For most people that live in cities, stargazing is pretty much an unexplored activity, as the artificial city lights tend to dim out the stars. Not only that, but while observing and studying the starry night sky can be a beautiful and breathtaking experience, sharing your stargazing experience through a traditional telescope with family and friends can be a difficult thing to do. That’s because telescopes were only designed for one eye at a time. Lastly, traditional telescopes are also somewhat challenging to use – especially for beginners – and they’re also heavy and cumbersome, so leaving the city to a more peaceful place to stargaze the night sky can be quite exhausting. However, there’s a brand-new smart telescope out there that promises to fix all of those issues. Meet the Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station.
The Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station is basically a smart telescope equipped with a high-end camera lens that’s also smartphone-connected and app-enabled.
With it, all sky lovers can easily share their stargazing experience with their family and friends.
The Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station is based on the company’s original App-Enabled portable smart telescope – the Vaonis Stellina – which was announced two years ago and officially released earlier this year.
Basically, the Vaonis Stellina is the company’s higher-end smart telescope model, which features a larger aperture and resolution while also offering sky lovers a stargazing instrument with many more manual possibilities than the company’s Vaonis Vespera 2nd-gen Smart Telescope (that goes especially for image processing).
On the other hand, the company’s recently announced Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station (it’s second-generation of smart telescopes) is a smaller, lighter, and more affordable version of the Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope, and thanks to that, the company is looking to make astronomy even more accessible for everyone.
Since the Vaonis Vespera is based on the Stellina Smart Telescope, it simply takes the best and most essential features out of the first model. Because of that, this 2nd-gen smart telescope still offers the same simplicity of use, with a very easy initialization, automatic pointing and tracking system, and a very powerful image processing.
Now, let’s take a more detailed look at the Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station and check everything that this second-generation of smart telescopes have to offer.
DESIGN & SPECS
Starting with the unit’s size, as mentioned above, the Vaonis Vespera is slightly smaller than the company’s Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope (the higher-end model), measuring just 8 inches long by 3.5 inches wide by 15 inches tall (20 x 9 x 40 cm). Not only that, but this 2nd-gen smart telescope is also a bit lighter than the original model (the Stellina), weighing just a total of 11 lbs. (5 kg).
Thanks to that, the Vaonis Vespera is currently the world’s lightest and most powerful exploration station that you can find available on the market.
The Vespera Exploration Station also comes equipped with its very own tripod, which features adjustable legs that ultimately make the unit’s set up / installation a breeze.
All of the Vespera’s tripod legs can also be fully removed to make the unit more compact during its transportation, which not only increases its portability but also makes it possible to easily fit the Vaonis Vespera inside pretty much any backpack.
Besides its compact size, the Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station features another upgrade from the Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope, and that’s within its optical system.
While the Stellina came equipped with a Doublet Apochromatic Refractor, the Vespera comes equipped with a Quadruplet Apochromatic Refractor, which is one of the most accurate and most powerful optical designs currently available on the market, featuring a Extra Low Dispersion that’s S-FPL52 equivalent (ULD) with lanthanum glass for its Refractor system.
The Vespera Exploration Station’s Quadruplet Apochromatic Refractor system also features a 2″ (50 mm) aperture lens, which offers exactly 200 mm of Focal Length and a F/4 Focal Ratio (meaning a set of 4 lenses in 2 groups), as well as a 1.6″ by 0.9″ Field of View. Users can get up to 33 x Optical Magnification and up to 13 Maximum Magnitude in good sky conditions.
The Vespera also comes equipped with the latest Sony Sensor, which is a 1/2.8” diagonal (4.8 mm x 3.6 mm) Full HD Sony IMX462 Sensor that works based on Starvis technology. Since that high-end Image Sensor was developed for extreme low light, the Vespera Exploration Station can ultimately create astonishing results.
Thanks to all of that, users can ultimately have the exploration station’s Sony IMX462 Starvis Image Sensor to capture the night sky at exactly 1920 x 1080 resolution (basically 2 MP with a pixel size of 2.9µm x 2.9µm and a Read Noise that goes around < 0.5e-).
While photographing, the Vespera Exploration Station’s Autonomous Image-Processing Algorithm forces the unit’s internal memory to only keep your best photographed shots of the night sky, and then stacks those on top of each other to ultimately bring you with the brightest and sharpest images possible.
Sure, when compared to the original Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope’s 3096×2080 pixel resolution, that might not seem like much, but 1920 x 1080p HD image resolution still makes the Vespera a small, yet very rich field telescope.
BATTERY & BATTERY LIFE
The Vespera comes equipped with a built-in internal and rechargeable battery that can offer up to 4 hours of battery life, which, in theory, should be enough for most of its stargazing users that are passionate about studying the night sky.
However, pledging the company’s new Crowdfunding Campaign for higher-end supporter packages will also get you an additional battery (and even an additional high tripod).
Recharging the Vespera’s internal battery is also quite easy, as all you have to do is to connect its included Magnetic Charging Cable to its Magnetic Charging Port.
CONNECTIVITY
Now, moving on to the station’s connectivity features. The Vespera Exploration Station features wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi for Smartphone or Computer control), as well as GPS access (no GPS inside).
Thanks to that, the station can be easily and conveniently connected to the company’s proprietary Smartphone Companion App (called the Stellinapp).
THE SMARTPHONE COMPANION APP – THE STELLINAPP
While its compact size and light weight make the Vespera even more portable than its predecessor (the Stellina Smart Telescope), its easy-to-use Smartphone Companion App (called the Stellinapp) automatically handles all the fine adjustments users would normally have to make on traditional telescopes.
The Stellinapp is available to download for free for both iOS and Android devices (mobile and tablet).
The App itself is extremely user-friendly, as it guides users throughout the entire process. The Stellinapp gives users personalized recommendations on what they should explore within the night sky, and those recommendations are based both on a user’s Geo-location as well as on the Astronomical Calendar’s current events.
The App also features a digital Catalogue of Celestial Objects, which can be used to easily learn about the “celestial bodies”, as well as digitally downloaded Educational Content within the App itself, which can quickly teach users about any Celestial Object that they decide to learn more about.
Thanks to that, users can explore hundreds of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters, and then capture them from their fingertips and share them right at that moment with both family members and friends, either directly from their screen or even on social media.
Not only that, but thanks to the App’s easy-to-access Educational Content, both parents and their children can use the Vespera Exploration Station together and learn more about the wonders of the universe.
Lastly, the Stellinapp also features Auto initialization, Automatic adaptation to weather conditions, Automatic star pointing (GoTo), Image processing adapted to each object, Preset image composition for each object, and Image live stacking.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Vaonis Vespera Exploration Station is an ultra-lightweight smart telescope equipped with a high-end camera lens that’s also smartphone-connected and app-enabled.
Just like its predecessor (the Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope), which is the company’s higher-end model, the Vespera can be easily setup within just a few minutes to quickly watch the entire universe in full HD.
If you’re interested in buying the Vaonis Vespera, all you have to do is to support the company’s Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign with a minimum pledge of $1,099 or more, which will get you one Vespera Smart Telescope and its proprietary tripod, as well as its included Magnetic Charging Cable, and some exclusive stickers.
As mentioned earlier, pledging for a higher amount will also get you an additional rechargeable battery as well as an extra high tripod stand.
To learn more, simply access Vaonis’ Kickstarter Crowdfunding Campaign by clicking the provided link.
EDIT:
As an update, the campaign ended on October 31st with $2.5M collected and more than 2,000 backers.
