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New Celestron Starsense Accessory

M4lcs67

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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And something else to think about is the fact that a dealer to,d me the Meade LS which was supposed to be auto everything very often fails at alignment. I dound a Nexstar using Any Star alignment more often failed than not at getting a good and accurate set up.

So you could be spending £300 to just get a faster 'alignment failed' message :)

Malc, I dont use mine an awful lot but once you have been theough the procedu maybe 10 times it gets easier and you kind of know what needs doing. I dont ever rush when setting up because its a hobby not a race and rushing is usually what gets stuff broken or lost in the dark. So deep breath, take you time, enjoy the night air and dont stress when things dont go well.

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M4lcs67

M4lcs67

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Thanks Astro Baby.

I guess I have been caught up in all the hype over the StarSense accessory. Perhaps the fact that it isn't launched in the UK until May will give me a chance to step back and think about things with a clearer head.

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RichH

RichH

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This sounds fantastic!! Question though....once I've got the scope aligned using this will I be able to then set the mount to track as well? I'm using a Canon T3

and a Celestron 6in SCT, any exposures longer than 1/4 sec seem to give me trailing. I haven't got the visibilty to the north to do a polar alignment so I have just

been plunking down the mount and finding objects manually. Any ideas?

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billhinge

billhinge

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There is a new celestron QA page now http://www.celestron.com/portal/articles/cat/howto/post/ask-team-celestron-starsense-accessory/

May release sounds good, gives me the opportunity to see if I can improve my set up - don't get enough practise with the weather but seems to be getting better, or if I don't improve whether I should just go ahead and take the easy route and buy one of these.

Must take care putting correct time in, sometimes I'm a minute or more out if I'm in a hurry - read today on here that 1 second error is 15 arc sec, 15 minute is half a full moon :eek: , no wonder I used to be out on my alignment!

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M4lcs67

M4lcs67

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I am really interested, but I think i'll wait until the initial rush has died down. Also better to let someone else beta test it first. Then after a few months i'll see what owners think of it and see if it actually does what they say it does. Then if everything is good, I more than likely will get it myself. On the face of it, it really does look like a great piece of gear.

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skir

skir

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I can see how this is probably a good piece of gear and impressive technology, but it's a lot of money for something to effectively do your alignment for you. I can now just pick 3 stars I know and its all done.

Perhaps I'm missing something.......

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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In my mind and experience, Celestron are famous for releasing expensive gimmicks: Skyscout (yes i did own one), Prodigy scope, Neximage etc.

When i read about the Prodigy scope, i wondered how long it would take Celestron to release a version of the same thing that can be retro-fitted to ANY Celestron Go-To scope.

Appantly it didnt take too long because here it is.

I have not read the full release, so i dont know the price but i am thinking its expensive.

I like Celestron products, but i wont be buying into another expensive gimmick that most likely underperforms.

In about three minutes, StarSense will gather enough information to triangulate its position and align itself.

I can align my 8SE in about half that time manually.

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Chris Rowland

Chris Rowland

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If it's anything like the SkyProdigy it will just work. At least that's what a friend of mine who has one says.

Yes, once you are experienced and have your scope set up, doing a 2 star alignment is pretty easy, but a lot of people struggle. I struggled the other night when I was using a new scope and hadn't aligned the finder. In the end I did a quick align, slewed to somewhere reasonably close, took an image of a star field, posted it to Astrometry.net and synced on the position that gave me.

I wonder if, in a few years, having an automatic system will be as normal as goto is now.

Chris

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dialogue

dialogue

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If it's anything like the SkyProdigy it will just work. At least that's what a friend of mine who has one says.

Chris, I have the NexStar 127SLT, so I'm very interested. The one problem I can see is that the accessory would need to be carefully aligned with the OTA first. This may not be a problem if you keep your telescope set-up all the time, but might be a pain if you need to reassemble it every time. SkyProdigy doesn't have this problem as the camera is fixed to the mount.

Any thoughts?

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M4lcs67

M4lcs67

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I have the 127 SLT , but I have the C9.25 on a CG5 as well and that is what I was contemplating using it for, however I think I will wait until it has been out a while and let others beta test it to see if it is firstly, reliable and also worth the high price that they are going to be charging for it (£300ish). After that then I may take the plunge, but having been caught up in the initial hype of the thing I have had a chance to take a step back and think a little more sensibly.

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M4lcs67

M4lcs67

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Well. We know what the price is going to be:

http://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/Celestron_StarSense_Accessory.html

Have done a quick comparison on prices compared to those in the US:

https://www.astronomics.com/celestron-starsense-telescope-auto-alignment-system_p20044.aspx

http://www.optcorp.com/ce-94005-starsense-accessory.html

http://www.telescope.com/Accessories/Telescope-Drives-Controllers/Celestron-StarSense-Accessory/c/3/sc/46/p/102711.uts

Yet again the poor British consumer is being royally fleeced. No doubt Celestron will use the old excuse of higher shipping costs. How can that be when they are made in the far east and will be shipped in containers??? And also the fact that one British pound is currently worth 1.55 dollars or there abouts. Outrageous. I genuinely thought it was going to cost about £300. Well I was well wide of the mark. Hope FLO pitch it at a sensible price, but even they need to make a profit.

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Strath

Strath

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Just found this and really wonder how accurate the alignment would be. Since the optical path for the camera is different from the actual scope, how would it deal with any fixed difference between the points in the sky viewed by the camera and the scope. Also, how repeatable is the dovetail mounting on a scope anyway?

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Chris Rowland

Chris Rowland

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AIUI it's like the SkyProdigy so downloading and reading the manual for that will help.

For coping with the offset of the device there is a Calibrate function. Select a named star and centre it in the main scope. Sky Prodigy/StarSense collects an image determines where the named star is in the field and saves the offset. A sort of electronic equivalent of aligning a finder.

Finder scope dovetails are pretty repeatable, a normal finder wouldn't work if they weren't.

Chris

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billhinge

billhinge

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Well. We know what the price is going to be:

http://www.harrisont..._Accessory.html

Have done a quick comparison on prices compared to those in the US:

https://www.astronom...tem_p20044.aspx

http://www.optcorp.c...-accessory.html

http://www.telescope...46/p/102711.uts

Yet again the poor British consumer is being royally fleeced. No doubt Celestron will use the old excuse of higher shipping costs. How can that be when they are made in the far east and will be shipped in containers??? And also the fact that one British pound is currently worth 1.55 dollars or there abouts. Outrageous. I genuinely thought it was going to cost about £300. Well I was well wide of the mark. Hope FLO pitch it at a sensible price, but even they need to make a profit.

Looks like they heard you, only £299 and FLO are quoting cheaper :laugh:

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