Testing the Vespera Smart Telescope on a Range of Targets: Is it Worth Considering?

In this comprehensive review I take you through every aspect of the Vaonis Vespera smart telescope. From initial setup, to its ease of use, image quality with numerous examples, solar imaging, deep sky imaging, mosaic mode, file types plus transferring files, available accessories, the positives, the negatives, and my final verdict!
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[@joxterjones2563]

Thanks for the review Chris and I think you have done a very fair and thorough test. I just got my Vespera a few days ago and have been consistently impressed by its performance and ease of use. After about 10 years of messing around with astrophotography and constantly tweaking and experimenting, the simplicity, power and ease of use of the Vespera really are very standout features for me. The number of good images I can get in a given period of time is much higher than with my previous (admittedly clunky) setup. And while it is expensive, when I add up all the money I have spent on astrophotography stuff over the years, the price is very competitive!

[@fnersch3367]

Nice evaluation. My Vespera cost USD995 in 2020. My LPF works very good here in Los Angeles, CA. In 3.5 years I have logged over 1000 objects, mostly galaxies. This is a great little scope.

[@aw7425]

We love ours, it’s the best grab and go for short sessions and travel. Clear skies and thanks for the review

[@CapitaineNautilus]

I own a Vespera and I can confirm this scope is amazing. So much fun with it. And it's so small and light that you can easily carry with you on vacation.

[@Styfalled]

That’s cool and all but I feel like would get bored of it because I wouldn’t be doing it myself

[@ziggyfrnds]

Great video as usual! Although I don't really like these new smart telescopes they take the fun out of our hobby. Although by fun I mean countless hours of trying to figure out what's gone wrong with your setup :D

[@AstroLaVista]

Haha so true; for so many the hobby is all about the technical side of things; putting together a rig, getting different bits of equipment working nicely together. The Vespera is the exact opposite, it's hard not to get it to work lol. Better suited to folks that just want to get out under the stars and capture some photons with zero tinkering. As you know ziggy, I'm a tinkerer, but I've been surprised by how much fun I've had with both the Dwarf2 and Vespera. Not to worry though, I've bought another telescope to review, test and tinker with, so back to usual on the next video :) Thanks as always for watching and your support ziggy!

[@Culpano]

Takes the fun out of it ? Exact opposite. Spending ages messing about setting up an EQ rig and then it clouds over. Repeat that multiple times and one ends up giving up imaging at all; Enter Vespera and you can plonk it down and be imaging within ten mins without fuss. Ok you can get better images with EQ rigs but for a lot more effort. Give an image enough integration time with the Vespera and you can get very impressive images. I have imaged more targets with my Vespera in a month than I have in the last three years with my EQ rig. I took it on a plane to Spain last month and was imaging loads of objects whilst sipping wine on hotel balcony. Try doing that with a HEQ-5 mount ! People say its not learning to image properly. Says who ? Don’t tell me I need to learn stuff. I was imaging with a 14” reflector on a home made EQ mount in 1983 as part of a degree !

[@hybrid1608]

Hi Chris, Paul D here if you remember our recent communication. Great review I guess this type of thing is the future but I like many will probably push back a little , yes it's a lot of money but I think we're familiar with this type of cost in our hobby. I think it's likely newer versions will have the "plue" light replaced with red 😁

[@AstroLaVista]

Haha hey Paul, I think my brain was short circuiting with all the words by that point. Bring on the plue light :D I totally get the push back; according to my colleague who has been in astro retail much longer than myself, a similar thing happened when goto mounts were first introduced. Have a great bank holiday Monday and thanks for watching!

[@roncerniglia2824]

Thanks for your thoughtful review! I have pre-ordered the Vespera Pro - let me know your interim thoughts based on the upgrade made to it when you have some time!

[@DronemanJoeRc]

Looks great bud my scope should arrive later next week. I have some celestron scopes and they are awesome but this is going to be my go to scope. I live in the north east of USA and it gets cold in the winter so this is going to be awesome so I dont have to go outside to adjust the scope and just watch on my tablet!!!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@AstroLaVista]

Congrats!The Vespera will be perfect for that; easy to use and good image quality

[@DronemanJoeRc]

@@AstroLaVista how long does it take to charge mine has been charging for 2 hours now and the green light goes off and on? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks again.

