DWARFLAB Dwarf Draco Smart-Telescope 90 mm – SHO Edition

• Please note: Due to extremely high demand, the delivery time is currently approximately 4–6 months from the date of order.

  Please place your order well in advance—payment is not due until the item is available.

  And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE: Do not order from every retailer; order only from one of your choice, because most of you will not follow through with your orders, which only creates extra work. And anyone who gets removed from the list will end up at the very bottom again—I promise.

  
  
• Fully automatic smart telescope with 90 mm aperture – around 3 times more light than 50 mm smart telescopes
• Fast folded optics 90/340 mm (f/3.8) – colour-corrected, sharp stars right to the edge
• Two cameras at once: telephoto (1/1.3" 50 MP sensor, 12 MP output) and ultra-wide-angle (85.7° field of view)
• Single exposures of up to 300 seconds thanks to an integrated guide camera and rotating sensor – no polar alignment
• TEC sensor cooling (approx. 5 °C below ambient) and automatic dew prevention using waste heat
• IP55 rating – protected against dust and water jets
• SHO Edition with two dual narrowband filters: Hα + O III and S II + O III (13 nm each) – nebulae in the Hubble palette at the touch of a button
• Built-in astro and dark filters, plus a magnetic clip-on ND solar filter
• Remote control via app, scheduled imaging, mosaics and stacking across several nights
• 5.5 kg, battery for approx. 5 hours, aluminium table tripod and protective case included

DWARFLAB Draco – a portable observatory

With the Draco, DWARFLAB introduces the next class of smart telescope: 90 mm aperture, a fast focal ratio of f/3.8 and single exposures of up to 300 seconds – figures previously reserved for a traditional astrophotography setup with mount, camera and laptop. The Draco packs all of this into one compact housing, controlled from your smartphone or tablet.

Set it up and tap a target in the app – the Draco handles focusing, alignment, tracking, calibration and stacking of the individual frames on its own. You watch on the screen as your nebula or galaxy gains detail frame by frame.

For more information, sample images and a comparison of the two editions, see our Draco info page.

90 mm aperture – more light, more detail

Aperture determines how much light a telescope collects and how finely it resolves. At 90 mm, the Draco gathers around 165 times more light than the dark-adapted eye and over 3 times as much as a smart telescope with a 50 mm aperture. Faint structures in nebulae and galaxies therefore show up faster and with less noise.

Just as important is resolving power: the larger the aperture, the finer the detail a telescope can separate. At 90 mm, the Draco resolves almost twice as finely as a 50 mm smart telescope and three times as finely as a 30 mm one. Extended objects such as the Moon, the Sun, galaxies, nebulae and star clusters therefore show considerably finer detail, such as lunar craters or dust lanes in galaxies. Close double stars are split more cleanly.

The folded optics fit a 340 mm focal length into a housing just 386 mm tall. At f/3.8 they are very fast: a faint nebula needs considerably less total exposure time than with a typical f/5.6 system.

Two cameras, one sky

The telephoto camera with its 1/1.3" sensor (50 MP) delivers the detailed images. For deep-sky objects it combines every 4 pixels into one (2×2 binning, 2.4 µm, 12 MP), which noticeably improves the signal-to-noise ratio. For the Sun, Moon and planets it uses the full resolution of the 1.2 µm pixels.

At the same time, the wide-angle camera with an 85.7° field of view captures the surroundings – ideal for the Milky Way, star trails and landscapes. In one night you get both a detailed and a wide view of the same sky.

300-second exposures – without polar alignment

Smart telescopes normally operate in alt-azimuth mode (level), which causes field rotation: the longer the exposure, the more the stars rotate around the centre of the image. The Draco tackles this in three ways:

• Integrated guide camera: monitors the stars and corrects tracking errors in real time
• Rotating sensor: the camera sensor physically rotates with the sky and compensates for field rotation
• Precision drive with ultra-fine step control for smooth, low-backlash movement

For objects very close to the zenith, where field rotation is particularly fast, the Draco can also be operated in equatorial mode – the app guides you through the setup step by step.

