element size will limit performance. Especially if you want fine details on your targets. Otherwise I’d just use my wide f1.2 lens all the time.
Thanks, but no thanks! Dwarf buggy app needs to be fixed before lunching a new hardware. Have both Dwarf 2 and Seestar S50 and S50 works flawless and I wish Dwarf app would work as good. I wouldn't mind pay way more for smart telescope with at least 70mm aperture, 280-350mm FL, and 8MP and with optional software feature built-in to mount to proper use it in equatorial configuration. Maybe Dwarf 5 Pro or Seestar 70EQ Pro?
@@EmberSkyMedia It might be sooner that we expect. ZWO will certainly not wait for their competitors to win this race. They have re$ources and experience under their belt to come up with nice smart scope. Fingers crossed...cheers!
@@EmberSkyMedia Certainly, S80 with a 320-400mm FL would be a dream for a portable smart scope. I'm down for that! However, I don't even know if these specs could be achievable without compromising its portability and price accessibility to most hobbyists. Let's see what ZWO team are capable of.
@@gloomiehoodie I'd expect the price to be just over double the S50 and it to be "portable" in terms of one can carry set it up etc, but I'd expect its more a "rolling case" then the foam briefcase for size.
I already ordered one. I sure hope it arrives soon. Thanks for the video.
I’m testing one soon and will have some “how to” videos coming out soon.
@@EmberSkyMedia OK thanks if I ever get one.
I used to own a used Celestron 8" telescope some 30 years ago. It took time to set up the tripod, wedge, and scope then align it. One major problem I had was that the views were less than spectacular. Very bright stuff (e.g. Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, star clusters, double stars) looked decent. Nebulae and galaxies just looked like puffs of smoke. Very quickly, I realized I needed to photograph stuff to have any resemblance to what I saw in magazines or on the internet. This, of course, needed a camera - an additional expense, and developing film :) . I also needed an atlas and had to hunt down what I was looking for (half the fun of astronomy).
The Celestron 8SE is better with automatic tracking. Having said that, you still see images like in the old telescope. You still need a camera - now one that can replace the eyepiece but... it needs to connect to a computer/laptop with stacking and enhancing software - another expense. It becomes an expensive endeavor adding hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cost of the telescope.
This Dwarf 3 makes all this MUCH easier. Using telescopes, especially away from your house, becomes a matter of weight and size. Sure, a 14" telescope is nice, but weighs alot for the scope and mount, needs room in your car, and may require 2 people to set up. This scope is very small and only weighs a couple pounds - even a child can do it. It naturally photographs stuff to your phone I believe. With stacking, it can image lots of stuff directly. If you want better images, you can use a PC and software, although recommended, is not necessary. It can also take terrestrial images and has other features. Just imagine what it would take to drag an 8" telescope somewhere on an airplane as opposed to a carry-on.
Absolutely! While my other scopes can handily beat this in a shoot-out the cost is easily 10x and requires a lot of careful adjustments and planning; and its not even fully automated yet (yikes!). This is 100x easier to use and get good results and I'm playing around this week with the automated planner and its pretty much set-up and it will go all night, and then the next night, etc... only clouds seem to stop it (which I have tonight with some rain).
I already have a Dwarf 2 that I love. I bought the Dwarf 3 on confidence as soon as it was announced. I can't wait for it to arrive!!! 😁
Glad to hear it Jones! I think people will be quite pleased once it’s in their hands!
I’m toggling in my mind between buying the SeeStar s50 or the Dwarf 3, from what I have seen, the images you get are rather similar and with the SeeStar , these seem to be straight out of the box, but there are features in the Dwarf 3 that aren’t available with the SeeStar. I am a total beginner and novice and want to get into astrophotography , but I find post photo processing daunting , frustrating and complicated, I have tried it on my ordinary photographs but I just can not get my head around it. I use an ipad now and this has a very basic but uncomplicated photo adjustment program built in. So what is my main deciding factor is, which is the most user friendly and needs the least complicated post photo processing to bring out the photographs to good acceptable standard … which in your view would this be?
