With the current health crisis hitting most aspects of people's lives, many have turned to new hobbies that suit social distancing and staying at home.
Stargazing and amateur astronomy are two activities to benefit[1] from people's enforced isolation, with lockdowns across the globe leading to an increase in people observing the night skies and a rise in sales of astronomical instruments.
But despite the attraction of these activities, some people have found the use of traditional telescopes hard work, especially those who are new to amateur astronomy. It's a problem that a young French company is trying to tackle.
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Vaonis, a Montpellier-based startup[3] founded in 2016 and specializing in the production of astronomical instruments, recently launched its newest device, Vespera. It's a cross between a smart telescope and a camera and is expected to cost about $1,500.
In October, the company launched a 30-day pre-order campaign and managed to attract $2.5m in worldwide billing, making Vespera the most-funded project[4] in the category of space exploration and the most-funded tech or hardware project in France.
Vespera's app lets an astronomer control the telescope from their smartphone to select and home in on the celestial object they want to observe. The telescope will then point at the object and track it.
Vaonis says apart from the device's automatic pointing and tracking system, it also employs intelligent and powerful image processing with autofocus. Vespera calibrates itself using its owner's phone GPS and the company's star-recognition technology.
During the quarantine, the French company saw the number of orders, uses, and shared photos created using its devices more than double. Aiming to shake up the field, Vaonis has also teamed