Celestron StarSense Explorer Dobsonian Owners

[paulastro]

22 minutes ago, Astro_Dad said:

I agree Paul - StarSense in many ways makes other finding systems (including other Push to approaches) seem old fashioned, and GOTO is not as convenient (in my review I compared StarSense very favourably against Syn Scan based on my own experience of them). We are luckily spoilt for choice with the range of options available depending on budget, requirements etc. 

Definitely  with you on the finding being (ultimately) a means to an end, but I won’t be the only one who despite being a big fan of StarSense, derives some joy and satisfaction from learning the night sky the “hard way” and having that reward of finding an object manually. (Perhaps minority! who knows?).  I suspect this wears off after many many years of observing though.  BUT, I’d still prefer to have StarSense than not on balance - and I’ve read a good analogy that likens the need to star hop manually to the need to use a road atlas to get anywhere- it’s just not a skill that is required anymore. Still fun though, and as always horses for courses 😀. 

Some good points there Andrew.  I did actually derive some satisfaction when I came to the point that I could find my way around the sky fairly well, but as the years went by it became more and more of a chore. 

Also, at the age I am now, and not without some health issues,  I like to use my time more efficiently, and it's not only the time. Using a finder is difficult and painful for me so StarseSense has made a huge difference to my observing on that account as well.

I also find that using SS actually enhances my knowledge of the night sky.  As you push the scope toward an object you can't help but notice (on the phones' screen) objects you might not be familiar with or have just plain forgotten they were there.  What's more, you can also 'pull over' and take a look at them.

As you say, we are lucky to have the choice of many options, and people can follow the path that suits them best.

On your last point,  I love looking at star maps, in fact any maps, but I confess I wouldn't want to be without a satnav any more than I'd want to be without my StarSense 😊.

[wookie1965]

I have learned the sky over 40 yrs but the one thing I cannot do is star hop I am hopeless, I did do it when I had my 150p on a EQ3-2 but the time I spent searching for objects cut my viewing down by three quarters. 

Once I got the EQ5 goto I started to enjoy this hobby again finding and splitting double and multiple stars has been enthralling, now with the Dob I can do the same with the faint fuzzies and I am looking forward to doing just that. 

[Astro_Dad]

Yes and one thing I didn’t say Is that for all the reward of finding targets there’s at least an equal or greater frustration of not being able to find them - particularly when going beyond the usual suspects! I can imagine trying to star hop with an equatorial mount is very hard work. My first proper telescope was the 130mm reflector version of the StarSense (DX130 AZ) and it was that that got me hooked on the practical side of Astronomy rather than just the theory. A game changer - it unleashed what will be a lifetime hobby 😀

[paulastro]

For me, in case people don't know already, the 8 inch StarSense Dob is my  favourite telescope purchase - and this stretches back to the early 70s.

I've got to know it very well since it's purchase in July, and I really don't think there's any quicker, easier or more enjoyable way of finding objects in the night sky - and without a finder!

One of its features inparticularly, that has become one of my favourites, is finding a new object that I wasn't even looking for.

When pushing the scope to your next target, if you come across an object on the phone's display you do not know, Its then just a matter of a detour to centre it in the bullseye.  When this happens I observe it first, and then read the description to find out more about it.

 

This is a great way to 'discover' new objects and learn something about them.  You never know, you may find some new long-term friends to add to your observing repertoire.

 

What other finding system would have 'introduced' me to Cederblad 214 a couple of nights ago? 😊

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by paulastro

[paulastro]

I wrote this review a little while ago, copying it to this forum.

 

[paulastro]

I was out last night, Dec 2nd,  trying to observe Mars.  I went out at 9.10pm when the Moon was barely visible through about 90% cloud cover.  For the first half hour or so I only had hazy views of Mars.  With my 8 inch StarSense Dob I had to user a finder as when I set up there were no stars visible. 

The Moon and Jupiter started to pop out occasionally, but it was really difficult and frustrating having to quickly move between the the three objects using the finder. I kept arriving just as the cloud enveloped the object I was after  Then, it all changed, I had a couple of mts when I could see see a narrow field of stars.

I quickly put my phone in its cradle on the tube and opened up the StarSense app.   Eureka.  I could then chase the gaps in the cloud whenever the Moon, Mars or Jupiter appeared.  It only took seconds to go from one location to another.   With the finder I would never have got the views I did.