[@robi4514]

Very nice test Chris. I think it definitely delivers on its promises, albeit the promises of a 50mm scope! Some nice touches, like sensing the filter attached. I was slightly surprised to see the blue halo given that it’s an APO quadruplet, but perhaps the quadruplet aspect is just to give a flat field, ie: it’s effectively a doublet plus flattener. It’s interesting to see that people generally use very long integrations to tease out the detail, to me it seems to sit somewhere between EAA and traditional imaging. Some folk seem to not like the concept of this kind of device - but even though I am primarily visual, I can definitely see the benefits - what size scope do you need to be able to see M51 as anything other than a hazy blob visually? This little 50mm scope can show detailed spiral structure in a matter of minutes! On a different subject, I recently bought a Celestron Starsense Explorer scope, to try out the technology. What a game changer! Really very impressive and will transform my visual observing. Are you going to do a review at some point?

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks Rob! Yeah, I was a bit surprised by the halos on the brighter stars. I was zoomed in on the test to show this; it's not that bad when viewed at normal scale (pixel peeping :D) From what I can tell, the front two elements are something called fpl52 (which I hadn't heard of before - but gather it sits between fpl51 and fpl53 in terms of refractive index), and that combined with the second lanthanum element helps with both chromatic and spherical aberration. The rear two elements are for flattening the image of course, but I'm guessing these elements are not extra low dispersion so show some colour fringing. From an observing point of view, these smart EAA type scopes really do help get around light pollution for DSO observing. I've seen the cores of M51 with a C8 Edge under Bortle six skies. I'm guessing you would need a great deal more aperture and much darker skies to see anything remotely like what this 50mm portable scope is showing. Some will still argue that you're better off just downloading Hubble images but I think that's a bit like going on holiday by visiting Google maps. Congrats on the new scope Rob! I've only heard good things about Starsense. I do want to review one soon :) Which model did you go for?

[@robi4514]

I went for the bottom of the range 70mm Starsense Explorer. I won’t be using the 70mm scope itself, as I have attached the Starsense to a better scope, but I did test it and it wasn’t actually that bad, as usual it was the mount and tripod that let it down.

[@ronm6585]

Thank you.

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks for watching Ron :)

[@martinbriscoe9439]

thank you Chris, i really enjoy star hopping with my dob having given up on astrophotography several years ago as I did not have the patience for setting everything up, trailing wires around, then having to stop because of clouds or dew then spending hours processing. So a smart camera like this is a huge temptation to run alongside my dob. Hopefully you'll get the chance to review the cheaper end of the Unistellar range soon and maybe other newcomers? Great stuff Martin

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks Martin. A smart telescope does sound like it might be just the thing to scratch the imaging itch without the faff :) So far I've put together some videos on the DwarfII, which is a sub £500 smart telescope. That's become a very good option after a several firmware updates. I will also be doing my best to get my hands on the Seestars s50 when its released :)

[@davidskipsey300]

can you also move the scope manualy?

[@avt_astro206]

Brilliant Review Chris!! These smart Telescope, are Really Cool and In my Opinion Great Innovation indeed. But I'd stick to old school anyway, as Large aperture and the challenge will never Get Old and Obviously you can Get Better images! So Its Definitely not something i would have even in future. They will Definitely be Great For People who are Handicapped or something like that though. Nice images though, That Fish head Nebula really looks like what it is😆.

[@AstroLaVista]

Thank so much Avanteesh! and you've got to love the naming of nebulae :D

[@__WJK__]

Enjoyed the video, thank you! That said, is the Vespra (or other smart telescopes) compatible with VR headsets(!?)

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks! No idea about the VR headset, but it would be cool.

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

Nice review Chris I do agree about these smart telescopes to not having a red light when powered on as it makes no sense to me, & at star parties you definitely won't be popular as I've witnessed it a few times lol. Nice bit of kit but the price is a big issue for me I'm afraid.

[@AstroLaVista]

Many thanks Tich! Hopefully Vaonis will pop a red LED on the next scope they release, or the option to choose the colour in the App. I did have a look and couldn't see this on the Vespera. The Vespera is premium in its feel and experience, but the price ceiling is fast coming down with others stepping into the market; there are smart scopes for most budgets nowadays and in the near future. Cheers for watching mate and have yourself a great bank holiday :)

[@__WJK__]

Wouldn't a well-placed, pennies worth of duct tape or electrical tape, solve this problem(?)

