The next ORION program, “Smart Telescopes,” will be at 7 p.m. June 19 at the City Room (Room A-111), McNally-Coffey Building, Roane State Community College, Oak Ridge campus.

Don Spong will be the guest speaker. He is a plasma physicist who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on fusion energy research. The title of the program is “Smart Telescopes – A new paradigm for astrophotography.”

The program is open to the public.

A new category of telescopes, known as “smart telescopes” was introduced several years ago. These typically provide automated star alignment, tracking, image stacking, focusing, exposure, and filter control. Examples of such devices include ZWO Seestar, Celestron Smart Origin, Vaonis Vespera/Stellina, and Unistellar Odyssey/eQuinox/eVscope.

While these systems remove some of the technical/educational aspects of learning how to use a telescope, they offer the possibility of democratizing astrophotography and making the joys of astronomy accessible to a larger community. The characteristics of these different systems will be described and their advantages/disadvantages discussed based on the speaker’s own experience with the Seestar system.

Spong has been interested in astronomy and telescopes since his teenage years. In 2017, motivated by the solar eclipse, he decided to upgrade to an 8-inch telescope and merge his astronomy interests with photography. In 2023 he added the Seestar S50 Smart Telescope to his collection. His primary interests have been in imaging galaxies and nebulae, but he has also started learning about how to do exoplanet surveys and solar imaging.

He received his B.S. degree from the University of Arizona and M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and was awarded the Fusion Power Associates Significant Career Award in 2021. Spong also serves as secretary/treasurer of the Camera Club of Oak Ridge and is president of Oak Ridge’s ORION Astronomy club.

ORION is a science and astronomy club centered in Oak Ridge supporting the Tamke-Allan Observatory in Kingston.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Next ORION program to offer a look at ‘smart telescopes’