60 ASTRONOMY • AUGUST 2020
This clever device
will capture celestial
portraits even through
light-polluted skies.
BY RAYMOND SHUBINSKI
Meet an easy-to-use
imaging scope
I HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY
to use a variety of astronomical equipment,
including telescopes at Kitt Peak National
Observatory, Percival Lowell’s 24-inch
refractor at Lowell Observatory, and just
about every kind of amateur scope you can
imagine. But the STELLINA observation
station, made by the French company
Vaonis, is unique. I first encountered
STELLINA and the CEO of Vaonis,
Cyril Dupuy, at the 2018 CES electronics
trade show in Las Vegas.Scope? Imager?
At first glance, it’s hard to tell that
STELLINA is a piece of astronomical
equipment. In its shutdown mode, it looks
like a small monolithic lump of plastic and
metal. When activated, however, it quickly
comes to life. With a bit of a whirring
noise, the center section begins to elevate
and the whole unit rotates to start its
observing sequence. I wasn’t sure if I was
looking at something from Star Wars or a
miniature of a scope from Mauna Kea. I
commented at the show that it looked like
R2-D2, and was told that Vaonis preferred
EVE from the movie WA L L - E.
The idea behind STELLINA, which is
Italian for “little star,” is to approach
observing in a different way than the
norm. It has no eyepiece holder or any
other parts associated with a typical ama-
teur telescope. In fact, it is really a sophis-
ticated astroimager or dedicated sky
camera. In an interview at the 2018 CES
show, Dupuy said the observation station
“is a completely new generation of tele-
scope, and with this product, the goal is
to make astronomy more accessible for
everybody.” We live in an age of connec-
tivity, and STELLINA may be the nextSTELLINA is an imaging
telescope that captures and
stacks exposures to create
ever-more-detailed celestial
images. COURTESY OF VAONIS