
Have you ever tried to take a picture of a full moon with your smartphone? Simply put, our built-in cameras aren’t designed to photograph an incredibly bright (and far away) object surrounded by complete darkness. Now, if you had a telephoto lens camera and some refined settings, sure, it’s possible. But what if there were a contraption specifically designed for you to take zoomed-in pictures of objects in the night sky without needing to buy a multi-thousand-dollar camera to do so? With Vaonis’ Hestia, you can convert your smart device into a picture-taking telescope in mere seconds.

Following up its successful Kickstarter campaign for the ultra-compact and accessible Vespera telescope back in 2020, Vaonis has now come up with another alternative to high-tech and expensive telescopes. About the size and weight of an average textbook, the Hestia sets up on top of the included tripod and features a patented six-lens optical design and 25x optical zoom that works in tandem with your phone’s lens to capture and view objects in the sky, day or night. It’s truly the first of its kind. You simply tap into Vaonis’ Gravity app, which helps you search for stars, constellations, and planets, among other things. You then face the Hestia towards your target and place your phone on top of it.

In a world where planned obsolescence quickly precludes your old smartphone models in favor of new ones, the Hestia is designed to be future-proof. The attachments that mount your smartphone to the device’s surface are easily adjusted with magnets so that you can fit nearly any device with a camera.
And if you’re worried about the cost of these units compared to a high-end telescope, you can fear not. The Hestia is currently available for an early bird price of just $189 on Kickstarter. Funding takes place until August 17.