I come to bury EduSnap...

(updated December 15, 2025) 

(paraphrased from Julius Caesar, spoken by Marc Antony)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury the EduSnap 53ED Kickstarter Project, not to praise it.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with the EduSnap 53ED Kickstarter Project. 

The last team update from the scope's Kickstarter site was posted on August 18, 2025. The official web sites no longer work, including any updates for the Android and iOS apps. The Windows app finds only older versions of software/firmware for the camera and "bracket" (the GOTO base). The lights are out, the trail is cold, unfulfilled users are going through the 5 stages of grief, and the project's reputation lies in dishonor.

But this is not the end of the story. Kickstarter projects are often known for sowing disappointment while building out useful technology ideas for companies that buy out these tattered failures to deliver. It appears that just such a story has unfolded for the technology formerly known as EduSnap.

It lives! It lives!

It appears that the astronomy company Spectrum Optical Instruments has acquired the tooling and IP of the EduSnap Kickstarter project,  and is not only selling the productized scope, but also expanding the tech to several new products. The original Astro53ED scope of the Kickstarter project is now its own product brand at SpectrumOI: the EduSnap Smart Telescope Series (the one scope). This software provided for this series is still branded as EduSnap, meaning you can use it with your Kickstarter scope (for the time being).

By the way, SpectrumOI distributes the basic scope through other sellers as well:

. https://agenaastro.com/spectrum-optical-instruments-smart-telescopes-edusnap-astro-53-pro.html

. https://astronomics.com/products/spectrum-optical-astro53pro-smart-telescope-edusnap

What's new is that the core parts of the architecture--the 53mm objective lens, the Sony IMX662 sensor, and the plate-solving navigation shared between camera and mount--have been enhanced by SpectrumOI as the MirroSky Intelligent Astrosystem. In this evolution, the camera eyepiece is now an independent 1.25"-compatible unit, and the 53ED scope is its own OTA branded as a guide/finder scope.

Here is how the architecture is used in current products in the MirroSky Smart Telescope Series:

• SPi53 Smart Telescope: This is basically the familiar EduSnap scope and Alt-Az mount, reimagined for extensibility. The familiar white telescope tube is upgraded to a black finder-style tube with adjustable rings, with the M54 interface behind the focuser adapted down to a 1.25" eyepiece tube that takes the newly modularized guiding/imaging camera. Together with the MirroSky app, this package provides a complete, lightweight solution for navigation and guiding. An optional OTA up to nearly 7 pounds can be integrated into this system. 

•  SP127 Smart Telescope: In this instantiation of the MirroSky architecture, a half-fork mount holds a 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain reflecting telescope (basically the EduSnap side-mounted scope extended into a half-fork yoke design). The camera/eyepiece finder and 53ED scope provide the finder and tracking function. In theory, the camera/eyepiece can be swapped onto the telescope to be used in planetary mode rather than deep sky mode (trading off continuous tracking since this use case has fewer stars). In theory, other OTAs up to 9 pounds could be used in place of the Mak tube. 

• LEAP Mount Sky Tracker: This MirroSky variant is a star tracker (ie, just a polar axis rotator) for any attached accessory like a DSLR. The MirroSky app provides movement to, and tracking of, a desired part of the sky; you will still need to aim your camera for more precise composition. The app does not include camera integration since it is only a mount, not a guided finder. The sweet spot is for making Milky Way panoramas.

• GX35 Smart EQ Telescope: This product is basically a gargantua version of the SPi53 finder/mount package that runs in German Equatorial mode, driving up to 22 pounds of payload. The drive has a standard worm gear design. I think that a buyer would be interested in this product mainly as a drive, since the largest scopes it can handle would far exceed the pointing accuracy of the coupled camera/eyepiece guide scope.

• HX35 Smart Harmonic EQ Telescope: This is the Harmonic Drive variant in the gargantua series, capable of driving up to 28 pounds of counter-balanced payload, again provided with the same camera/eyepiece. The same selection rationale and caveats apply as for the GX35 mount.

Why I think this is the end of my own EduSnap customer journey...

I began my EduSnap experience with the hope that the developers were really onto a neat system. It's great that that concept has been expanded into the MirroSky line of products at Spectrum Optical Instruments. But this success was built on the investment and disappointment of some 600 backers of the original Kickstarter project who never got products, or got unworking products, or were overwhelmed by lack of support on using and updating their scopes. This part of the history of the architecture is unconscionable, and is the reason why I am ending my own journey with the brands.

Furthermore, even though the lineup of products using the architecture seems to justify the concept, the undocumented guidance protocol between the camera/eyepiece and the mount basically makes this a closed system, incapable of hooking into growing standards like Alpaca, Indi, EQmod or OnStep etc.. If you want a better sensor, or the ability to integrate other accessories into the app via plugins, you cannot do this with this architecture as is. 

Notes for Kickstarter EduSnap users

The support page for the SPi53 scope provides links to tested versions of the EduSnap app that improve on the last available downloads from the Kickstarter project page. I have tested the Android version and it provides a few welcome fixes. However the Windows app there still links to a dead download page for the mount firmware, so that's a bummer.

Using the Windows app, I was able to upgrade my camera firmware to V2.0.37, but my motor firmware update comes from a dead site, so remains at V1.13.176 from when that download site was last working. So that's also a bummer. Perhaps SpectrumOI is still working on transferring the software assets to their own fulfillment servers, and things will pick up again for their supported product. If you bought your scope from Kickstarter, you are not a SpectrumOI customer and cannot demand their support. But hey, if the download link is public, we'll quietly use it since it's for the same hardware.

As noted elsewhere, pre-release versions of latest app software are available at https://www.pgyer.com/dkQARCev, and they add exciting new features that EduSnap owners can enjoy. The Android app version I tested from there (V2.3.5) has these noted improvements:

1. The detected location now points to a near landmark or address, not to a city 200 miles away.
2. The FAQ section has more complete trouble-shooting info, and the docs section includes a new installation video.
3. The Settings/Device Info tab now shows an option to switch from AZ into EQ mode. WHAT??? I think this is a real thing, but my sky is too cloudy to test. I will explore this new mode in a later blog post. 
4. This tab now also offers a File Management link that brings up the scope's local filesystem so that you can do file cleanup directly through this app instead of through the Windows app while networked into the telescope. 
5. This tab also offers a Spirit Level link that brings up a graphical bubble level for the phone. For me, this interface was not functional. But I already have that function through other apps.