I just purchased a Dwarf 2 and have been experimenting with it for the last two nights. These are my initial thoughts and comparison to the Unistellar eQuinox 2.
The Dwarf 2 has a much steeper learning curve than the eQuinox 2. With the eQuinox, the set up is simple ((16) How to set up your eQuinox 2 - YouTube), but the most important thing that you do is check the collimation and adjust if necessary ((16) How to collimate your eVscope ? - YouTube). The second most important thing that you do is adjusting the focus ((16) How to focus with the Bahtinov Mask ? - YouTube). Collimation is moderately difficult but doable task while focusing is simple. Even a novice can be up and running in an hour or two.
The Dwarf 2 is not that simple to use. There are some good videos on setting it up but the one I liked the most was by SarahMaths Astro ((16) DWARF II Smart Telescope - Full Tutorial + Review - YouTube). The Dwarf 2 is more far more complex to use than the eQuinox. It begins with understanding the app and its various modes. Using the astro mode is not stright forward. First you have to calibrate the camera. You have to do this as well with the eQuinox but the dark frame calibration in Dwarf 2 take a lot longer than the eQuinox equivalent. The next step involves the device orienting itself once you set it up for sky watching. In Dwarf 2 this function is in the feature menu under calibration. Using calibration requires that you accurately adjust the Dwarf 2 and I have found that about 50% of the time it will give you an error. Thankfully the SarahMaths Astro video explains that the error is due to the position of trees and buildings around the Dwarf 2 so you need to position the lens at an angle greater than 45 degrees (which is the angle that the tutorial on Dwarflab stipulates) so it can view the sky. If you only had access to the Dwarf 2 tutorial, you would be stuck at this point. In contrast, the eQuinox does orientation on its own. You do nothing except press the orientation icon on your app. Once the Dwarf 2 is oriented, then you can choose from a catalog of objects in the Dwarf 2 menu to view. The catalog is very sparce compared to the eQuinox catalog. I found myself referring to the sky tonight app in order to obtain the DEC and Azm coordinates for objects that I wanted to observe (but were not in the Dwarf 2 catalog) and I had to use the Manual input function in Dwarf 2. As complex as this might seem, setting up the focus and photo setting is even worse. This is where eQuinox has Dwarf 2 beat hands down since all of these functions are automatic in eQuinox. I forgot to mention that the Dwarf 2 has to be in focus before you can orient it. You absolutely must make sure Dwarf 2 is focused for the night sky before you can use the orientation function. If not, Dwarf 2 will give you an error. And, if you you don't know the ins and outs of the unit you will be thoroughly confused. The SaraMaths video recommends pointing at a bright object in the sky and use auto focus (which seemed to work well for her). That procedure did not work for me at all. I had to point the camera at a distant street lamp, before doing the orientation procedure. Since autofocus failed, I manually focused the Dwarf 2 on the lamp. I no longer trust the autofocus function so I only manually focus. I tried different things to get autofocus to work. For example, I found a tutorial on youtube which stated that you should point to a medium bright star in order for auto focus to work properly. I tried that and it still did not work. I will also warn you that after I focused it using a street lamp, I pointed the camera to the sky and hit autofocus to see if the focus would be better. Auto focus messed up my view so badly that I could not even see the star anymore. I spent a great deal of time trying to undo the harm that autofocus caused. After that experience, I only manually fine tune the focus to adjust the stars to a pinpoint.
I wish that was the end of the problems. The next step was to adjust camera setting such as exposure time, brightness, contrast, etc. The SaraMaths video does a great job in explaining how to do this. But even her excellent video which simplified the process does not get you the excellent quality pictures that you see in other review videos. Fist of all, everyone recommends that you set the exposure time to the highest possible setting before the field artifacts such as tails on the stars are manifested. If you want to use the highest setting of 15 seconds, you should polar align the Dwarf 2 ((16) HOWTO: Setup your Smart Telescope in Equatorial Mode, like a PRO! - YouTube). Once you polar align then you need to tweak the other settings and hope for the best. I am sure that if you are an experienced Astro photographer this is not a challenge. But if you are just starting out, I will warn you that there is a learning curve.
I have played around with the Dwarf 2 for two nights. The first night I finally got a photo of the Great Orion Nebula. But for some reason the Dwarf 2 did not store it. I can't figure out why. It was the only decent photo I had in five hours of playing with settings. The second night, last night, I got some photos but they required a lot of post processing in order to get something halfway reasonable. I have some example below. (I did set up the eQuinox 2 next to the Dwarf 2 for comparison.)
Andromeda Galaxy:
Dwarf 2 Unprocessed
Dwarf 2 Processed
eQuinox 2 Unprocessed
eQuinox 2 some processing
Great Orion Nebula:
Dwarf 2 Unprocessed
Dwarf 2 Processed
eQuinox 2 Unprocessed
eQuinox 2 some processing
Horsehead Nebula
Dwarf 2 Unprocessed
Dwarf 2 Processed
eQuinox 2 Unprocessed
eQuinox 2 some processing
You can see that the Dwarf 2 having a wider field of vision than eQuinox 2 so keep this in mind when doing comparisons. My experience is that it is challenging to get a photo that you can post process with Dwarf 2. I am still working on optimizing the settings which is more than a two night adventure. I have watched numerous tutorial videos and have tried the same settings for specific objects as given by those videos. My observation is that the optimized setting for one scope at a different location will not be exactly right for your scope and location. It gets you in the ballpark and that is about it. Dwarf 2 will take time and practice to master and get the type of photos that you see in tutorials. I don't know how much time since I am still learning. On the other hand eQuinox does a great job in getting you started quickly. In my case it was about an hour on my first night of use.
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