This is the smallest smart telescope ever made. Roughly the size of a chunky portable battery, the DwarfLab Dwarf Mini is a super-compact smart telescope that lets you capture everything from spots on the sun and craters on the moon to galaxies, star clusters and nebulae, even from a light-polluted city. All you need is a smartphone.
A motorised 30mm refractor that sends light to a Sony image sensor, the Dwarf Mini is controlled entirely via the DwarfLab app. Like its bigger sibling, the Dwarf 3, it auto-calibrates on the stars it sees and then uses live stacking to reveal deep-sky objects that would otherwise be invisible from light-polluted backyards.
Add built-in filters, a new equatorial tracking mode and its tiny size, and it’s got to be one of the most accessible telescopes yet. Here’s everything you need to know about the Dwarf Mini.
DwarfLab Dwarf Mini review
Price and availability
Retailing for UK£359, US$399 and AUS$595, the Dwarf Mini is priced to compete with entry-level smart scopes, particularly the Seestar S30, which sells for UK£419, US$399 and AU$ 699.
Available directly from DwarfLab as well as via select retailers, it also undercuts DwarfLab’s larger Dwarf 3 (UK£459, US $599 and AU$ 811) and newer Seestar S30 Pro (UK£599, US$$549 and AU$820) while maintaining many core features.
What it lacks, however, is a tripod or carry case in the box – two accessories you’ll likely need from day one, though any photography tripod using a typical 1/4-inch thread will work fine.
Features and what’s new
A tiny telescope it may be, but the Dwarf Mini squeezes an impressive feature set into its tiny frame. At its core is a 30mm refractor telescope paired with a Sony IMX662 sensor — a small, sensitive and fast sensor designed to perform well under night-sky conditions.
There’s a trade-off here: high resolution is sacrificed for low noise and real-time performance, resulting in effective low-light capture in light-polluted suburban skies, but fairly low-resolution images.
As with other DwarfLab scopes, everything is done through the companion app, from selecting a target in its sky atlas to image capture and editing.
The Dwarf Mini arrives well-packaged and ready to go, with a magnetic solar filter and a USB-C cable inside, though there’s no hard case, so youwill need to add a tripod.
A DwarfLab Mini Tripod is available, but any mini tripod is fine; I opted for a Manfrotto PIXI, though I also used a much larger Peak Design Travel Tripod to give it some height and so a wider view of the night sky.
That’s useful because this scope has two cameras, wide and tele, the former able to take images of constellations and the Milky Way, and the latter for more typical close-ups. So it’s more like a camera than a telescope.
Unlike some rivals, the Dwarf Mini doesn’t rely on external filters or accessories. Instead, it features a motorised internal filter wheel with three options: dark frame, astro (broadband) and dual-band for isolating emission nebulae. These can be switched with a tap in the app, making filter selection completely seamless.
In standard alt-az mode, exposures are capped at around 15 seconds to prevent the stars from trailing as Earth rotates. However, Dwarf Mini adds a new EQ mode (short for equatorial tracking), which, once aligned with Polaris, allows the ‘scope to track targets for up to 90 seconds. That’s more than enough to significantly boost image depth on faint nebulae.
Setup and use
Setup takes just a few minutes: power it on, launch the DwarfLab app on your phone and connect to its WiFi signal. During testing, I had some minor issues with establishing a connection to an iPhone. It’s definitely worth launching the app while still connected to home WiFi before heading out because firmware updates are not uncommon.
When searching the atlas, there’s a good selection of recommended objects that are certified to be visible at the present time from your location as well as a file to store favourites and an extensive catalogue of all objects, divided up in to nebula, galaxies, clusters, planets and, amusingly, solar and lunar (just the two in that list!).
Once you’ve selected a target in the atlas, the Dwarf Mini moves its telescope up and down to plate-solve the stars and auto-align itself, and quickly slew. The scope then takes short exposures and stacks them in real time. Fast exposures on the sun, using the supplied filter, were quick and easy, with decent results on sunspots as well as time-lapse video (it also supports 1080p video capture and time-lapses during the day).
I were also impressed by the Dwarf Mini’s images of the moon, which could be a reason alone for moon gazers to invest. From a light-polluted city at night, I tried it on some classic winter sights from the Northern Hemisphere, including the Orion Nebula (M42), the Pleiades (M45) and the open cluster in Gemini (M35). It typically stacks 10-second exposures.
What is slightly underwhelming for both deep sky and solar/lunar imaging is that the DwarfLab app lacks a live stacking preview, so you can’t see the image building and improving in real time. When to stop is therefore guesswork since the app always recommends about four hours of exposure for each object.
That’s unrealistic and, besides, it’s not strictly necessary for many objects. This is in contrast to higher-end smart scopes like the Unistellar eVscope 2, which give you a recommended length of time for observing.
EQ mode, which allows for much longer 90-second tracked exposures, is more manual, but not difficult, thanks to a step-by-step guide. This mode’s value comes from objects close to the zenith – straight up – where alt-az mode causes field rotation (apparent rotation or twisting of objects).
I aligned the Dwarf Mini with Polaris, the North Star, in just a few minutes, with the Dwarf Mini tracking smoothly and producing much better results with nebula.
Look at the results in the app’s gallery, and they can seem a little noisy, but its Stellar Studio makes it simple to denoise images and add contrast, leaving them sharp and inky-black. You can even add watermarks, capture details and even an AI-generated caption.
Verdict
The Dwarf Mini delivers a unique blend of portability, simplicity and surprisingly capable deep-sky imaging. It’s not going to give you print-level astrophotography, but that’s not the point. It’s built for quick, easy imaging sessions from just about anywhere, even light-polluted cities.
A travel-friendly alternative to bulkier smart telescopes, it’s the ideal affordable first scope for an urban backyard or an upgrade for astrophotographers wanting to cut down on their gear.
All you need is two spare jacket pockets, one for the Dwarf Mini and the other for your own mini tripod. If portability is your priority and Instagram-ready images are your goal, the Dwarf Mini hits the sweet spot.
Also consider
There are a couple of key alternatives to the Dwarf Mini. The most obvious is the Dwarf 3, its larger sibling, which adds a higher-resolution sensor. It’s slightly bulkier and more expensive, but its 35mm aperture and 4K resolution make it a stronger choice for those wanting a bit more detail.
Another strong rival is the ZWO Seestar S30. Also equipped with a 30mm lens, it includes a handy tabletop tripod and similar smart features. A slight step-up again is the newer ZWO Seestar S30 Pro, launched in early 2026, which packs an 8MP sensor but is both more expensive and less compact.