For those concerned about how StarSense can cope with cloud, the answer is much better than any finder I've ever used.   It confirmed very well what I already knew.  You can use StarSense when a finder cant be used fast enough, when there is a lot of cloud and you need to move quickly between clear patches .  The only time I have to use a finder now, is if I'm observing a planet or the Moon when there are no stars visible for the entire session.

The cloud did thin, I had fine views of Mars with Syrtis Major just showing  round  the limb.  Jupiter, showed goid belt detail with the satellites all strung out to the west.  I was lucky to see Io disappearing behind the limb at 10.35. 

The Moon was the star of the show though.  Copernicus was on the terminator and the terraces on the inside of the E limb showed incredible detail as the sun rose, eventually the light creeping into the floor of the crater.  Clavius showed fine detail, and to the S the craters Wilhelm, Montana and Regiomontanus also showed truly spectacular detail.  The latter's walls adjoining the terminator were reminiscent of strands of reeds interwoven along the rim of a basket.

A very memorable session.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by paulastro

[wookie1965]

What is it like in bright moonlight, it is clear here at the moment but very bright I am thinking will the moon interfere with it.

[paulastro]

wookie, last night Jupiter was around 15 degrees to the W of the Moon, and I had no problem using SS to switch between the two.  Previously, I recall finding  Mars when it was closer to a virtually full Moon.  I can honestly say, in the conditions I've observed in since buying the scope in early July, the Moon has never been a problem.  In fact, in moonlight, I tend to observe open clusters as they are less affected by moonlight than galaxies and nebula and its a lot easier than finding them than it would be with a finder  in the same conditions.  My experience is that I look at objects in moonlight I wouldn't previously have done without SS.

I can't say moonlight can never be a problem, but its certainly never been a problem fior me.

Edited December 3, 2022 by paulastro

[wookie1965]

10 minutes ago, paulastro said:

wookie, last night Jupiter was around 15 degrees to the W of the Moon, and I had no problem using SS to switch between the two.  Previously, I recall finding  Mars when it was closer to a virtually full Moon.  I can honestly say, in the conditions I've observed in since buying the scope in early July, the Moon has never been a problem.  In fact, in moonlight, I tend to observe open clusters as they are less affected by moonlight than galaxies and nebula and its a lot easier than finding them than it would be with a finder  in the same conditions.  My experience is that I look at objects in moonlight I wouldn't previously have done without SS.

I can't say moonlight can never be a problem, but its certainly never been a problem fior me.

Great well looks like I am going to give it a whirl if it stays clear. Thank you very much really appreciate it. 

Paul 

[wookie1965]

Well just come in from 7pm just started clouding over which is disappointing as wanted to get M42. 

I had already set starsense up or so I thought went to Mars nowhere in the FOV so I found it myself zoomed in then told the app I need to align it skipped through until the part you align the scope up. 

Sent it to Jupiter and got it, seeing was terrible got 3 moons I'm sure there was one right next to the planet but when I looked again it had gone. I could easily make out two bands with quite a bit of colour. 

Moon next what a sight aperture makes a difference the craters looked huge. 

Mars went up to a 4mm but it didn't look good was much better with the 8mm x150 although could not make out any surface features. 

I wanted to see M13 but it was behind my house so had to go to the double double which was just above the roof top 12mm easily split it. 

M36, M37 and M38 again aperture makes a difference using my 15mm x80 all looked brilliant the Starfish especially this is when the cloud started rolling in but had a chance go to Mars again but still the seeing stopping any surface details to pop out. 

First impressions I'm going to love using this especially if the app stays aligned couple of things I need to check collimation if needed I may change the springs on the primary and I definitely need the lacerta upgrade other than that I am really very happy with it finding objects is a doddle I do need to adjust the azimuth bearing it was a little stiff trying to turn it to get objects in. 

Paul 

[paulastro]

Excellent report Paul, I'm glad you had such a productive session.

  The alignment will only change if you manage to knock the phone holder out of position on the tube (unlikely I would have thought), or if you move the two knobs which you used in the alignment of the phone to the sky view - or the knobs come loose for some reason, though mine are fairly stiff.  The only other reason I can think of is if you do not properly seat the phone properly in the cradle. Also, if you have aligned it with the phone in a case, and then don't use a case this could make a difference.

Mine has never gone out of alignment for any reason,  and there's no reason why it should as all the above are unlikely to happen. There is no mechanical drive which can go wrong, no computer to go wrong and the app itself will work consistently well.  

