French smart telescope maker Unistellar has launched two new smart telescopes at CES 2024.
The Unistellar Odyssey ($2,499/£2,199) and Odyssey Pro ($3,999/£3,499) join the eQuinox 2 and eVscope 2 in the company's four-strong lineup of smart telescopes. Both can be aligned and controlled remotely using a newly developed smartphone app.
While Unistellar's two legacy smart telescopes – the eVscope 2 and eQuinox 2 – deal primarily in dim and distant deep sky objects such as galaxies, nebula, and star clusters, the Odyssey and Odyssey Pro can also image the solar system. Unistellar also reports that it has surpassed 10,000 sales of its smart telescopes.
Both the new smart telescopes are 3.35-inch/85mm reflector telescopes with a focal length of 320mm. Smaller and more affordable than their 4.5-inch/114mm reflector/450 focal length forebears, the two new smart telescopes use Unistellar's proprietary Multi-Depth Technology, which allows the Odyssey and Odyssey Pro to switch instantly from observing deep-sky objects to planets and the moon. They each have a field of view of 34 x 45 arcminutes and a battery life of five hours.
While the Odyssey doesn't have an eyepiece, the Odyssey Pro adds one that, like the eVscope 2, has a Nikon-made eyepiece. The Odyssey Pro also increases the resolution of its astrophotography from the Odyssey's 3.4 megapixels to 4.1 megapixels.
"They represent the ultimate technological innovation in telescopes," said Laurent Marfisi, co-founder and CEO of Unistellar, to Digital Camera World in a press briefing. "They provide people who are not familiar with astronomy or with space exactly the same kind of meaningful and emotional experience as people who already have knowledge about astronomy."
He added that the Odyssey and Odyssey Pro are designed to help people curious about the night sky but have no idea where to start. "People don't know what's out there in space, so we're bridging that gap with an app that is easier to use and hardware that is super-powerful but even more user-friendly than before," said Marfisi.
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The Odyssey and Odyssey Pro are available now from the Unistellar website. In April, Unistellar will also sell the Odyssey Pro Red Edition (£3,999). Both the eVscope 2 and eQuinox 2 will continue to be sold.
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