Well-thought-out technology

• TEC sensor cooling: equipped with a TEC thermoelectric cooler and fan, the system features automatic TEC thermal control. It lowers the sensor temperature by approx. 5 °C below ambient, fundamentally reducing thermal noise in long exposures and delivering clean imaging data.
• Dew prevention using waste heat: heat from the electronics keeps the lens free of dew – all night long
• Operating range from -20 °C to +45 °C, housing rated IP55 against dust and water jets
• Freely rotatable framing: portrait, landscape or any angle you like – the sensor rotates accordingly
• Automatic calibration: flats and bias frames are stored, dark frames are taken and applied automatically during the session

A filter for every target

The SHO Edition is made for nebula photographers. Instead of the built-in solar filter, it has a second dual narrowband filter. The following filters are switched automatically via the app:

• Astro filter (430–690 nm) for galaxies, star clusters and broadband objects
• Hα + O III dual narrowband filter with 13 nm bandwidth each – for emission nebulae, even under light-polluted urban skies
• Dark shutter for automatic noise correction
• S II + O III dual narrowband filter (S II 671.6 nm, O III 500.7 nm, 13 nm bandwidth each) – adds the light of ionised sulphur to the Hα + O III filter

The Hubble palette at the touch of a button

Many famous nebula images from the Hubble Space Telescope show the gases sulphur (S), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) in separate colours – the so-called SHO or Hubble palette. This reveals structures that would be lost in the red of hydrogen in a natural-colour image. The SHO Edition captures with both dual narrowband filters in turn and combines the colour image automatically – with a single tap in the app, without a filter wheel, mono camera or time-consuming processing.

Because narrowband filters only let through the light of these gases, such images work surprisingly well even under light-polluted urban skies and in moonlight.

Tip: if you mainly photograph galaxies and star clusters and would rather have the solar filter swing in automatically, the Draco Standard Edition is the right choice.

App, remote control & automation

The Draco is controlled with the free DWARFLAB app (iOS & Android) via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or NFC. The app shows in real time which objects are well placed, helps you find your way with an AR sky finder and selects all settings automatically in Auto mode. In Pro mode you have full control over exposure (1/10,000 s to 300 s), gain and filters.

• Remote control (PhotonLink): operate the Draco from anywhere, e.g. when set up at a dark site
• Wired network: via USB Ethernet for permanent installations
• Schedule: set the target, time and settings – the Draco starts on its own
• Mosaic: up to approx. 3 times larger field of view by automatic stitching
• Stacking across several nights and discarding poor frames afterwards
• In-app editing: reduce or remove stars, noise reduction, Hubble palette and much more
• Export as JPG, PNG, TIFF and FITS – for further processing in your usual software

Sun and Moon

In Solar System mode, the Draco centres, focuses and tracks the Sun and Moon at the touch of a button. On the SHO Edition, the supplied magnetic ND solar filter is attached to the front of the optics for this.

!!! IMPORTANT: ALWAYS attach the ND solar filter BEFORE the Draco is pointed at the Sun, and only remove it once the telescope has been turned away from the Sun. Without the filter, the concentrated sunlight can destroy the sensor and optics instantly! Check the filter for damage before every use.

!!! SAFETY WARNING: The solar filter is intended exclusively for photographic imaging with the Draco. Never look at the Sun without a tested solar filter – neither with the naked eye nor through any optical instrument. For your own observing, please use certified eclipse glasses or Baader AstroSolar solar filter film. The manufacturer also recommends avoiding solar imaging around midday in high summer; morning or late afternoon is better.

Good to know

• The Draco is a purely photographic telescope – you view the image on a smartphone, tablet or TV; there is no eyepiece to look through.
• The telephoto field of view is approx. 1.65° × 1.24° (about 3 full Moon diameters). Very large objects such as the Andromeda Galaxy can be captured using the mosaic function.
• The Draco is only of limited use for planets: at 340 mm focal length, Jupiter and Saturn appear small. For planetary detail, a traditional telescope with a long focal length is the better choice.
• The Draco largely handles image processing itself. This is convenient, but you cannot follow every step in detail. If you want to know exactly what happens to your image, save the raw data (FITS/TIFF) as well and process it yourself.
• At 5.5 kg the Draco is easy to carry, but noticeably heavier than the small 50 mm smart telescopes.
• The battery lasts approx. 5 hours. For whole nights we recommend a power bank or mains adapter via USB-C.
• Galaxies and broadband objects benefit greatly from a dark site; for emission nebulae under urban skies the two narrowband filters help.
• For solar imaging, the ND filter must be attached by hand – unattended remote solar imaging is therefore only possible with the filter fitted beforehand.

Technical data

Scope of delivery

• DWARFLAB Draco Smart Telescope (SHO Edition)
• Magnetic ND solar filter
• Aluminium table tripod
• USB-C data cable
• Cleaning cloth
• Protective carrying case