SeeStarS50 is the most user friendly of the two and you can get great photos with an hour or two of exposure on many popular targets. I have a video coming out (maybe today, maybe the weekend) where I show more in-depth Astrophotography sessions of a few hours on various targets I’ve been doing over the summer. And the SeeStarS50 is available today. The dwarf 3 looks on paper to be very good, but its predecessor the Dwarf 2 is more a “beginner/intermediate” device whereas SeeStars50 is dead easy to use.
@@EmberSkyMedia Many thanks for your reply, I actually went with and ordered the D3 , from what I have heard from many sources the D3 will be as easy to use as the SeeStar, they have apparently made it a much more a user friendly ‘Click&Go’ unit with a lot more of the processing being done automatically in the D3 its self. The Search and find is going to be much easier for beginners and will be able to photograph much larger DSO’s whole ( which the SeeStar can’t do at the moment) automatically. I think they have looked at the SeeStar and thought “🤔hmm , we need to capture that novice market “… we will have to wait and see of course, especially me since I have one on order, but I’m crossing my fingers it delivers what has been said about it.
Took my dwarf2 back had it 6 months it won't turn on at all but when I put power to mains battery lights flash as charging,anyhow ended up doing a straight swap 4 the dwarf3 when it arrives in August
Sorry to hear about your Dwarf 2, but yay on the Swap for a Dwarf 3!
I received another $50 discount from Dwarf Labs since I had purchased a Dwarf2 from them. A good upgrade and will gift the Dwarf 2 to a family member so they can enjoy the night sky. Does anyone know what happened to Astro-Dwarf Adventures? Haven't seen him online in quite awhile.
No idea unfortunatly to the fate of Astro-Dwarf.
Yes I'm going to gift my Dwarf II to a family memeber once I get some side-by-side comparisons done between the units,
Lots of words but no actual side by side real photograph comparisons. Or did I miss that as I kept fast forwarding through all the specs and talking? What l want to see is something like a photo of Orion nebula that's as spectacular as what I've taken with 2, and then be blown away with the Orion nebula taken with 3. Simple. If it doesn't do that, and it still can't do planets, then for me it's not worth upgrading.
Units have not been released yet, I’ll be getting a unit for review (hopefully) by the end of the month. At which time I’ll be doing side-by-side live streams of the units and more in-depth review.
Orion Rises into the sky around late September (unless you like imaging at 4am in the morning then start of September) so I’ll be doing side by side of nebulas like Trifid or Lagoon Nebulas.
The logical next step is to have a motorised EQ mount that automatically polar aligns itself or at minimum the ability to EQ mount it and change from AZ to EQ in the software
Actually given it has 2 cameras on board it should be pretty able to indicate on the app for polar alignment, but yeah it would be cool if it self-aligned.
@@EmberSkyMedia puzzled that nobody has done it yet
@@terrybrooks395 Would require a 3rd-axis motor to align the telescope's 2-axis to be in the right position.
Don’t worry. My mind is rambling right with you. I want the Dwarf lll. ❤
I've been testing it for a month (video soon) its a solid little performer!
me to
Big problem is that if i buy now the shipping start on september 2024 :( :( :(
Too much time, i don't undestand why.
It’s a pre-order, I’m assuming as they are trying to figure out how many to make in the first run.
@@EmberSkyMedia (sorry for my bad english i'm italian)
Thanks for the answer :)
i think yes, but in this months i think people for the summer buy Seestar o another smart telescope.
This moment, in my ingorance, is a perfect moment to buy smart telescope because summer is near and the evenings are perfect to see the stars with friends or better to make public nights with a lot of people (i personally organize two or three public nights in my town).
