Hyperia $52,000 !!!

[iantaylor2uk]

Any takers for this?

https://www.space.com/vaonis-hyperia-telescope

To be honest I would think a 10micron mount and a 120 Tak would be much better (and considerably cheaper)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pixies]

"... committed to making the exploration of the universe accessible to everyone," Vaonis founder Cyris Dupuy said

Hmmm 🤔

[F15Rules]

...I'll have two please.. (anti - heart failure pills, that is!!) 😱😁

Dave

[skyhog]

"Anchored to the ground".... What else is going to be anchored to🤔

 

 

 

 

[Louis D]

1 hour ago, Pixies said:

"... committed to making the exploration of the universe accessible to everyone," Vaonis founder Cyris Dupuy said

Hmmm 🤔

Exactly my thought as well.  Everyone with deep pockets?  I'm wondering who is funding these guys.  Do they really have enough sales to be profitable?

[tooth_dr]

Acquisition is (relatively) easy, it's the processing.  I was going to ask about processing as they have posted a few 6-7 hours images on the website taken with the scope. But upon reading more, apparently the scope can process the data too.  What is there left for the user?

Edited September 22, 2021 by tooth_dr
Edited to amend

[doublevodka]

It's very pretty to be fair, designed for the crowd that have multiple holiday homes / lottery winners etc though I think at that price

This "... committed to making the exploration of the universe accessible to everyone," Vaonis founder Cyris Dupuy said" is your typical business blue sky thinking

That said, they do now have a cheaper option coming https://vaonis.com/vespera and they cheaper they get the more sense that statement will make, I can see it becoming a popular option for casual imagers at that price, maybe even lower as time goes on

[Lee_P]

I'll put something together for them for a mere $51,000  😆

[CraigT82]

So its a 6" f/7 triplet (lets say £5k for that), on a direct drive alt az mount (lets say £10k for that) and an IMX455 mono sensor wth an integrated filter wheel?  (lets say another £5k for that).

 

So that's about £20k worth of kit for only £38k!  Where do I sign up?!

 

[Zermelo]

3 hours ago, skyhog said:

"Anchored to the ground".... What else is going to be anchored to🤔

 

 

 

 

For that kind of money, I'd expect it to come with at least a dozen decent sky hooks

[Pompey Monkey]

2 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Acquisition is (relatively) easy, it's the processing.  I was going to ask about processing as they have posted a few 6-7 hours images on the website taken with the scope. But upon reading more, apparently the scope can process the data too.  What is there left for the user?

I'm not 100% convinced that those pictures were even taken with that device. All it says on the Vaonis site is 150 mm scope, integration time, and IMX 455 sensor...

[Andrew_B]

4 hours ago, iantaylor2uk said:

Any takers for this?

https://www.space.com/vaonis-hyperia-telescope

To be honest I would think a 10micron mount and a 120 Tak would be much better (and considerably cheaper)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 10 Micron mount and a Tak 120 would still require you to research and buy all the other stuff then spend what could be a long time getting it set up. That effort is only free if your time is worth nothing and much as I enjoy astrophotography, the truth is there's an awful lot of messing around in the hobby that gets in the way of actually taking photos.

There's a reason the traditional camera market is almost dead when I can take a photo with my smartphone that's better than any compact camera was in the days of film, then quickly edit it on the phone and save / upload / share it instantly. Compare that to using a standard digital camera then having to wait until I get home to save images from the SD card onto my computer then load them into editing software, etc, and there's no comparison in terms of ease of use, time saved, and convenience.

A lot of astrophotography is way more complex than it needs to be and the best thing the equipment can do is to get out of the way of the user.

[CraigT82]

Nah... I love messing with the kit. Keeps me busy under perpetual cloud.

[tooth_dr]

It’s only really worth it if you put in the effort and time.  Nice toy though and I would definitely buy a couple if I won the euromillions, to put in my two holiday homes.

[Astro Noodles]

If you have more money than sense, and you're one of those people that craves instant gratification, then I'm sure it is the ideal product. Much like their other offerings. I enjoy the process of learning and the results are only satisfying if I have put in the effort to achieve them. I suspect that I'm far from alone.

It's an expensive toy, and it will be no better than a £200 Skywatcher Newtonian for learning astronomy with. No effort = no reward.

[Alien 13]

5 hours ago, skyhog said:

"Anchored to the ground".... What else is going to be anchored to🤔

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately very few scope mounts are anchored to the ground ie with bolts etc, even concrete mounted piers often miss out by having threaded adjustment rods that effectively decouple the mount from the scope.

Alan 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Alien 13

[Louis D]

You definitely don't want to jump up and down on the ground anywhere near a telescope coupled to the ground when being used at high powers.  I did an experiment with my daughter once where I focused on a planet or star (I can't remember which) and had her walk away up to about 50 feet and jump up and down at each distance.  The amplitude of the vibrations definitely went down as distance increased, but I could still see the impact it had on the image.  It's wild just how well the ground transmits impulses of energy.

[skyhog]

13 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

Unfortunately very few scope mounts are anchored to the ground ie with bolts etc, even concrete mounted piers often miss out by having threaded adjustment rods that effectively decouple the mount from the scope.

Alan 

Without getting into an debate centred on semantics, how do you decouple a scope from the mount? Genuine question.. 

[doublevodka]

14 hours ago, Andrew_B said:

A 10 Micron mount and a Tak 120 would still require you to research and buy all the other stuff then spend what could be a long time getting it set up. That effort is only free if your time is worth nothing and much as I enjoy astrophotography, the truth is there's an awful lot of messing around in the hobby that gets in the way of actually taking photos.

There's a reason the traditional camera market is almost dead when I can take a photo with my smartphone that's better than any compact camera was in the days of film, then quickly edit it on the phone and save / upload / share it instantly. Compare that to using a standard digital camera then having to wait until I get home to save images from the SD card onto my computer then load them into editing software, etc, and there's no comparison in terms of ease of use, time saved, and convenience.

A lot of astrophotography is way more complex than it needs to be and the best thing the equipment can do is to get out of the way of the user.

Some excellent points there and it's good to see a manufacturer pushing the boundaries of automation, even if it is eye wateringly expensive

The thing that frustrates me about astro kit is it's generally way behind the current technology

As far as I'm aware (and welcome to be wrong) no one has developed a fully automatic EQ mount and the question is why? Motors are cheap, camera sensors can also be cheap so why can't we buy a mount that you set down and it automatically aligns the RA axis to the NCP and then the scope to the sky? Surely it can't be that hard?

The closest I've seen so far is the Meade Lightswitch - https://www.meadeuk.com/Meade-LightSwitch-LS-ACF-telescopes.html but then it's AltAz and not everyone wants an SCT

Yes you can add on cameras and use software etc, but there's still an amount of manual work involved that I suspect the big manufacturers could easily solve

Ok everyone might not like Vaonis products or costs, but personally I think it's nice to see a bit of innovation going on 👍

I'm with @tooth_dr on this one, it's gone on the euromillions list 😉

[paulastro]

I've already penned an email to Peter Drew at The Astronomy Centre to ask if we can buy one.  I'm waiting with baited breath in expectation of a positive response 😄.

Edited September 23, 2021 by paulastro

[teoria_del_big_bang]

1 minute ago, paulastro said:

I've already penned an email to Peter Drew at The Astronomy Centre to ask if we can buy one.  I'm waiting with baited breath in expectation of a pisitive response 😄.

What a great idea after all, from my experience this year sunny Yorkshire is a perfect place for that sort of investment 🤣

Steve

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

An expensive toy for the rich to keep on their patio. I don't think selling the missus' car to pay for one of those would go down well!

 

[Louis D]

55 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

I don't think selling the missus' car to pay for one of those would go down well!

No need to.  Just raid the retirement account. 😉

[Andrew_B]

6 hours ago, doublevodka said:

Some excellent points there and it's good to see a manufacturer pushing the boundaries of automation, even if it is eye wateringly expensive

The thing that frustrates me about astro kit is it's generally way behind the current technology

As far as I'm aware (and welcome to be wrong) no one has developed a fully automatic EQ mount and the question is why? Motors are cheap, camera sensors can also be cheap so why can't we buy a mount that you set down and it automatically aligns the RA axis to the NCP and then the scope to the sky? Surely it can't be that hard?

The closest I've seen so far is the Meade Lightswitch - https://www.meadeuk.com/Meade-LightSwitch-LS-ACF-telescopes.html but then it's AltAz and not everyone wants an SCT

Yes you can add on cameras and use software etc, but there's still an amount of manual work involved that I suspect the big manufacturers could easily solve

Ok everyone might not like Vaonis products or costs, but personally I think it's nice to see a bit of innovation going on 👍

I'm with @tooth_dr on this one, it's gone on the euromillions list 😉

Very good point about how primitive mounts are.

Thinking about an app like Star Walk, it can show me a map of what's in the sky above me using the various sensors in my smartphone. It might not be pinpoint accuracy but it should do a good enough job of knowing the location of the celestial pole that the same basic technology could be applied to a mount to let it auto-align. I'm sure there are other methods that would work and the hardware to do it wouldn't be expensive in the context of a decent EQ mount.

Like you say, the current systems all require much more human intervention than is really necessary and take time to set up that could be better used doing actual imaging, especially during the summer months when nights are so short to begin with. Even though I wouldn't buy this product and it wouldn't appeal to many on here the ideas behind it are solid and could be applied to other equipment without necessarily creating such a tightly integrated and rather limited system.

[Louis D]

It seems like a natural move for more mounts to integrate smartphones as Celestron has done with their StarSense system.  Between cameras for plate solving and various sensors and cell tower triagulation, it should be straight forward to figure out where you're pointing, where you are on earth, know the exact time of day, and show you star charts and object info.  As such, it would help to keep down the cost of a computerized mount by not having to duplicate all of these things that you already have in your pocket.