[@DronemanJoeRc]

I got another one for you. I have followed all the steps to capture the sun exactly and its leveled precisely, when the arm goes up it wont point directly at the sun and keeps trying to find the sun. I got down and looked where the arm is pointing and its off by so I manually moved the arm and I shouldn't have done that but I pointed right down the line of sight of the sun and then about a min later it started to autofocus and captured the sun and I got a pic, but thats not how its suppose to work. The scope works great at night to capture alot of objects but the sun Im having a ton of issues. Idk if the scope has a issue with calibration but when I shut it down the arm comes down but doesnt go to close all the way its on a angel pointing down about a 1 inch off center from the home point and then says arm is closed. Very strange and im not sure if I got a faulty unit? what do you think. But like I said until I just moved the arm into the line of sight to the sun it would then capture it but it would just sit there and say locating the sun. Idk im looking for advice before I contact the seller. Let me know what you know and any help. Thanks and Im Joe and an new sub to your channel. Thanks again

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi Joe, can I just double check the steps with you to be sure. 1) once levelled and connected tap solar mode on the app 2) The arm goes out allowing you to attach the solar filter then press continue which prompts the arm to go back down to the closed position 3) This is the critical part - line up the Sun using the gap between the arms, if you're off target it will hunt around for ages 4) Press the button on the app to find and focus on the Sun. If you are doing these steps and getting the Sun reasonably well lined up in the gap and it isn't working it might be worth having a word with your Vendor or Vaonis. I had to send my review model back to Vaonis but I'm fairly sure the arm closed fully so it might be worth checking that with Vaonis also. Sorry I didn't spot your reply straight the way, hopefully you might have it sorted out. Cheers

[@stevebbdotcom]

Great review, covered everything I was hoping to see - I seriously hope Vaonis donate the Vespera 2 for you to evaluate. I would love to hear your conclusions as a comparison Chris :)

[@AstroLaVista]

Thanks Steve, I hope so :)

[@DaysSpentWell]

Just curious and thinking in my mind about this. What if the software is all connected to a database of photos and when you tell the scope to go to a certain object in the sky, it retrieves the pictures and show that picture to you.

[@AstroLaVista]

Are there any other things that you believe not to be not true? E.g the Earth being round or that we went to the Moon?

[@DaysSpentWell]

@@AstroLaVista It was just my speculations. It's also in my Amazon cart. I'm researching it before I buy it. I have the Celestron NexStar 8SE and I absolutely love it. Does it have a live view? I want to be able to see planets like jupiter, mars, and the moon live and have the capability to have timelapse photos. That'll make or break the deal on whether I buy it or not.

[@AstroLaVista]

@@DaysSpentWell All smart telescopes including the Vespera inherently have a short focal length and small aperture which is far from ideal for viewing/imaging the planets. You would be much better off popping a planetary imaging camera into your 8SE. Your Celestron 8SE has a large aperture and 2032mm focal length giving good image scale and detail on the planets and close ups of the Moon. Planetary cameras plug into your laptop via USB so you can both capture and live view images using SharpCap (Free to download). Much better to opt for a planetary camera E.g. www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-585mc-usb-3-camera/ref/astrolavista/ I would only choose a smart telescope for easy no fuss captures of deep sky objects.

[@DaysSpentWell]

@@AstroLaVista This is the kind of information I was digging for. Thank you.

[@jbmatey3072]

Great info ... if it’s that good ... are you going to buy one ??? ...

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi JB, thank you :) I'm fortunate working in Astronomy retail, I can borrow one once my colleague is finished with it, and we are encouraged to do so because learning the equipment inside and out helps us to better advise customers. When Vaonis approached me I mentioned this, however they were quite happy to send me one to review all the same. Otherwise I'm not sure? I very much like the Vespera and think its a well executed product, but I'm just not affluent enough to buy everything I like. I have just bought a budget telescope which I will be reviewing and tinkering with next. My channel is mainly focused on the budget end of things on the whole :)

[@DumfriesDik]

I’m a noob to astrophotography and recently received my D2. The quick and easy set up of smart telescopes makes it very accessible. I would love to see a size and weight comparison as I travel. Cheers.

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Richard, totally agree, the D2 is fantastic for the price and super portable. I don't think you can beat the Dwarf2 for portability. The experience and image quality of the Vespera is better, but it's diminishing returns; you pay a lot more for this. You can see the DwarfII and Vespera side by side at the end of the following video (12minutes 15seconds in): kzbin.info/www/bejne/o56oonVjiJyDp7s The Vespera is now back with Vaonis so I can't unfortunately do any side by sides comparisons.

[@DumfriesDik]

@@AstroLaVista good spot sir!