I hope that not miss this perfect moment to ship and sell Dwarf III
@@Paolo14984 Yes, it would be ideal to have the Dwarf III in our hands now vs. later in the Summer. That is always the case but as you learn in this hobby, there is always something new coming up in the east :)
This improvement is great to see. I’m new to Astrophotography as a result of the cloudy solar eclipse experience (Niagara On The Lake, Ontario). I didn’t realize how expensive the hobby can be, as well as complicated. I was hoping to use one of my DSLRs and lenses, thinking I can do it for cheap, LOL. I’m currently in the process of building an OG Star Tracker (3D printed, open source software, about $230 Cdn spent). But, if an all in one, easy to travel with solution can be a gateway drug, and under $1K, it’s worth it. I’m hoping this update to the DWARF pushes for the next gen Seestar50, and get a bit more aperture and a slightly higher price, with the mosaic ability. Then I’ll get that.
Yeah, not sure ZWO’s next SeeStar is going to be, a lot of speculation of S70, S80 or S100. I expect 80mm but it could still be another year or two away as that big of optics will need heavier motor drive to operate.
Are filters extra ? Does the 3 do mosaic ? If the 3 does mosaics than shouldn’t a firmware be available for 2?
There are apparently 2 built-in filters and it should come with moasic mode. I’m hoping moasic gets some integration into Dwarf II, at the very least a basic system so it will take the overlapping photos but I doubt it will stack them in camera for the Dwarf II due to limited computing power.
I'm going to get the Dwarf 3. I was one of the early purchasers of the 2 - paid for it back in November of '22 and got it in February of 23. Had a lot of fun with it, but I'm sold on how the 3 has so many improvements. It's an absolute no-brainer.
Agreed, solid improvement for the price.
How does it compare to the seestar s50 ?
I’ll hopefully be doing a side by side comparison at the end of month or early August once I have a review unit in my hands.
@@EmberSkyMedia look forward to it 👍
The wait will be the killer for many. Meanwhile I ordered a Seestar 2 days ago. It arrives today. I had a personal race to see what would come first Dwarf 3 or Mosaic Mode on the Seestar. I'll be able to image all Winter while training on Zwift.
For those running a business always undersell, overperform.
The Mosaic mode is a big step forward, that's the cool thing about tech, you always get new features!
consider the exchange rate before you buy
Good tip: This is true for anything purchased in a foreign currency.
As a Dwarf 2 owner I won't buy the 3. Firmware is updated for the 2 also, so sky atlas EQ mode, ufo tracking and what not are already present on Dwarf 2 also. I have the delux version with filters and I think they are fine. Also hate internal batteries. So I save my money for Dwarf 4 which obviously/hopefully will be a bigger improvement compared to Dwarf 2.
Skipping a generation is not a bad move, yes a Dwarf 4 will likely have even more improvements in a year or two.
While some of the upgrades are great the lack of expandable storage doesn't make sense to me. Why would one remove that?
I’m guessing (I don’t know) but that should improve the weatherproofing not having ports for the batter and the miniSD card. Now the only “port” is the USB.
What about Planets?
Jupiter/Saturn are “okay” but you really need a larger higher magnification telescope to get photos like you see people post with some frequency. For Planetary imaging I lean on my 8” EdgeHD.
Can you really get photographed pictures like that from just a small telescope?? I don’t believe it. Until I actually see it for myself. It’s pretty cheap price for something that takes such…well pictures like that.
It does a surprising good job for the price, I have a series of videos on the Dwarf 2 (as I'm waiting on the Dwarf 3 to arrive) and you can see all the various shots I've gotten with that one. I will have a video out soon as I got some preview images from DwarfLabs to talk about but best would be to wait a bit longer for when I have the unit in my hands as I'll be doing all sorts of videos.
Well when you consider how small a camera lens aperture is, even on say F3 , and some of the amazing astro photographs have been taken with some dslr’s , I imagine you probably can tbh.
Yes : I already have multiple better setups.. But if I was starting astrophotography, I would buy one, especially because of the EQmod (and the price of course)
I've been testing it, EQ mod works really well...
