Svbony SC311 Pro Camera- Svbony's newly redesigned wireless Camera
Greetings fellow astronomers. Unfortunately the weather here in western Canada has been really cold and cloudy during my first look at the new wireless camera from Svbony-"The Svbony SC311 Pro". Clouds and clouds, lots of snow, really windy weather and very cold temperatures here in Western Canada have haunted my Feb 2026! To go along with this newly released wifi camera there is also a newly developed android and IOS based mobile app called "SvbonyAstroCam" to control it. Svbony has been kind enough to send me the early-release version of this new wifi camera for testing and review. As many of you already know I have already done a comphehensive review of the original Svbony SC311 which the new SC311 Pro wireless wifi camera is based off.
In this review I will explore some of the new features and improvements on the new Svbony SC311 Pro wireless camera comparing it to the originally released Svbony SC311 wireless camera along the way. In addition, we will take a brielf look at some of the shortcomings that still exist in the new Svbony SC311 Pro camera and what could be improved. At the end of this review I will show some real captures taken and processed from the Svbony SC311 Pro camera. Keep in mind these images were taken in really bad weather here in western Canada but gives you a good idea of what it is capable off. Unfortunately due to really bad weather I have not yet been able to test this camera for deep sky imaging or EAA which is one of the main uses of this new wireless camera that Svbony advertises it for. I am hoping once the weather stabilizes I can do a comprehensive review of deep sky imaging with the Svbony SC311 Pro I am very excited about this capability!. Lets dive right in and discuss the new Svbony SC311 Pro wireless camera. Please read on.
Svbony has made several significant improvements to the new Svbony SC311 Pro wireless wifi camera over the originally released SC311. Physically on the new SC311 Pro camera one will notice there is no attenna protruding from it like the old Svbony SC311 camera. The wifi antenna is now built into the camera case itself internally so the camera now takes up a bit less space and so the antenna cannot be broken off or tangled up on a scope while in use (see figure 1a to 1c below).
Figure 1a, 1b and 1c: The new wireless camera and the box contents
A major improvement with the new Svbony SC311 Pro wireless camera it now supports 12 bit RAW data captures stored in FITs format. This now means photo captures are now stored on the sd card in a uncompressed RAW FITS format effectively eliminating image degradation such as bad compression artifacts that plagued captures on the original SC311 camera. RAW data storage in FITS format is a necessary requirement for capturing any decent images of deep sky targets like nebulas, galaxies, comets, supernovas and other celestrial targets with fine details. You can now say goodbye to highly compressed and degraded JPG captures with weird compression artifacts that were so prevelant in the original Svbony SC311 camera and severely limited its use for astrophotography of any kind. Since the new wireless Svbony SC311 pro stores on the capture data in FITs format this also means that the camera also now stores the captured metadata in the fits image isself which can be used for post processing later on- this is very useful. Both these new capabilities, RAW data support and the use of the FITS file format are both really nice additions for serious astronomers who plan to offload the data to post process later on.
Another great enhancement to the new Svbony SC311 Pro is that the new wireless camera can now can capture exposures "up to 30 seconds" instead of being held back by the major 5 second limitation in the original Svbony SC311 camera. The fact that you can now take up to 30 second exposures means one can now capture many more dim deep sky and celestrial objects. This is a great new capability and this is definitely a welcome improvement indeed.
The newly developed "SvbonyAstrocam" mobile app that is used to control the Svbony SC311 Pro wireless camera has been redesigned and uses a very clean and straight forward interface. The new app now uses jog dials for precisely changing exposure and gain parameters. The new app also now features target presets that allow you to set exposure and gain settings for imaging diffferent types of targets quickly. Svbony has also simplified the imaging and capturing planning tool allowing one to quickly adjust the the number of photo exposures or adjust the video recording duration easily. The other interesting feature I noticed is while capturing photos in the raw data mode the app now autostretches the capture after the exposure on the screen and also stores the stretched image. So on the screen after exposure you will see a much brighter image with more dim details visible. This image stretching is very quick and happens almost right away after the exposure. This is a pretty neat feature useful for both deep sky imaging of dim captures and EAA. Keep in mind this "auto stretching feature" only adjusts the data light curve for better viewing of dim targets on the photo capture. This stretching feature is not the same as "live stacking". Unfortunately in the "SvbonyAstroCam" app there is no live stacking option yet available. Time will tell if this gets added or not to the app.
Here are some sample screenshoots of the new SvbonyAstroCam app:
One of the current shortcomings with the new "Svbony SC311 Pro" camera is that in the live video mode the camera still uses MPG4 compressed video format for video recording unfortunately. As a result compression artifacts are still evident in stored captured video recordings made. These compression artifacts are more noticable on smaller bright targets with any fine details such as planetary detail and deep sky objects with any fine details and even planets. The compression artifacts are not so notiticeble on larger targets like imaging the moon and sun for example. I am hoping at least some type of uncompressed video formats such as avi video formats will be supported in future versions only time will tell.
Another enhancement missing in the "SvbonyAstroCam" app is there is no "live stacking" feature yet. Instead as discussed there is a "auto stretching function" that stretches the photo captures to brighen and enhance photo exposures on the screen after capture. Live stacking would definitely be useful for EAA especially with group gatherings where observers could literly see deep sky objects get brighter and clearer with less noise before their eyes as it live stacks in front of them.
One final limitation I found while using the "SvbonyAstrocam" app is offloading the Raw photo data you capture during your imaging session needs to be copied off the SD card and cannot be wirelessly downloaded. You need to take out the SD card from the camera and copy all the data off the SD card onto your computer which is a little inconvienient to obtain the raw data each time you want to process the data obtained frim a imaging session. However you can currently wirelessly download the set of stretched photo captures in JPG format taken during the session (this is not the original raw data). You can also wirelessly download the MP4 live video captures. I am hoping Svbony modifies the app to not only allow wireless downloading of the stretched JPG captures but also the actual unmodified RAW fits file to go along with it.
So what follows are some of the unprocessed and processed captures taken with my Celestron Mak 127slt with the wireless SC11 Pro camera using the raw data photo mode (so no compression artifacts). Keep in mind all these lunar and planetary captures were taken during really bad seeing conditons and cold hazy conditons with this new wireless camera.
The SC311 Pro camera in use on my Celestron 127SLT mak (look at the terrible weather!)
The new "SvbonyAstroCam" mobile app in actual use in bad cloudy weather seen above
Some processed captures of the moon using the raw photo data mode (in really bad cloudy weather conditions seen above):
Processed capture of Jupiter and its moons in hazy skies but clear and very cold with the new Svbony SC311 Pro using raw data photo mode, stacked, sharpened and processed in Gimp:
So what do you think? You be the judge. The lunar captures of the moon were obtained in the very bad cloudy seeing conditions as seen above. The capture of Jupiter with 3 of its moons was captured three nights before my lunar imaging session of the moon on a clear but very cold hazy night. The images you see were all processed from the RAW fits data that I captured on the new SC311 Pro wireless camera. I was very curious about this uncompressed photo capture mode. Of course I think there is room for several improvements that can be made especially in live video recording mode but the new Svbony SC311 Pro wireless camera has a lot of serious potential and promise especially with deep sky EAA and imaging using the raw data photo mode it features. I am definitely looking forward to testing this camera's deep sky capabilities when weather permits.
***Important: One note to add be very very careful running the "check app for updates" function in the new "SvbonyAstroCam" as you may brick your device or cause it to stop functioning properly (especially if there are any errors on the sd card from it shutting off etc...). I am having issues with this very issue myself after accidently running it. If you do decide to run this function and update your firmware wirelessly from the app make sure that you check the "SD card" for any errors on it via scandisk on your computer before you run it. The Svbony development team is apparently looking into this. Clears skies to you all!
This camera can be found here for purchase or more details:
Svbony Sc311-pro-wifi-astronomy-camera
Here is a discount coupon code for you to use if you choose to buy one:
grant5 ($5 dollars off)
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