Vaonis announced Hestia as the first smartphone telescope to take pictures of the cosmos, equipped with tools to photograph the sun, moon and stars without the need for complex hardware or extensive knowledge of astronomy.
Vaonis is one of the two leading manufacturers of smart telescopes alongside Unistellar. In the last two years, Vaonis has launched a series of intelligent telescopes, such as Hyperia or Vespera. Both systems were multifunctional controlled by a smartphone application. However, with Hestia, Vaonis is making use of the camera we all carry as the main real capture system.
The Hestia telescope can show sharp close-up images of the sun, moon, and cosmos, making use of any smartphone that has high-quality cameras. This portable telescope allows to take vivid and sharp pictures of celestial objects and the universe, increasing the zoom capability of smartphones up to 25 times. Just the simple gesture of placing your smartphone on top of Hestia, and its mechanism will immediately zoom in and focus on the universe so you can see and take pictures of the cosmos clearly.
“Hestia is the telescope I always wanted but didn’t exist… until now. Designed to bring the wonders of the cosmos within everyone’s reach”, defends Vaonis. “Harnessing the power of the smartphone and our cutting-edge technology, Hestia lets you capture the brightness of the sun, the enchanting beauty of the moon, and the captivating depths of the Universe — without complex setups or extensive knowledge of astronomy. Simply place your smartphone in Hestia’s eyepiece, align the device with the celestial object of your choice, let our easy-to-use app guide you and unlock a whole new world of exploration.”
Vaonis says the Hestia is designed for all types of celestial targets and will work for both solar photography during the day and moon and “deep sky” photography at night. The Hestia telescope can even capture detailed images of lunar craters and sunspots. The company is proud to develop a patented six-lens-in-three-group optical design that features a 30 mm (1.2-inch) lens and prisms to collect and focus light directly onto a smartphone’s camera. It has a 1.8-degree field of view and through the Vaonis application, images can be captured as JPEGs or TIFFs.
