Unistellar Odyssey Review: A New and Seamless User Experience

The Unistellar Odyssey is a premium portable smart telescope released in January 2024.

In this Unistellar Odyssey review we are going to assess just how good this model is and how it compares to other smart telescopes on the market.

Unistellar Odyssey Review

The Unistellar Odyssey is a smart telescope, which means:

• It is a fully automated astrophotography telescope with a camera built-in
• You control it via app on your smartphone and it takes images of astronomy objects for you at the press of a button and sends them to your phone

In this review, I will give my views on how it shapes up based on the five criteria we use to assess smart telescopes:

1. Ease of Use
2. Portability
3. Imaging Quality
4. Value for Money
5. Versatility

Ease of Use

The only downside of Unistellar’s previous smart telescopes – the eVscope, eVscope 2, eQuinox and eQuinox 2 – was that you occasionally had to collimate them.

This is a manual process that is common in many telescopes and was not difficult to do but it was a barrier to having seamless usability.

The main selling point of smart telescopes is that you can just pull it out whenever you want and it should work with little or no effort. And this is what you have with Unistellar’s rivals – the Vaonis Stellina, Vespera, Vespera II and Vespera Pro.

Unistellar have now fixed this with the Odyssey. They now class this model and the Odyssey Pro in their Discovery Range not requiring any collimation, and the eVscope 2 and eQuinox 2 in the Expert Range where collimation may sometimes be required.

Add to this that the app was already excellent and you have usability that is up there with the best for any smart telescope.

Portability

The Odyssey telescope weighs 4 kg (8.8 lbs) with the tripod adding an additional 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs), so totalling 6.5 kg (14 lbs).

This means it is certainly light and portable but does weigh more than the Vespera II and Vespera Pro (11 lbs), as well as the ZWO Seestar S50 and Dwarflab Dwarf 2 which are in the budget category of smart telescopes.

Imaging Quality

Telescope

The OTA has:

• 85 mm (3.3 inch) aperture
• 320mm focal length
• f/3.9 focal ratio

This puts it above the Vespera II and Vespera Pro in terms of aperture and only behind the Unistellar eVscope 2, eQuinox 2, and Celestron Origin.

Camera

The camera inside has a 3.7 megapixel resolution.

Here are a number of images taken with the Odyssey shared by Unistellar:

Value for Money

It retails for $2,499. This makes it:

• More expensive than the Vespera II
• About the same as the Vespera Pro
• Cheaper than the Celestron Origin, eVscope 2 and eQuinox 2

Versatility

The Unistellar Odyssey doesn’t have the liveview eyepiece of the Unistellar Odyssey Pro and the Unistellar eVscope 2.

Its ease of use makes it good for all levels and it is capable of photographing both deep sky objects and planets (something some other smart telescopes struggle with).

However it is not usable for non-astronomical purposes.

Unistellar Odyssey: Pros and Cons

Unistellar Odyssey Advantages

The pros of the Unistellar Odyssey are:

• Easy to use with no adjustment (collimation) required
• Compact size and light weight
• Good telescope and camera specifations
• Slick user experience and a great app
• Beautiful design
• Join Citizen Science initiatives

Unistellar Odyssey Disadvantages

In terms of the downsides:

• Pretty expensive, particularly if you want to compare it to the budget smart telescope options but also the Vespera II
• Lower spec than premium alternatives like the Celestron Origin, eVscope 2 or eQuinox 2
• No liveview eyepiece like the Odyssey Pro and eVscope 2

Unistellar Odyssey Alternatives

The main alternatives to the Unistellar Odyssey are the:

• Unistellar Odyssey Pro – exactly the same apart from it has a liveview eyepiece and it costs more
• Vaonis Vespera II – lower aperture telescope but higher resolution camera, has a mosaic mode, is smaller and cheaper
• Vaonis Vespera Pro – lower aperture telescope but even higher resolution camera, has a mosaic mode, is smaller and costs about the same
• Celestron Origin – higher spec but more expensive and much heavier

See our overview of the Best Smart Telescopes to see how they all compare.

Unistellar Odyssey Specifications

• Aperture: 85 mm (3.3 inch)
• Focal Length: 320 mm
• Focal Ratio: F/3.9
• Weight: 14 lbs (6.5 kg)
• Height: 122 cm (fully assembled)
• Sensor: Sony IMX615
• Resolution: 3.7 MP
• Year of release: 2024

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Our Verdict

The Unistellar Odyssey has taken a great step in removing the necessity to collimate.

Experienced astronomers will not worry about this but many people looking to buy a smart telescope will have been put off by this requirement with older Unistellar models.

If you are looking for a premium portable smart telescope then this should certainly be an option for you alongside the Vespera II and Vespera Pro. It has a higher aperture OTA than both of these, but also a lower resolution camera.

It looks amazing and with it you can also take part in Citizen Science initiatives.

Sources and further information

• Best Smart Telescopes 2024
• Unistellar Odyssey Product Page
• Unistellar Odyssey Pro Review

How we reviewed the Unistellar Odyssey

This Unistellar Odyssey review is based on an assessment of its core specifications and comparison to existing models and the reviews of a number trusted experts:

Unistellar

SETI Institute

Submit Your Review of the Unistellar Odyssey

If you own (or have used) a Unistellar Odyssey, you can submit your review and ratings to us via this form to be incorporated in this review: