Vaonis Hestia ZDNET's key takeaways The Vaonis Hestia is a smartphone telescope device that retails for $300. The Hestia does well at capturing detailed photos of planets and the stars, and an intuitive app helps guide you. It is an expensive device that takes some getting used to, and the better smartphone camera you have, the better quality photos you will get. $299 at B&H Photo-Video Amidst all the doomscrolling, TV binging, and overworking, we've forgotten to look up at the sky every once in a while. I've made it a point to do so when I received a telescope as a birthday present last year, and it's changed the way I look at life. The telescope I got was a $300 tabletop device, and while it's great for seeing the craters on the moon or even Saturn's faint rings with your own eyes, taking a photo using it is less than ideal. Recently, however, I got a chance to to try out Vaonis' Hestia smartphone telescope -- a device designed to solve this very problem. The Hestia isn't really a telescope at all, but it aligns your smartphone camera with its ocular to collect and focus the light directly into your smartphone's camera sensor. A six-lens optical design featuring a 30mm objective and 25x magnification allows you to see the planets and stars through the lens of your smartphone (you can check out the list of compatible phones on the company's website), making the sky accessible to anyone. Setting it up is easy enough, as it weighs less than two pounds and attaches easily to a tripod. It works with any smartphone -- just align your phone's main camera onto the Hesita and secure it in place. What really makes the sky come alive is Hestia's free app, Gravity. Also: New photographer? Here's the camera I recommend (and no, it's not a Sony) This well-designed app shows you a map of the sky, allowing you to pick a planet or a star cluster, and uses your phone's GPS to guide you where to aim the device so you can capture a photo. There are different camera "modes" you can choose from, like scenery, sun, moon, deep sky, and planet. I had already dabbled in night sky photography with my tabletop telescope, so I was looking forward to pitting the Hestia against the results I got from a regular telescope and my iPhone 16. As with any type of photography, it takes some playing around with to learn how to best capture the moon. Focusing can be a hit or a miss with the Hestia But once I was able to understand the app and camera modes, the photos I captured were out of this world. Allison Murray/ZDNET I took a photo of the moon on two separate occasions, and the Hestia does a fantastic job at capturing the moon's craters, contrast, and minute details. Allison Murray/ZDNET And for the deep sky setting, the Hestia stacks together multiple long exposures to build one single image. I pointed up at a star cluster and was actually able to capture little specs of stars on a photo–something that I wasn't even close to being able to do with my iPhone on my regular telescope. Allison Murray/ZDNET However, this device is solely for taking pictures, and while you can still see the stars and moon through your phone, there is something uniquely special about looking through a real telescope lens and seeing the moon up close. In fact, the first time I used my telescope to look at the full moon, tears were brought to my eyes having never seen the moon this close before. Also: My 5 must-have gadgets for off-grid adventures In addition, keep in mind that your smartphone's camera quality will affect the overall quality of photos you are able to take with the Hestia. But if you're someone interested in photography or simply capturing moments in the sky, the Hestia is actually a worthwhile device that does a stellar job at taking photos of the night sky that we so often take for granted. ZDNET's buying advice For around the same price as a decent tabletop telescope, you can buy the Hestia if you're main goal is taking photos of the night sky. The app does a great job of guiding you to the right location to capture a detailed photo. If you're looking to dip your toes into photography and want to capture and share photos, the Hestia is worth checking out. It retails for $300 for the bundle that includes a tripod, a carry case, and a dust cover. But you can also purchase it for as little as $189, depending on what accessories you may want.