[@actudoran]

well, I mean if you get an AVX mount, a doublet apo with field flattener, an entry level camera uncooled .... you might get it all for less but not much less ... and it would miss all the niceties of the app 😅 are all options ridiculously expensive ?

[@AstroLaVista]

Hey Alex, the Vespera (now at £1,749) really isn't as expensive as it first appears when you look at it this way, and the software de rotation makes up a lot for the lack of Equatorial mount. Also the Vespera is more portable. However, the Vespera is made in France and it's going to be hard for them to complete with the relatively low overheads of Chinese companies E.g. the Dwarf2 by Dwarflabs is sub 500 and although the specs are lower it does a fantastic job for the price. Also ZWO have jumped aboard and are bringing out the Seestars s50 in August. It has similar specs to the Vespera on the face of things for a fraction of the price. It boggles my mind how they're able to bring it to market at such a low price but we'll have to wait and see how it does. All I can say is the Vespera works really very well and feels like an apple product in terms of design and build, so I'm personally not going to knock it for its relative price. Thanks for watching Alex :)

[@actudoran]

@@AstroLaVista yes I wasn't comparing it to the dwarflab 2 since that's more of a very beginner friendly and very portable setup... Eli hope you get a chance to review the zwo seestars 50 as the apperture will definitely be a great step forward as compared to the dwarflab and also the focal length will allow it to take similar scale pics to the more traditional gear used in Astrophotography. if I were to build something similar to those aturomated scopes I'd probably go with Rokinon/Samyang f1.8 135 and use the internal focusing mechanism and pair it to say a 585 with a choice of 3 filters and as for solar a good glass cap for white light ... sunspot detection type of thing. OFC it would not be cheap.... just the lens is 1k ... I am playing with a Samyang 135 F2 to get it to work properly with the 585 ... my stars are puffy in spite of getting good focus with the bathimov mask so it must be some spacing issue ... once sorted ... it's likely staying on permanent duty on my mount ;o) the mosaic feature is a huge addition to the capabilities of such system. well worth the effort they put in the software!

[@JohnMark61355]

At this point in time, the question is whether the Vespera is three times better than the ZWO SeeStar.

[@AstroLaVista]

The only thing holding the Seestars back is the narrow portrait field of view. Hopefully ZWO will add a mosaic mode like the Vespera to get around this.

[@aapddd]

Does it do planets ? Like Jupiter ?

[@AstroLaVista]

Yes, but they will look small at just 200mm focal length

[@aapddd]

@@AstroLaVista is it better to go for a Celestron nexstar 8 with go to ? My main goal is to go for planets and objects like the andromeda galaxy.

[@Telescope83726]

Can this telescope see planets good?

[@RobotSnake]

No. No smart scope can at this point. They are better for lunar, solar and DSO's like galaxies and nebulas.

[@woottio]

Maybe a editing video on gimp.

[@AstroLaVista]

Hi there. I do have one image processing tutorial on GIMP which might be worth a look: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ip2XephvZ7KoitU I've learnt a couple of extra tricks since then, so I will make an updated version soon

[@MM0IMC]

I used to have a Vespa PX125 moped. Oh sorry, I thought you were talking about scooters! 😮😂

[@AstroLaVista]

Ah I see what you did there ;)

[@paulcontursi5982]

Very good review but I'm afraid I have no interest in a product like this. If I want to look at great astro images on a screen, there are plenty of those already on line, captured with the best ground based and space based asset - and I can look at them free of charge! I'm afraid I'm old fashioned amateur astronomer who likes to look at the sky with lenses and mirrors, which is a different experience. Moreover, for the same price, I can get a dobsonian scope with a huge aperture or a mid-sized Maksutov Cassegrain like my 6 inch Orion.

[@AstroLaVista]

Each to their own Paul :)

[@denodan]

Don't think it will be much better then Seestar, same sensor, same aperture. The only advantage of the Vespera, is software is more mature, but out of the box, the Seestar app is already better than when Vespera first came out, Give it 12 months and the Seestar software will be miles better, and has the advantage can replace with off the shelf Lipo batteries

[@AstroLaVista]

Maybe? Especially if ZWO add mosaic mode. Exciting times!

[@i_hate_google_]

Snake oil that's what this is, for that money you can buy a superior telescope, where the optics alone out perform this !!!!! Also it's priceless looking trough the eyepiece seeing light that raveled the vastness of space for you to see !!!

[@LD-bv1pm]

I hear horses and carriages are coming back too.