Do feel free to ask if you have any other concerns, either on this forum or in  a pm and I'll help if I can.

Regards, Paul

[Sunshine]

Nice report, I haven't had to realign starsense  since the first time months ago, unless the module is tapered with or knocked it should be ok time after time.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Sunshine

[markse68]

Agree with all the points made- chancing on things that you weren’t even looking for is great and educating and being able to swing the scope back and forth between eg Mars and Jupiter in an instant is worth the price of admission alone I reckon. It’s a marvellous luxury!

Mark

[paulastro]

Here's a test of the StarSense App's ability to find objects in bright moonlight last night. Excellent!!

 

[paulastro]

COMET C/2022 E3 (ZTF) NOW ON DATABASE OF STARSENSE EXPLORER TELESCOPE APP.

Thus COMET is forecast to be as bright as 5th mag.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/403657-comet-c2022-e3-ztf-now-on-database-of-skysense-explorer-telescope-app/

 

[wookie1965]

Well mixed results tonight despite aligning on deneb with a 6mm eyepiece x200 the app got everything wrong went to M42 nowhere near tried using the red dot finder its useless especially wearing glasses. I'm going to have to get a Telrad riser. 

Got to see Mars and Jupiter by finding them myself. 

I got Mars in the scope and tried alignment this is what I got. 

It must of been the moon that's all I can think of

[Louis D]

Does StarSense work in Bortle 7 and higher skies with limited sightlines?  I often can see only a few brightest stars naked eye anymore from my backyard thanks to all of the development around me.  I find that SkEye works well for me to get my bearings under these conditions because it doesn't rely on actually seeing the sky at all.  I can point it through trees and buildings to get an idea of what will be visible in the near future as well.  It usually gets me to within 3 to 4 degrees of the target which is generally enough for me to fine tune my object alignment with a finder scope or lowest power eyepiece.

[markse68]

I’m in bortle 8/9 Louis and can confirm it works very well. It wont be able to plate solve at the horizon but the imu takes over then and keeps the map moving until it can platesolve again. If tracking starts to drift in accuracy  then you just have to swing the scope closer to zenith, let it sync again and off you go. It uses fairly long exposures so can see a lot more than you can.

Mark

 

[paulastro]

Pics of my 8 inch Starsense Explorer Dob after a 2.5 hours session with the temp at -5 degrees C.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by paulastro

[paulastro]

Re using Starsense Explorer in different Bortle rated sites. I've had my scope since July, and used it in all sorts of sky conditions - my home site is Bortle 5. I can honestly say that in all sky conditions with various degrees of cloud cover, haze, mist and at various altitudes of the scope, without exception Starsense has performed at least as good as an optical finder could.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also Starsense has worked many times when you simply couldn't have found d objects using an optical finder. On several occassions I've looked up at the sky and seen so few or no stars with the naked eye, Ive wondered how on earth it could find anything.

Edited December 17, 2022 by paulastro

[Martin Meredith]

I recently took delivery of a Celestron 10" Dob -- great service from FLO as ever -- and immediately had a couple of clear-ish nights in between winter storms up here on the Isle of Bute to try it out. Don't tell anyone, but I didn't even have time to check collimation...🤫

I guess my home location is Bortle 4-5 -- but plagued with security lights (and intermittently the CalMac ferry -- surprisingly bright from some distance away). The NW of the island is around Bortle 3 and that's where I anticipate using the scope in the main when the weather is more settled.

On the first night I set up in late twilight but found the app wasn't recognising the stellar pattern until the sky was somewhat darker, although I could see plenty of naked eye stars. After this, whether the app reported finding the sky position or not was rather hit and miss, with perhaps a 30% success rate depending on where the scope was pointing. The app reported trying out 4s and 8s exposures when it had initial platesolving difficulties -- does anyone else see this iterative process reported on the app? Even so, once it latched on to a location it was pretty easy to use the app to hop to other objects and find them in or close to the eyepiece field (I mainly used a 21mm EP, so around 1 degree FOV). In a 90 minute session I had excellent views of many open clusters (M35, 36, 37, 38, 44, 45, 52, 67, 103, Double Cluster, NGC 663, Hyades and several more I didn't record), several planetary nebulae (Catseye, Eskimo), galaxies (M31 and friends, M81, M92), as well as Jupiter and Uranus. The highlight was a superb Crab, and a surprisingly detailed Hubble's Variable Nebula. So in spite of platesolving issues, the tech worked sufficiently well for me to have a great session. I suspect there was a thin cloud layer that reduced platesolving success. Certainly I couldn't detect M101 or M51.

