Telescopes are evolving and their appeal is increasing. The Vaonis Hestia is a perfect example of this. It was first announced almost a year ago, as the world’s first smartphone telescope. It should make astronomy more accessible than ever – and I tested it extensively for its stargazing strides.
The Hestia is a fresh take on a wave of new smart telescopes that have entered the world of astronomy in recent years: Vaonis itself already makes the smart Vespera telescope, which can automatically detect what is visible in deep space at any time , based on your location and automatically shift its direction so you can get a closer look at your chosen galaxy, nebulae or distant planet. Oh, and you can take photos with it too: astrophotography made easy.
The Vaonis Hestia is a simpler and considerably cheaper offering than the Vespera – you’ll have to do the hard work manually to find distant objects in the sky above, and its magnification is only 25x. For beginners to astrophotography, though, it’s a sensible option.
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One reason is that it’s cheap: the Hestia kit, which includes a tripod, costs just $399 / £329. That’s much cheaper than the best smart telescopes, which typically cost 10x as much. You can save a bit by buying the Hestia without a tripod if you already have one; However, the Vaonis tripod is specially designed for the Hestia.
‘Smartphone-based’ means that the Hestia uses your smartphone’s camera, rather than having its own image sensor and built-in memory. That’s certainly a factor in keeping costs down, and the best camera phones these days are pretty good anyway, so the design choice makes perfect sense.
In no time at all, I had taken beautiful photos of the moon with the Hestia – images that would otherwise have been impossible to capture by simply pointing my phone at the night sky.
The product was actually released before the great North American solar eclipse in April. Our US Mobile editor Phil Berne took it with him when he photographed the solar eclipse, complete with a solar filter (an extra).
As for my own experience starting with the Vaonis Hestia, it was a mixed bag.
Getting started with the Hestia
The Vaonis Hestia is a book-like device with a small eyepiece on the top to help you position your smartphone’s camera lens for close-up views of the sun, moon, and deep space. I started with a full moon because that is the easiest object to find in the night sky.
You secure your phone in place by adjusting the two magnetic brackets that snap onto the Hestia. It’s essentially a universal bracket that can hold any regular phone, though you might struggle with a larger foldable phone. My personal handset is a Google Pixel 6, which fit just fine.
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It takes some fiddling to adjust the angle of the Hestia using the tripod head to get the moon centered in your shot – there are no fine adjustments, so it’s a bit of trial and error. At 25x magnification, every small adjustment changes the composition immediately. In addition, the moon quickly disappears from your frame, so you will have to make frequent adjustments.
Such high magnifications are also an advantage if you are a fan of timelapses: the moon moves from one side of your field of view to the other in a matter of minutes. Including details like trees or buildings in the frame around and in front of the moon (easily done at moonrise or moonset) will only make your photos and timelapses more dynamic.
You can use your regular camera app to take photos. However, the optical construction of the Hestia reverses the image of the moon, which is not corrected on your smartphone. You must launch Vaonis’ Gravity app to optimize and correct the image.
The downside to optimizing your photo in the Gravity app is that the photo resolution isn’t as high as when using your phone’s camera app. I really wish my photos had more pixels so they would be more detailed.
When you’re ready to take your first photo of the moon, simply press the photo button. A few seconds later, after the app has stabilized the image, your first photo will appear on the screen – and wow!
The detail is super impressive (see below). You can see craters and surface details that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye or by zooming in with your phone (even the Samsung Galaxy’s Space Zoom – and photos taken with the Vaonis Hestia are real).
It only took me a few minutes to open the app all over again and take the impressive photo above. However, I started to experience a few issues when I tried out the different recording options in the Android version of the Gravity app with my Pixel 6.
Excellent hardware, but an app that needs some refinement
The experience may differ between iOS and Android versions of the app, depending on which handset you use. I only tried Hestia with my Pixel 6, and my experience was mixed.
My first photos of the moon were amazing. I had to make a quick white balance adjustment because the moon was too warm, and adjust the exposure manually because the auto mode often made the moon too bright in the frame, but these adjustments in the app and a basic editor are easy to do, and Overall, I was able to use the Hestia for single-shot photos just fine, and the results were brilliant.
Next I tried the timelapse mode. It should be possible to create a timelapse of the moon working its way across the entire frame in just a few minutes, but I was unable to do so.
It seems like you have to manually take each photo in a timelapse sequence, which is really tricky – who wants to tap the photo button every 10 seconds over the course of 10 minutes? A timelapse mode should be automated between starting and ending a sequence.
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Even if I had had the patience to take a photo every 10-20 seconds for an entire sequence, it wouldn’t have worked. The app kept crashing while stabilizing the image.
The highest number of photos I got in a time-lapse sequence before the app crashed was about six – barely enough for a dynamic time-lapse. In fact, it often crashed with single photos, and I had to close and reopen the app frequently.
After I had enough of photographing the moon, I went into deep space mode. You’ll get a list of galaxies, nebulae, and distant planets, along with information about which ones are visible based on your time and location.
However, the hard work of finding those objects in deep space is on you, and it’s the old-fashioned dumb telescope method. The thrill of the hunt will please some, but you don’t get the convenience of the automated smart telescope, nor is there a detailed guide on how to find a particular object.
Besides photographing the sun and moon, Hestia requires a steep learning curve for beginners. I have therefore limited my experience with Hestia to the moon, and will attempt to explore deep space with Hestia another day, hopefully once some of the Gravity app’s quirks and technical issues have been ironed out.
I still recommend the Vaonis Hestia, especially for close-ups of the moon. If you’re like me, you’ll quickly become addicted to capturing the moon in its different phases – I just can’t guarantee what experience you’ll have next.