Hestia the smartphone-based telescope is extraordinary and adds a level of intuitiveness, ease, and outstanding photography to your telescopic experience of astronomy.
When I first read about a smart telescope, I balked, thinking some things will never supersede the experience of using a high-powered telescope to move and pivot and focus it on the astronomical event or celestial body yourself and exploring it with your eyes.
And though that initial thought may not be wrong, there is no way I do not want an affordable, portable (weighs l.1 pounds and is roughly the size of a nice hardcover book at 6.7×9.5×2.2 inches), and extremely easy to use telescope for myself or my young daughter to be able to on a whim enjoy the stars!
Do you plan on photographing the solar eclipse visible in North America in 2024 or in western Europe in 2026?
Why not? These opportunities only come around once every twenty years or so.
Hestia the smartphone-based telescope is on Kickstarter for another 12 days and is available for $189 USD if you need extra impetus.
The Hestia telescope is phone-powered and is built for the future and its myriad possibilities for different smartphone shapes and sizes.
So, without burning your retinas right out of your skull, you can arm a Hestia with your phone and shoot the awe-inspiring solar and lunar eclipses of the world in stunning detail and alarming clarity while you look on through safety glasses or shields.
Hestia offers a limited (only for telescopes) but still invigorating 25x magnification, and I am blown away by the images a new iPhone captures with a Hestia.
The blood orange and crimson views of the sun with a solar filter and without are as apocalyptic as they are inspiring.
The easy-to-learn telescope fits most tripods and comes with a fantastic Gravity app that offers up astronomical insights and allows for your taking pics in both Jpeg and TIFF formats.
Just how does the Hestia work so well to give us the ability to stare up into the man-in-the-moon’s nasal cavity so deeply?
Hestia has a patented design for using a six-lens optical setup with a 1.2 inch objective and prisms that align to focus the light, and the stars, and beam them to your phone’s camera sensor.
Pack the Hestia for every trip and enjoy the facets of the sun and the stars as seen from your location on earth!
