Vaonis Vespera II Review: Premium Smart Telescope Tested

This Vespera 2 review looks at the Vaonis Vespera II, the smart telescope that pushed the “point, tap and watch a nebula appear on your phone” idea into serious value-for-money territory. It replaced the original Vespera while costing noticeably less at launch, and it has become one of the default recommendations for anyone who wants deep-sky astrophotography without learning polar alignment, stacking software or collimation. We looked at what it does well, where it falls short, and who should buy it instead of a traditional scope.

Worth flagging up front: Vaonis has since announced newer models in the range. The Vespera II remains widely sold and is the sweet spot for most first-time buyers, but if you want the very latest optics it is worth checking what is current before you commit.

What the Vespera II actually is

The Vespera II is an automated imaging telescope, not an eyepiece telescope. You do not look through it. Instead it slews to a target you pick in the Singularity app, takes a stream of short exposures, and stacks them live so the image on your phone or tablet gets cleaner and more detailed the longer you leave it. Ten minutes on a nebula that looks like a faint grey smudge in a normal beginner scope can come back as a coloured, structured image here.

It is small and genuinely portable. The unit weighs about 5 kg, folds into a rounded pebble shape, and runs off an internal battery for roughly four hours per charge. Set-up is a case of levelling it on a tripod, opening the app, and letting it find its bearings from the sky. There is no finderscope, no manual focusing and no alignment star routine.

Optics and sensor

Under the shell is a 50mm f/5 quadruplet apochromatic refractor with a 250mm focal length, using extra-low dispersion glass to keep stars tight and colour fringing down. Fifty millimetres of aperture is modest, so this is a wide-field deep-sky instrument, not a planetary powerhouse. Expect nebulae, galaxies, star clusters and large targets like the Andromeda Galaxy or the Orion Nebula rather than detailed close-ups of Jupiter or Saturn.

The camera is the bigger upgrade over the first Vespera. It uses a Sony IMX585 sensor at 8.3 megapixels (3840 x 2160) with 2.9-micron pixels, a big jump from the original 2-megapixel chip. Native field of view is about 2.5 by 1.4 degrees, roughly five Moon-widths across, which is why wide targets frame so well.

Vaonis’s CovalENS mosaic mode is the party trick. It captures and merges a wider area than the sensor sees natively, producing images up to 24 megapixels across a field of about 4.33 by 2.43 degrees at 2.39 arcseconds per pixel. In practice that means you can frame sprawling objects that would not fit in a single shot.

Living with it: the app and real results

Everything runs through the Singularity app, which connects to the telescope’s own 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. You browse a catalogue of tonight’s best targets, tap one, and watch. Multiple people can connect to the same session, which makes it good for showing family or a group. There is 25GB of internal storage for your captures, and you can pull the raw and processed files off afterwards.

Light pollution is the usual killer for deep-sky viewing, and this is where a smart scope earns its keep. Live stacking plus optional CLS or dual-band filters lets the Vespera II pull galaxies and nebulae out of skies where a traditional scope would show almost nothing. It is not magic (truly dark skies still give better results) but city-bound observers get images they simply could not capture with a beginner reflector.

The trade-offs are real. Battery life of about four hours limits a long imaging night unless you carry a power bank. The tripod is not included with the base unit (the Vespera II Pack bundles one), so budget for that. And because it is an imaging tool, there is no live “eyepiece” experience for purists who want to actually peer at the Moon.

Who should buy the Vespera II

Buy it if you want deep-sky astrophotography with almost no learning curve, you value portability, or you observe from a light-polluted town and want results anyway. It is also a strong pick for people who are time-poor: you can have an image building within a couple of minutes of stepping outside.

Skip it if your main interest is planets and the Moon (a traditional scope with more aperture does that better for less money), if you specifically want to look through an eyepiece, or if your budget is tight and a manual beginner scope would teach you the sky more cheaply.

For the wider picture, see our guide to the best smart telescopes in the UK and our explainer on smart telescopes explained. If you are still deciding between this and a manual scope, read smart telescope vs traditional telescope. You can check the full technical specification on the official Vaonis Vespera II page.

Frequently asked questions

What can you see with the Vespera II? Deep-sky objects are its strength: nebulae, galaxies, star clusters and large targets like the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy. With its 50mm aperture and wide field it is not designed for detailed views of planets or the Moon, so plan around galaxies and nebulae rather than the Solar System.

Do you look through the Vespera II like a normal telescope? No. There is no eyepiece. It captures images and stacks them live on your phone or tablet through the Singularity app, so the “viewing” happens on your screen. If you want to physically peer through a telescope, a traditional scope is the better choice.

Is the Vespera II good for beginners? Yes. It removes the hardest parts of astrophotography (alignment, focusing, stacking software) and produces coloured deep-sky images within minutes of setting up. That makes it one of the easiest ways to start imaging, though a manual scope teaches you the sky more directly.

Does the Vespera II work in a light-polluted city? Reasonably well. Live stacking and optional CLS or dual-band filters let it pull galaxies and nebulae out of skies where a manual beginner scope would show almost nothing. Truly dark skies still give better results, but city observers can capture images they otherwise could not.

Does the Vespera II come with a tripod? Not with the base unit. The tripod is optional and is bundled in the Vespera II Pack, so if you buy the telescope on its own you will need to add a compatible tripod before you can use it.

How long does the Vespera II battery last? The internal battery gives roughly four hours per charge. For a longer imaging session you can run it from a USB power bank, which is worth carrying if you plan to stay out past a couple of hours.