Is StarSense value for money?

[Adaaam75]

Hi guys,

Having had difficulty in aligning and never actually managing to get my AVX to track to the standard I know it can, is the Celestron StarSense gadget the answer? 

I know I can align my scope accurately if I put the effort in and having moved last year I’ve been unable to have my mount fixed on a pier so I’m seriously considering this piece of kit as an easier way to align and to motivate me to get out more often.

Please share your thoughts.....

Adaaam75

[Grant]

Aligning and tracking are two different things - tracking will depend more on accurate polar alignment than anything else.

The Starsense is predominantly designed to help with automating alignment by doing it for you - this saves time and effort and can also improve the accuracy of your alignment.

It does have polar alignment routines built in but these need to be done as a separate stage after the alignment has finished.

If your issue is the tracking ability though and you simply want to improve your polar alignment then there are potentially better / cheaper methods out there that are worth exploring like the PoleMaster of, if you have your own guiding setup you could look at the Polar Alignment routines in things like https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/ Pro - that way you aren't buying additional hardware just for polar alignment.

[knobby]

As Grant says, Starsense is for the sky alignment ie - goto accuracy. I have one and love it !

[PeterCPC]

I had SS at one time. I found that it's Polar Alignment routine would never give me an accurate enough result for imaging - for observing it would have been ok.

Peter

[noah4x4]

The original Starsense polar alignment routines were flawed, notably the ASPA on wedge routine that had a notorious bug. Today, after firmware upgrades my alignments and consequent tracking are awesome, albeit that Starsense doesn't fix tracking, but the quality of alignment obviously helps. I wouldn't be without Starsense. 

[Cosmic Geoff]

2 hours ago, Grant said:

The Starsense is predominantly designed to help with automating alignment by doing it for you - this saves time and effort and can also improve the accuracy of your alignment.

That sums it up. To answer the question in the title, it depends on whether you think £300+ is a lot of money, and how you value the benefit you get from it.

Personally, I am not convinced it is any more accurate than a 2-star align, but I am not intending to go back to crouching behind the scope for 5-10 mins and fiddling with an align every time I want to use the C8.  So far as I am concerned it does what it says on the tin and saves me a tiresome and fiddly operation each session.

As a bonus, with this particular setup (the C8 SE) it relieves me of the need to level the tripod and hence the need to take the mount off the tripod and put it back (SE owners will know why.) 

[Marcel]

On ‎23‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 12:06, Grant said:

Aligning and tracking are two different things - tracking will depend more on accurate polar alignment than anything else.

The Starsense is predominantly designed to help with automating alignment by doing it for you - this saves time and effort and can also improve the accuracy of your alignment.

It does have polar alignment routines built in but these need to be done as a separate stage after the alignment has finished.

If your issue is the tracking ability though and you simply want to improve your polar alignment then there are potentially better / cheaper methods out there that are worth exploring like the PoleMaster of, if you have your own guiding setup you could look at the Polar Alignment routines in things like https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/ Pro - that way you aren't buying additional hardware just for polar alignment.

Hi,

Last week i received my starsense skywatcher and i am really impressed. Although i have also the polemaster, the starsense is much quicker. It is value for the money.

I am really happy with it. I agree that with tracking it is of importance that the polaralignment will be accurate.

Marcel

[bf79]

Ive also been debating getting one of these, as im very much a beginner at this and struggle to get my nexstar 5se properly aligned. I usually give up and end up just looking at the easier to find things like saturn and jupiter etc. 

I take it they are pretty easy to set up and use then?

[PeterCPC]

Easy to set up and use for observing but not so much if you are imaging.

Peter

[Adaaam75]

As I understand it they make aligning and reasonably accurate tracking much easier to achieve hence the cost and demand i guess. I'm in agreement with you BF79 as I'm obviously doing something wrong and do tend to just "aim" at easy to find objects for now, but will not be one of those guys that gives up, I know I'm inputting data in wrong or not polar aligning properly however I'm moving soon and with my new polarscope and pier to be installed I'm hoping once I actually get it right I won't need a Starsense, but never say never, running the cost of one past the missus is a challenge in its own right so if I can avoid the need I will.....

[PeterCPC]

The ASPA routine with the AVX will give you good alignment if done properly. It did for me but I use Polemaster now as it is so quick.

Peter

 

[Spangls]

I am new to this and after doing some research I decided to go with a "goto" telescope (Celestron 6SE).  I like to set up at different locations in Nebraska/Iowa/Colorado, I got tired of the set up (alignment) each time.  Then I found the StarSense, yes it is a bit of coin to drop, but whatever keeps me going out and using my equipment.  It was well worth the cost.