Sky Scout any good

[mark993]

Hi all i was just wondering does anyone have the Celestron Sky Scout (or similar) and is it any good?

[Doc]

BrantuK (Kim) has one, I'm sure he will be along shortly.

[Psychobilly]

I bought a Meade MySky when they first came out to use with a Pair of 25x100's hardly ever got used due to GPS issues which Meade fixed by disabling the GPS functionality - Nice one "blue" ...

These days I just use Google sky on a £99 Orange San Fransisco...which also does a hell of a lot more.... Poalr Finder, GPS, Mappign, Heaven Above, Music Player etc etc...

[Kai]

I find that technology has move on and as Pete says above use either my Iphone or Pad depending whats to hand.

[brantuk]

The SkyScout is a very good intro to practical observing/astronomy for kids, but for an adult the knowledge you gain doing astronomy will soon outstrip it's usefulness. It lets you point at an object and identify it, or choose an object and guide you to it's position in the sky. We use ours if we have trouble identifying stuff for alignment - which gets less and less as our sky knowledge grows. Also - it doesn't magnify - it's a viewer only.

There's a couple of disks you can put in that gives an orated guide to the sky (in an american accent lol) but it's all just a little more than basic stuff. It's also very twitchy near anything metalic or overhead power lines etc. The gps can't get a lock on unless you're totally clear of metal (including buldings, caravans, cars, and telescopes). Not many places I find it useable really.

When it came out it was £400 and soon dropped to around £200 on offer with free disks sometimes. You can get them around £100 second hand now. It can be used as a finder scope on the Celestron "special" telescope ("special" meaning mostly plastic or shielded). It can also be used as a "gps add on" for Celestron goto scopes. But as mentioned above - it's now superceded by technology in mobile phones, netbooks, and tablet computers.

It would be a smashing birthday or Xmas pressie for a young teenager just starting out in astronomy, so long as you buy them a huge field to go with it lol.

Hope that helps.

[Arushin]

Hi,

I have had a Skyscout since they first came out and was so impressed that we bought one for my father-in-law.

Great as an introduction to the night sky but to be honest, it doesn't come out very often now.

Pros: Useful and entertaining for a novice without a telescope.

Easy to use

Keeps my 5 year old happy while I am out with the scope

Free updates available

Cons: Eats batteries

As Brantuk rightly pointed out, even when updated, it is outdone by some free android aps

Can sometimes take forever to find satellites (if at all)

Wont find satellites if placed near anything metal (Like a telescope mount for instance?)

Even though it has come down in price since it's launch it's still an awful lot more expensive than a copy of 'Turn Left at Orion'

Hope this helps

Tony

[mark993]

ok quite a few people suggest an app for my phone does anyone know of a good app for the samsung monte?

[Ad Astra]

Have to agree with Tony; we got one for one of the kids (11 yr old at that time) for Xmas. Lots of fun, but kind of sits on the shelf now.

Dan