Unistellar eVscopes: Smart, Portable, And Easy-To-Use Telescopes For Exploration, Interactive Learning, and Citizen Astronomy

摘要

Unistellar has created the Enhanced Vision Telescope (eVscope), a compact telescope that amplifies light so users can finally see hundreds of nebulae and galaxies directly through its eyepiece. It can also pinpoint and identify objects in the sky, making amateur astronomy fun and more accessible to the public. Thanks to its sensitivity and accuracy, the eVscope is a powerful tool able to generate data that can be used by scientists to search for transient events like supernovae, near-Earth asteroids, and comets. This constellation of small, & smart telescopes could also enhance and supplement data generated by the small number of large telescopes operating today. Unistellar initiated a partnership with the SETI Institute to identify and develop scientific applications for a network of eVscopes. We summarize below the technology behind the eVscope and its real-time data processing (Enhanced Vision, Automatic Field Detection), then show several applications accessible to future users, including asteroid occultations and observations of near-Earth asteroids. The Unistellar network has the potential to make citizen astronomy a popular reality by offering all users (new or experienced) a tool to explore the night sky with a powerful and reliable instrument while they contribute to scientific investigations.