Skip to main content

Stellina smart telescope on sale exclusively through Museum of Modern Art

“The goal of this project is to make astronomy more accessible to everyone,” said Vaonis CEO Cyril Dupus. “We can easily take wonderful pictures with drones, and with GoPro, but nothing exists to take pictures of the universe. So we have created it.”

He’s talking about the latest addition to the telescope family — Stellina. While traditional telescopes can be difficult to use and install, Stellina offers up a simple, more user-friendly way to gaze into the heavens.

Recommended Videos

Introduced back in January at CES 2018, the Stellina is now on sale exclusively at The Museum of Modern Art. In honor of NYCxDesign — New York’s annual celebration of design — Vaonis partnered with MoMa to sell only ten units to customers within the U.S. as part of the company’s pre-launch.

But you can still reserve your own Stellina from the company’s website. With a price tag of $3,000, this smart telescope may be out of reach for the average consumer, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. The device is expected to officially launch worldwide this coming fall.

With app connectivity — available on iOS with Android coming soon — this new-age telescope makes collecting gorgeous images of the stars easier than ever before. All you have to do is set up its tripod, press the power button, and choose from hundreds of suggestions directly from your smartphone. It only takes a few seconds for Stellina to position itself, take a picture, and send the image directly to your phone or computer. From there, you can share these photos on Facebook or Twitter, or just save them for a rainy day.

Take a look at a few of the images Stellina has already taken:

Stellina is also very compact. With its lightweight design, you can slip this telescope into a backpack, head to a remote location, and take wonderful pictures of the night sky. No matter where you travel, you’ll always be able to save your favorite images and share the beauty of the stars with the ones you love.

“There is no eyepiece, because with an eyepiece, you have to observe alone,” said Cyril Dupus, speaking of the connectivity Stellina provides.

Update: A limited supply of the Vaonis Stellina is now on sale exclusively through The Museum of Modern Art

Brenda Stolyar
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brenda became obsessed with technology after receiving her first Dell computer from her grandpa in the second grade. While…
See the majestic Southern Pinwheel Galaxy in this Dark Energy Camera image
Twelve million light-years away lies the galactic masterpiece Messier 83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. Its swirling spiral arms display a high rate of star formation and host six detected supernovae. This image was captured with the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

An image from the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) shows a striking celestial sight: the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, a gorgeous face-on galaxy that is one of the closest and brightest barred spiral galaxies in the sky. Also known as Messier 83, the galaxy is bright enough that it can even be seen with binoculars, but this image from a 4-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope shows the kind of stunning detail that can be picked out using a powerful instrument.

"This image shows Messier 83’s well-defined spiral arms, filled with pink clouds of hydrogen gas where new stars are forming," explains NOIRLab from the National Science Foundation, which released the image. "Interspersed amongst these pink regions are bright blue clusters of hot, young stars whose ultraviolet radiation has blown away the surrounding gas. At the galaxy’s core, a yellow central bulge is composed of older stars, and a weak bar connects the spiral arms through the center, funneling gas from the outer regions toward the core. DECam’s high sensitivity captures Messier 83’s extended halo, and myriad more distant galaxies in the background."

Read more
Watch SpaceX fire up Starship spacecraft engines ahead of 7th test flight
SpaceX performing a static fire test of its Starship rocket in December 2024.

SpaceX has shared a video (below) showing a static fire test of its Starship spacecraft at the spaceflight company’s Starbase site near Boca Chica, Texas.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1868436135468552361

Read more
Watch the space station send the first wooden satellite into orbit
Japan's LignoSat being deployed from the ISS.

The world’s first wooden satellite has been deployed to Earth orbit from the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS Research X account posted footage of a trio of CubeSats, including Japan’s LignoSat, recently emerging from the orbital outpost into the vacuum of space.

https://x.com/ISS_Research/status/1867711109983039958

Read more