Celestron Starsense Autoalign

[Andy ES]

Been interested in the above accessory for a while.

Wondering if anyone has any info on how it performs or how easy it is to use and is it worth getting.

Not sure if it’s really worth the (eye watering) money seeing as I can do a three star alignment with the CPC in about 10 minutes.

Also don’t think my viewing site has enough bright stars available 😁

Anyway would like to hear any views you may have.

Thanks

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

You'll find plenty opinion if you search for it. Opinions differ...

I have one fitted to a C8 SE as part of a quick-setup package - I can carry the whole thing outside in one piece, and after attaching dewshield and power can have it working in a few minutes.  Starsense is less of a fag than crouching behind the scope finding stars and peering through a finder.  It is not always very accurate - I have never figured out why.  I took it to a dark skies site recently and it worked fine.  Surprisingly, it still works with partial cloud, but does not like bright sky -twilight or urban full moon.

I never saw the point of fitting the Starsense to my CPC800. The GPS cuts the time needed for a setup and the Starsense would not make much of an inroad into the time it takes to haul the thing outside and assemble it and align it.  With two finders - red circle and RACI - a 2-star auto align does not take long.  I align it on the first well-known star and let it traverse to the other one.

BTW, why are you using 3-star align?  2-star auto align is quicker, and the sole advantage of the 3-star align is that you don't need to be able to identify stars. 

[globular]

I find it very accurate and very reliable.  The only time it fails to align is when I forget to take the lens cap off.

Is it worth the money?  Only you can decide that.  It will cut your 10 minutes aligning down to zero.  (It takes a minute or two - but you can be doing something else while it does it... I go and get my eyepiece case and it's done when I get back).  So how much is 10 minutes worth to you? How long does your CPC take to cool - maybe the few minutes you've saved won't actually get you any more quality observing time?

Do I think it's worth it for me?  YES.  I love it and wouldn't have a driven goto mount without it.  I use my scope much more often because there is no lengthy set-up process that would to put me off bothering on those all to common iffy partly cloudy nights.  It's like a grab and go manual experience with goto and tracking. 

[Andy ES]

12 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

You'll find plenty opinion if you search for it. Opinions differ

Thanks I have had a look but wanted to get some up to date views. Hoping they have ironed out issues and installed new firmware that seemed to be previously an out of he box required upgrade.

Interesting that you would not fit it to a CPC, coming to that conclusion myself with the quick alignment (will try 2 star auto).

I presume the Starsense controller still accepts the CPC GPS info?

Also if you remove it and put it back on another night does it retain its physical alignment well enough to not need calibration? 

I would think it becomes pointless and more agro than any CPC alignment at that point.

Thanks.

[Andy ES]

11 hours ago, globular said:

The only time it fails to align is when I forget to take the lens cap off.

 

I watched a video where a chap who was doing the review for Celestron admitted to doing the same😁

[Andy ES]

12 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

sole advantage of the 3-star align is that you don't need to be able to identify stars. 

I think that’s why I use it ! 😂

I can now hear many shouting:

“THATS THE PROBLEM WITH GOTO MOUNTS, YOU DON’T LEARN THE SKY!! “ 😂😂

guilty as charged...

 

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

25 minutes ago, Andy ES said:

Interesting that you would not fit it to a CPC, coming to that conclusion myself with the quick alignment (will try 2 star auto).

I presume the Starsense controller still accepts the CPC GPS info?

No idea, but commonsense says that it ought to work with the CPC GPS

26 minutes ago, Andy ES said:

Also if you remove it and put it back on another night does it retain its physical alignment well enough to not need calibration? 

I have taken the Starsense camera off the C8 a couple of times for transportation and refitted it without problems. The bracket is very sturdy.

[Shimrod]

6 hours ago, Andy ES said:

Thanks I have had a look but wanted to get some up to date views. Hoping they have ironed out issues and installed new firmware that seemed to be previously an out of he box required upgrade.

Interesting that you would not fit it to a CPC, coming to that conclusion myself with the quick alignment (will try 2 star auto).

I presume the Starsense controller still accepts the CPC GPS info?

Also if you remove it and put it back on another night does it retain its physical alignment well enough to not need calibration? 

I would think it becomes pointless and more agro than any CPC alignment at that point.

Thanks.

I have a Starsense on an AVX mount - you can remove and remount without doing the calibration each time - it mentions this in the manual. You only need to recalibrate if you move to another scope, although the calibration does not take a huge amount of time anyway.

There is someone selling a Starsense unit in the classifieds (look for the CPC advert). You could probably try that one and if you don't get along with it you could sell it on for around the same price.

As @globular said, I start the alignment with Starsense and carry on fetching my eyepieces etc while the alignment takes place. I have to set up/tear down each time I want to observe, so anything I can do to reduce set up time is worthwhile for me.

[Jeff-Colorado]

Great info everyone--thanks.

I just ordered one for my SE 8. Hopefully it will reduce my setup time and get me outside and observing more often.