The value of Celestron Starsense tech

[RobertI]

I’ve been idly contemplating larger apertures, in particular dobs, and have been impressed with the reviews of the Celestron Starsense dobs. But it comes at a cost. At £845 the 10” StarSense dob is nearly £300 more than than the Sky-Watcher equivalent without Starsense. For another £40 you could get a nice Stella Lyra 12” Dob with dual speed focuser. But the 10” Starsense is a really fantastic product, and I have to confess, I am tempted. 10” Starsense or 12” Stella Lyra? 🤔

PS: I also can’t help thinking that equivalent, and cheaper retrofit products like StarSense on mobile phone will start to appear from other providers in the not too distant future, but I guess that’s another story……

Edit: Celestron may well have sewn up the market by patenting their technology, I found a couple of patents that look very much like the Starsense technology and the use of Starsense for manual pointing, perhaps we won’t see anything to rival Starsense on mobile phone anytime soon…. 

 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US76834954&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US342394896&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1

Edited May 21, 2023 by RobertI

[AstroKeith]

The addition of plate-solving is indeed significant.

I've made my own solution (which is widely being copied now), but even my DIY solution costs about £300. Although it is significantly more accurate and integrated than the StarSense dobs. Most of the cost is the camera.

https://astrokeith.com/equipment/efinder/

There's quite a difference in size and weight between 10" and 12" - is that a factor for you?

Being a longtime sufferer of 'aperture fever' I'd go with the 12"!

[RobertI]

2 minutes ago, AstroKeith said:

The addition of plate-solving is indeed significant.

I've made my own solution (which is widely being copied now), but even my DIY solution costs about £300. Although it is significantly more accurate and integrated than the StarSense dobs. Most of the cost is the camera.

https://astrokeith.com/equipment/efinder/

There's quite a difference in size and weight between 10" and 12" - is that a factor for you?

Being a longtime sufferer of 'aperture fever' I'd go with the 12"!

Thanks Keith. Your solution looks nice, and would probably also work well with my little EAA setup. As regards your question, weight and size - possibly not an issue, as I may leave it outside undercover. But the other two factors are, is 10” a big enough jump from my 8” SCT, and is 12” really going to yield significant benefits over a 10” from my semi-rural, but small housing estate location?

[bosun21]

I have the 12” Stella Lyra dobsonian which I upgraded to from the 8”. The difference is considerable and easily noticed. Optically it’s very good. I have never tried the 10” but the 12” has 44% more light grasp than the 10”. I just bought the cheapest Starsense scope (LT70) which is under £200 and removed the Starsense unit to fit on the dobsonian. It works great.

[RobertI]

5 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

I just bought the cheapest Starsense scope (LT70) which is under £200 and removed the Starsense unit to fit on the dobsonian. It works great.

What a great idea, I may do this! Was it easy to fit?

[bosun21]

1 minute ago, RobertI said:

What a great idea, I may do this! Was it easy to fit?

Yes it’s pretty straightforward. I just fitted a small black Perspex plate and a finder shoe.👇

[Highburymark]

1 hour ago, RobertI said:

I’ve been idly contemplating larger apertures, in particular dobs, and have been impressed with the reviews of the Celestron Starsense dobs. But it comes at a cost. At £845 the 10” StarSense dob is nearly £300 more than than the Sky-Watcher equivalent without Starsense. For another £40 you could get a nice Stella Lyra 12” Dob with dual speed focuser. But the 10” Starsense is a really fantastic product, and I have to confess, I am tempted. 10” Starsense or 12” Stella Lyra? 🤔

PS: I also can’t help thinking that equivalent, and cheaper retrofit products like StarSense on mobile phone will start to appear from other providers in the not too distant future, but I guess that’s another story……

Edit: Celestron may well have sewn up the market by patenting their technology, I found a couple of patents that look very much like the Starsense technology and the use of Starsense for manual pointing, perhaps we won’t see anything to rival Starsense on mobile phone anytime soon…. 

 https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US76834954&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=US342394896&_cid=P21-LHX94Q-79281-1

Interesting that the patent is in Celestron’s name rather than its Chinese owner’s name. I’ve been half expecting the same tech to be supplied with other Synta/Skywatcher products, but maybe it will stay Celestron only looking at this patent, and other brands will have to develop their own push-to systems? 

[RobertI]

@bosun21 @Highburymark Do you guys have any idea how big the database is? I’m assuming there’s plenty of NGCs in there and not just a dumbed down list of the brightest objects? 

[Zermelo]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

What a great idea, I may do this! Was it easy to fit?

 

[RobertI]

4 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

 

Thanks! Not sure how I missed that massive thread! 

[Highburymark]

6 hours ago, RobertI said:

@bosun21 @Highburymark Do you guys have any idea how big the database is? I’m assuming there’s plenty of NGCs in there and not just a dumbed down list of the brightest objects? 

