One of the more annoying things about astronomy is the amount of learning involved before taking part. It’s not just optical systems but cameras and atmospheric conditions to contend with too. Beaverlab’s Finder TW2, a fully crowdfunded (but not yet properly on-sale) telescope hopes to sidestep all of that by doing all the thinking for its users.
It’ll do this mostly by exploiting the buzziest of 2024’s buzzwords — artificial intelligence. Oh, all right, and some fairly advanced hardware designed to take one of the most common (and versatile) telescope designs and make it a) more versatile and b) vastly simpler to use.
Finding the Finder TW2
The Finder TW2 is, basically, an ST80 telescope. It is a scope with an 82mm objective lens and a focal length of 500mm (your conventional ST80 features a 400mm focal length) for a focal ratio of f/6. Instead of a diagonal/eyepiece interface, which you’d expect from a less advanced telescope, it includes a device called a DS1 image collector.
The DS1 image collector is the prime part of the Finder TW2, slotting in at the rear of the telescope and replacing the eyepiece(s) you might otherwise use. It’s a purpose-built astrophotography camera capable of 48MP images thanks to its 1/1.8″ Starlight CMOS sensor. A built-in 5in screen, not dissimilar to those found on modern cameras, lets viewers see the results — or the skies — in fantastic detail.
Since the Finder TW2 doesn’t rely on the human eye, it’s able to apply “color correction, color difference, WDR, MCTF, noise reduction, anti-shake technology and dehazing” to your views. This corrects for the inherent design faults of a short-tube telescope while allowing for a compact, lightweight scope that’s easy to set up and use.
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The best part? Beaverlab’s DS1 camera isn’t just for the Finder TW2. It’s designed to fit most 1.25in telescope interfaces, meaning it can be used with scopes of larger aperture or more complicated designs with similar (or better) results.
If you want one, you can pick up the complete Finder TW2/DS1 combo, along with tripod, mount, and solar filter for about R9,000, though a limited number are available for just R5,900. Standard price for the DS1 image collector alone is R7,850, which doesn’t leave us especially hopeful about the telescope optics’ quality. Beaverlabs crowdfunding campaign has another 36 days to run and has already raised more than R4 million of its original R357,000 target. Or you could just buy a regular telescope.