@@EmberSkyMedia well they cracked some equations and then they can tell you where to move the scope in EQ mode to align it.. it's super convenient; where those automated scopes were lacking is really the ALT/AZ which means too many images of low quality / high noise. But in EQ mode, you can probably go 30, 60 or even 90s. That's more than enough is the camera is clean to get a great signal. As I said, if i was starting from scratch or trying to interest someone to astro without facing the wall of issues and difficulties, I would cleary recommend that too
@@astrodysseus the 60second stuff I'm getting looks pretty good!
@@astrodysseus yeah I'm imaging with the Dwarf 3 in EQ mode all the time, working on a full review video soon to show off how good it is!
From the spec sheet it seems that the 128gb is built in and no external card slot or a microSD ?
Built in, given it’s only an 8MP camera that’s plenty of space and you just download the footage off the camera from time to time and transfer it to your mobile or computer for further processing.
@@EmberSkyMedia I own the Dwarf II but DwarfLab offered an incentive loyalty discount so I have bought the Dwarf III, delivery expected starting end of August in time for the cooler clear nights of autumn (UK weather however is unpredictable). I will have a Dwarf II deluxe with 3 batteries for sale in time for Xmas for some lucky person.
I'm very curious, but cautious about this company. They seem to have discontinued the dwarf 2 even though the 3rd version isn't out yet. If I buy the dwarf 3, how long will i be able to use it before the company cuts off support for it in favor of a new version?
I'll have an update video soon, but they have switched over to manufacturing the Dwarf 3, which is an improvement over the Dwarf 2, so my guess is there may be a few along the production route but they are no longer manufaturing the older model. They continue to update the Dwarf 2 firmware and software app, we just got an AI Enhance which I've been testing. So it sounds like they are commited to bring as much as possible to the Dwarf 2 as they can from the Dwarf 3 development.
@EmberSkyMedia oh ok! Thanks! That sounds good. I like when companies continue to support past products even when a new version is released.
@@revenger681 ditto!
Just wish they offered a red one. 😅
That would be a cool colour!
The s50 beats on aperture 50mm v35mm ,and also focal length 250 v 150.
True, but the Dwarf 3 is 4K camera vs. A vertical 1080p, so there is a trade off depending what you want to image.
@@EmberSkyMedia yeah not keen on the vertical aspect only of the s50 .
Personnaly I will never buy Dwarf III until Dwarf VII comes up.
Snow White
I’m sure the Dwarf V will be amazing, alas it’s likely a few years off so this is the unit we have today to consider. And it’s likely the best bang for your buck right now.
Bugger… There goes the value sale of my DWARF 2….LOL
Such is the life cycle of technology.
Yep, But the value of the Dwarf 2 plummented when Seestar came out.
@@johnsmith-rd9rr yeah the seestar S50 caused the Dwarf II re-sale price to drop. I don't think the 3 had a signficant effect except that more people are trying to sell this week and last, and maybe a blip in September when the units are in people's hands.
@@EmberSkyMedia Yep, the D3 promise’s the same ease of use and better images than the SeeStar, and a wider F.O.V, which is why I have just pre-ordered the D3 instead of the SeeStar tbh, so I reckon the D3 will snatch up a large chunk of the SeeStar s50 market, but it will probably force their hand into releasing another version of the SeeStar with all the bells&whistles of the D3, maybe early next year, but I didn’t want to wait that long really.
Not water proof so still not a buy for me. If I can leave it outside 24/7 I would buy one in a heartbeat.
That is going to be an interesting test (or mod) is to have it setup 24/7 (or as close as possible to that) which basically needs to ensure the unit is water resistant enough.
It won’t be waterproof as it should never be emerged in water. But rain… hopefully it will be able to handle some of that.
35 inches across. That’s massive man. 😀😀😀😀😀
Pretty sure that is 35cm not inches, its only a tad bigger than the Dwarf II
there's one: Seestar
Depends on your needs, although the Dwarf 3 is a soild all rounder package. UI could use some streamlining.
