Nikon has partnered with telescope brand Unistellar — a self-described astronomy disruptor — to advance telescope technology for consumer applications and bring the average enthusiast “closer to space.”
Unistellar has made waves in the telescope community with its eVscope and eQuinox, two telescopes that use proprietary “Enhanced Vision” and “Automated Field Detection” technologies to offer what the company claims is “unmatched power and accuracy in a compact telescope.” Both work in the wilds or in the city thanks to the company’s intelligent pollution reduction technology as well.
Unistellar leverages a series of patents that makes its telescope unique and allows it to more easily show stunning results for the average telescope consumers. This “smart telescope” company has been noticed by Nikon, as the two have joined forces to “democratize high-end technology.”
Unistellar is a young company — especially in comparison to Nikon — and has only been releasing telescopes for the last two years.
“Like Nikon has done and continues to do in many fields related with optics and imaging, we see Unistellar’s products spark joy and excitement on an important and meaningful topic that was previously difficult to grasp for consumers.” Yasuhiro Ohmura, Senior Vice President of Nikon, said. “We are also especially sensitive to the unique way Unistellar promotes science and enlightenment at a popular level and are happy to collaborate in widening and furthering this mission”.
The joint press release is extremely vague and neither company was able to provide more details on just what exactly Nikon would be offering to the Unistellar product or vice versa, but Unistellar said that it would “soon” be able to provide more specific details. What the company was able to say was that Nikon would be collaborating with Unistellar on the entire optical design of Unistellar telescopes and that consumers can “expect to see elements of that collaboration in upcoming products.”
When asked if Unistellar’s partnership with Nikon would allow for easy adaptation of Nikon cameras to Unistellar telescopes in a way that is not currently possible, the company said that its eVscope and eQuinox telescopes are “connected” smart devices, and automatically send observations to the user’s smartphone, making a connection of an external camera unnecessary.
“This is a broad collaboration so you can expect developments going way beyond that,” Unistellar said, but provided no further information.
Author: Jaron Schneider
Source: Petapixel