On the second night I started to observe when it was completely dark in a sky with 30-40% thickish cloud cover most of the time, but localised to one part of the sky, the rest being pretty transparent. StarSense worked better on this occasion but still with a success rate of maybe 60% until everything dewed up, followed shortly afterwards by almost complete cloud cover. As well as some of the first night's targets, a bunch of gorgeous doubles and lots of NGC open clusters in Cassiopeia, I had very good views of M101 and the M51/NGC 5195 pair, a superb Owl Nebula, and clear views of some of the UMa galaxies, M106 and M108, in about an hour of observing. On this occasion I used my 13mm eyepiece throughout. I found that realigning on a bright star a couple of times in the session was enough to place the targets within the FOV. Realignment was also a useful check on the star patterns being seen by the camera/app, and I noted some mushiness towards the end no doubt due to dew.

A few initial thoughts. Having spent much of the last few years doing camera-based observing and with only an 80mm refractor or 10x50s for visual, it was a great pleasure to see objects through a 10" scope, and I have high expectations for this Dob. It was also relaxing to have a completely silent scope experience without tedious mount alignment or motors whirring. With regard to StarSense, the app itself (as in the onscreen star chart and associated DSO information) is superb. I don't know whether the number of successful solves is par for the conditions, but more time and experience will tell. I intend to try StarHopper too to see which is the more accurate, though I imagine the charts and object info ought to give the edge to StarSense. Has anyone compared the two approaches?

cheers

Martin

Edited February 8 by Martin Meredith

[wookie1965]

This is just where I set up the starsense app cannot find its position the only way I can use it is to put a 8x4ft piece of wood up on the side of the shed but then I cannot view south. 

This is one of the reasons I am selling my 10".

 

Edited February 9 by wookie1965

[paulastro]

Martin.

Re aligning the 'virtual' retincal on your phones screen with a distant object ( if aligning in daytime ) or a distant bright star at night. The accuracy is better the higher the magnification you use and also then magnifying the star you are aligning to on the phone's screen by pinching the screen with your thumb and finger to make it even bigger.  Using this method it's easily possible to centre objects even with a mag of x100 plus.  I must say though, it should still be easy to put objects nearr the centre of the bullseye every time using your  19mm eyepiece.

Re the mushiness you experienced at the end of your session.  It could possibly be dew on the phone holders mirror, though this has never happened to me, even when there is ice on the scope or high humidity when the tube is running with water.  One SS user also reported when he was having intermittent pointing success, it turned out that his phone camera lenses had many smudges from fingerprints, and when he wiped them the problem went away!  

Another cause of inaccuracy is if you move the position of the phone holder when putting the phone in place.

Ive found it still to be accurate even if your target is near a bright moon.  I have found it to work successfully when finding an object less than 5 degrees from the full moon. ( zI tested it when I first had it!)

You are right in saying that as you accumulate more experience with SS you will get better accuracy and also achieve success on virtually every time you  try and find an object.  On most of my sessions I very rarely have any failures.  And if I do, it's because l make a silly error, more likely if you are tired.

Have fun with it, it's been a game changer for me and I make far better use of any available observing time.

Best wishes, Paul

 

[Martin Meredith]

Thanks Paul for these tips and observations.

I was pretty happy with getting the object into the FOV, and indeed I aligned by zooming right in each time. The mirror itself is clean, pristine almost. It might be that my phone camera lens wasn't...

One thing I noticed during the initial setup was that when centering the camera over the mirror I always had a dark edge at top and bottom, while in their demo video I see a nice clear centred image.

I also selected to have the advanced camera controls (exposure/gain/iso) on the menu but I'm not sure whether they're needed. It seems they're they're just available for the setup stage when centering the mirror since that's done in daylight I guess.

I'm sure it will be a game changer for me too. I was really happy with the actual results, just surprised by how often it reported not being able to find itself.

[Martin Meredith]

Just reading the alignment tips here: https://astrobackyard.com/celestron-starsense-explorer-dob/

One suggestion is that there might be reflections off the back of a shiny phone case. I'd never thought about it before but checking now I see my phone case has quite a shiny back.... Something else to play around with next time.