Of course there is a reason. It's called the Zwo Seestar
Depends on what you want, each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
In all honesty, as a Dwarf 2 owner looking at the specs, its a AVOID. Why? It has MINIMAL improvements compared to the Dwarf 2 and pales compared to the Seestar, for the same money. It will be nice to see a real review from a non-paid Dwarf Labs content creator.
Just to be clear, Dwarf Lab didn't pay me to make this video (they didn't even know I made it until after), or any of my videos (they did send me a review unit to review but they didn't pay me to say anything in my videos).
Improvements are not "MINIMAL" as larger optics + better sensor + EQ Mode 60 seconds should add up to significantly better images. And the ability to use the wide field camera as well is a nice bonus.
Should Dwarf II users upgrade, that's a harder question to answer, depends on how much of an improvement it ends up being and if the SeeStar S50 is more your flavour. But honestly the Dwarf II is quite capable and if you own one be happy to use it and not worry about "should you upgrade" until we see some hands-on comparisons, then decide what direction is best for you.
Of course, model 3 is better, and if you buy it as your first device, then of course it’s better to choose model 3 than model 2. But if I already have Dwarf 2, then of course I won’t buy Dwarf 3.👎
Actually the 3’s upgrades are pretty significant it might be one of those rare times where upgrading is truly worth it. But the question becomes how much can you sell the Dwarf II for and right now I’m seeing $250 but by the time the Dwarf 3 is in your hands… resale of the 2 might be like $150 so it is an additional investment.
@Grigorych's comment pretty much sums it up. If you have the Dwarf 2, then wait for upcoming models. Otherwise, the Dwarf 3 is good, since it is more of incremental upgrade to the Dwarf 2. You have to factor in the loss you'll incur by selling the Dwarf 2 and see if that "extra cost" is worth the price of a new Dwarf 3. But hey.. if you have disposable income, please keep supporting DwarfLabs 🙂
@@ntt2k True, its not a completely new telescope that it totally different, it's a solid improvement though. I'm planning to do side-by-side comparisons and then for me at least, a family member has expressed interest in the Dwarf II.
its not a signifcant improvement for someone who isnt paid by Gwarf labs.@@EmberSkyMedia
No,its not a significant improvement. And why havent you mentioned anywhere that taking 60 sec subs with the 3 will make the final stacked image even worse than the 2? Field Rotation errors.....@@EmberSkyMedia
samsung make better mobile phones
At a point, optical design and element size will limit performance. Especially if you want fine details on your targets. Otherwise I’d just use my wide f1.2 lens all the time.
Thanks, but no thanks!
Dwarf buggy app needs to be fixed before lunching a new hardware. Have both Dwarf 2 and Seestar S50 and S50 works flawless and I wish Dwarf app would work as good.
I wouldn't mind pay way more for smart telescope with at least 70mm aperture, 280-350mm FL, and 8MP and with optional software feature built-in to mount to proper use it in equatorial configuration. Maybe Dwarf 5 Pro or Seestar 70EQ Pro?
Eventually I think those bigger scopes are going to come, but likely not for another few years unless someone got something hidden under their hat.
@@EmberSkyMedia It might be sooner that we expect. ZWO will certainly not wait for their competitors to win this race. They have re$ources and experience under their belt to come up with nice smart scope. Fingers crossed...cheers!
@@gloomiehoodie I wouldn't mined a SeeStar S80, that way I could directly 1:1 compare it to my WO80mm telescope. Which would be fun.
@@EmberSkyMedia Certainly, S80 with a 320-400mm FL would be a dream for a portable smart scope. I'm down for that!
However, I don't even know if these specs could be achievable without compromising its portability and price accessibility to most hobbyists.
Let's see what ZWO team are capable of.
@@gloomiehoodie I'd expect the price to be just over double the S50 and it to be "portable" in terms of one can carry set it up etc, but I'd expect its more a "rolling case" then the foam briefcase for size.