Smart telescopes are app-controlled devices that replace eyepieces with image sensors and use plate-solving to find night sky targets automatically. They’re incredibly easy to set up and are a great option for first-time stargazers.
The fall and winter night sky in the Northern Hemisphere is a playground for astrophotography, with Orion’s glowing nebulas, the glittering Pleiades and the Andromeda Galaxy riding high. When the sky is clear, it can have atmospheric clarity like at no other time of year, but how can you make the most of long winter nights if you live in an urban area where light pollution drowns out the stars?
Using a smart telescope to automatically slew to your chosen subject, the device will then live-stack hundreds of short exposures in real-time, boosting faint details within deep-sky targets while algorithmically suppressing light pollution. The results are rich, colorful images that would have seemed impossible a decade ago.
We’re now entering the third or fourth wave of smart telescopes, with the likes of Unistellar, Vaonis, Dwarflab, Seestar and Celestron pairing fast optics with increasingly capable image sensors, onboard processing and intuitive apps. They frame objects precisely for each system’s field of view, track them and build a signal minute by minute.
Whether you want instant results or are prepared to invest the time to chase subtler structure in nebulae and galaxies, a smart telescope is a fine investment. We’ve matched 10 standout smart telescopes with 10 showpiece celestial sights in the Northern Hemisphere’s fall and winter nights, chosen to highlight each smart telescope’s strengths.
