Cyril Dupuy, the founding father of sensible telescope maker Vaonis, has set a brand new report by capturing Europe’s highest-altitude picture of the solar with one of many firm’s telescopes throughout an expedition to scale Mont Blanc earlier this yr.
VESPERA SMART TELESCOPE
Eager to see sunspots or far-off galaxies? The Vaonis Vespera is a brilliant telescope for newbie astronomers. For a extra indepth look, learn our review of the telescope.
Dupuy set off with a cohort of three astronomy fans on April 29 to start a grueling two-day climb up the slopes of the well-known Mont Blanc mountain, positioned within the Alps bordering Italy and France. Carried alongside the standard mountaineering provisions was a peculiar merchandise— a Vaonis’ Vespera Pro smart telescope.
“Climbing a mountain and exploring the sky share the identical spirit: a drive to rise above,” mentioned Dupuy in a press release detailing the difficult ascent. “The mountaineer defies gravity; the astronomer appears to be like up. Each search to achieve the unreachable.”
The smartphone-controlled Vaonis’ Vespera Professional sensible telescope has a easy outward design, eschewing the usage of conventional eyepieces whereas that includes a single contact delicate button on its pill-like outer shell. Urgent that button wakes the telescope up, prompting one aspect of its pill-like physique to rotate upwards to disclose a technological eye designed to seize the planets, stars and deep-sky objects that populate the universe.
Dupuy’s objective was to forge a path to the mountain’s summit — some 4,806 meters (15,767 ft) above sea level — the place he would arrange the Vespera Professional to seize a high-altitude picture of the solar’s ever altering floor. The workforce additionally hoped to make use of the telescope’s excessive decision sensor to seize mild from the distant Malin 1 galaxy, positioned roughly 1.2 billion light-years from Earth.
“Impressed by the Janssen Observatory constructed atop Mont Blanc within the late nineteenth century, I made a decision to observe in trailblazer Jules Janssen’s footsteps and seize from the Alpine skies a singular picture of the sun in addition to the biggest identified spiral galaxy, a nod to Janssen’s analysis – although this time armed with Twenty first-century know-how,” continued Dupuy.
Every member of the workforce shouldered a 35 lb (16 kg) backpack — together with the compact 11 lb (5 kg) sensible telescope — and set themselves towards the freezing mountain slopes. Finally, a harmful snow bridge would put pay to Dupuy’s bid for the summit, main the workforce to deploy the Vespera Professional telescope near the well-known Vallot shelter, 14,100 ft (4,300 meters) above sea degree.
From this lofty vantage level, Dupuy was in a position to efficiently seize the floor of our mum or dad star in spectacular element, capturing a cluster of sunspots type on the western fringe of the solar’s disk, 93 million miles (150 million km) away. The workforce additionally captured the faint mild of Malin 1, together with a swarm of different galaxies that share the identical patch of sky between the constellations Virgo, Leo and Coma Berenices.
You should definitely try our guides to the best smart telescopes available in 2025, which features a vary of Vespera sensible scopes together with the Vaonis Vespera II, which we lauded as a cheap newbie telescope able to producing wonderful deep-sky pictures.