I’m not sure but I read recently that the database has been extended in response to requests from users. I don’t have one myself but have wondered whether to buy one of the cheaper fracs and adapt the Starsense system to my own scopes

[Sunshine]

I can't say enough about starsense technology (phone module) It has been revolutionary and i regularly run into others who have purchased the cheapest celestron scopes and basically took the module off and easily adapted it to their larger dobs. This may be something you can consider, I believe the stallalyra dobs are mechanically superior to the celesstron, I have no doubt after using a star field dob which are the same scope. Maybe this is something you should look at, with the extra cost of the starsense dob, you may be able to buy the stallalyra and the cheapest celestron refractor and just remove the module. With the starsense dobs come the product key you need to activate the starsense app which is good for use five times on five different devices. With the stallalyra and a starsense module you would have a sweet piece of kit as I have contemplated selling my starsense dob for really cheap without the module and buying a star field dob (same as stellalyra). One thing I noticed when others have adapted the module to their dobs is there seems to be some confusion about positioning, it will only work correctly if the module is mounted directly on top of the dob, looking straight up, I have a friend who mounted a module on his skywatcher dob but had it off to the side a bit and he had issues until he relocated it directly on top of the scope.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Sunshine

[RobertI]

13 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Maybe this is something you should look at

I’ve literally just done it! A 70mm Explorer frac is on the way! Of course I justified it by promising the scope to my 8 year old (after its separation from Starsense of course). 😀

[Sunshine]

6 minutes ago, RobertI said:

I’ve literally just done it! A 70mm Explorer frac is on the way! Of course I justified it by promising the scope to my 8 year old (after its separation from Starsense of course). 😀

So I take it you'll be adapting the module to the Stellalyra? you'll have a blast!!

Edited May 21, 2023 by Sunshine

[Guest]

What are you guys using to mount the unit to your scopes? 

[RobertI]

25 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

So I take it you'll be adapting the module to the Stellalyra? you'll have a blast!!

I’ll probably adapt it to my 102ED-R to start with then my C8. I don’t have a Stella Lyra dob …..yet! 🙂 I’ll probably try the approach of fitting it to a ball head so it can be oriented, therefore does not have to sit on the top of the OTA, and fit to a standard finder shoe bracket. 

[Sunshine]

56 minutes ago, RobertI said:

I’ll probably adapt it to my 102ED-R to start with then my C8. I don’t have a Stella Lyra dob …..yet! 🙂 I’ll probably try the approach of fitting it to a ball head so it can be oriented, therefore does not have to sit on the top of the OTA, and fit to a standard finder shoe bracket. 

Nice, as long as it points up and moves with the scope it should be fine.

[bosun21]

3 hours ago, Sunshine said:

I have no doubt after using a star field dob which are the same scope.

The Celestron Starsense dobsonians are 200mm shorter focal lengths than the Stella Lyra.

[bosun21]

2 hours ago, Mike Q said:

What are you guys using to mount the unit to your scopes? 

I fitted a small square of black Perspex and a standard finder shoe. The photo of mine is earlier in the thread. Works great every time.

[Merak]

It would be good if Celestron decided to sell this as a separate item.

[tomato]

41 minutes ago, Merak said:

It would be good if Celestron decided to sell this as a separate item.

I asked FLO if they knew of any imminent plans for a Celestron  to do this but they didn’t know of any. I guess at this point  Celestron would like you to buy into their scope hardware, as the margin on the StarSense units alone might be a bit slim. Mind you, some folks are buying the cheapest scope package  and using the scope as a doorstop, so perhaps they could charge North of £100 and still get the volume?

[Highburymark]

38 minutes ago, tomato said:

I asked FLO if they knew of any imminent plans for a Celestron  to do this but they didn’t know of any. I guess at this point  Celestron would like you to buy into their scope hardware, as the margin on the StarSense units alone might be a bit slim. Mind you, some folks are buying the cheapest scope package  and using the scope as a doorstop, so perhaps they could charge North of £100 and still get the volume?

It seems like there are already apps springing up which replicate Starsense. No hardware needed. Just something to align your smartphone with your scope. PS Align Pro is one I came across. And there are others in the pipeline. Only discovered this today doing a bit of research, though I’ll happily admit I know very little about the technology or how it’s developing……

[Merak]

18 minutes ago, Highburymark said:

It seems like there are already apps springing up which replicate Starsense. No hardware needed. Just something to align your smartphone with your scope. PS Align Pro is one I came across. And there are others in the pipeline. Only discovered this today doing a bit of research, though I’ll happily admit I know very little about the technology or how it’s developing……

I've downloaded SkEye and will give that a go somewhen.

 

[RobertI]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

I asked FLO if they knew of any imminent plans for a Celestron  to do this but they didn’t know of any. I guess at this point  Celestron would like you to buy into their scope hardware, as the margin on the StarSense units alone might be a bit slim. Mind you, some folks are buying the cheapest scope package  and using the scope as a doorstop, so perhaps they could charge North of £100 and still get the volume?

From my memory on the Cloudy Nights forum, Celestron’s response was that they wanted to keep the solution as foolproof as possible and selling it separately for attaching to any scope would introduce more potential for going wrong, which I totally understand. They did say they monitor the situation and wouldn’t rule it out in the future. That’s me paraphrasing by the way , I think I got the gist of it. 

Edited May 22, 2023 by RobertI

[paulastro]

On 21/05/2023 at 13:41, RobertI said:

@bosun21 @Highburymark Do you guys have any idea how big the database is? I’m assuming there’s plenty of NGCs in there and not just a dumbed down list of the brightest objects? 

You need not be concerned about the database, it has tens of thousands of objects in the database, the SS software is very similiar to that of SkySafari - it comes from the same company.

Read the Section on Starsense Catalogues in Alan Dyers  review.

https://astrogeartoday.com/celestrons-new-starsense-dobsonians-reviewed/

It's absolutely brilliant.  I've been a visual observer for over 50 years and it's the best development there has been in all that time for visual observers as far I'm concerned. A real game changer.  The best thing I ever did was to buy the Starsense 8inch Dob a year ago.

Edited May 22, 2023 by paulastro