Celestron – StarSense AutoAlign Telescope Accessory – Automatically Aligns GoTo Telescope in 3 Minutes – Compatible with Celestron Computerized Telescopes – Advanced Mount Modeling

I apologize for the length of this review, but I thought the details might be helpful for folks interested in this awesome little gadget. My Celestron StarSense arrived last week, and I’ve had a couple of chances to try it out. I’ve used the device exactly twice, but I think my experience may provide some useful information to others who are thinking of purchasing this device. My focus is on astrophotography and my rig is 100% portable on a tripod, so alignment is a frequent chore. I held off buying the device because I had read that it had severe issues integrating with Celestron’s native polar alignment process, ASPA (All-Star Polar Alignment). Once those issues were corrected by Celestron and I read a positive review of the device in Sky and Telescope, I went ahead and bought it. So far, I’m very glad I did. After unboxing, I immediately updated the firmware on the StarSense camera and the included hand controller. Be sure to do this – as I mentioned, Celestron fixed some major problems with the software since the release of the device, and you’ll want to be sure to capture these. Be sure you have the appropriate cables and adapters ready for this. Once the firmware was updated, I attached the SS camera to my scope. I have a non-Celestron OTA, but a Celestron Advanced VX mount. This was one point of annoyance with Celestron. They provide two mounting methods – a super-solid one for Celestron OTAs, and a not-so solid one for everyone else. I was mounting to a dovetail plate, and it was annoying that I couldn’t use the more solid method just because Celestron had made the mounting holes too narrow. If they had just provided a couple of holes at the standard mounting sizes they could have given folks a lot more options. Left with the secondary mounting method, I was glad I had an extra mounting base available, because Celestron doesn’t provide one with the unit (they assume you’re replacing your finderscope with the SS camera). I sacrificed my mounted laser pointer in favor of the SS camera and continued. If you have a single finder\guider and no other mounting base available when the unit arrives, you’ll be waiting for Amazon to deliver before you can use the unit. After setting up outside and doing a rough polar alignment with a polar scope, I turned on the mount with the new HC and SS camera attached. The first thing the HC does is search for the SS camera, which it found with no problem. At startup, the HC gets a little “bossy” – there doesn’t seem to be a way to start up without going through the SSA (StarSense AutoAlign) process before doing anything else. I’m used to entering the Date\Time and location, but that didn’t seem to be an option at startup. You can press the Menu button to add those details, but I didn't know that at the time. I let the SSA do its thing, and it slewed to four different sections of the sky. I was in my side yard, where the house and trees block much of the horizon, and light pollution is fairly severe. I had also neglected to turn a bright flood light attached to my roof off, just to keep things interesting. I started quite early, and I could only see 5-10 stars visually. I noticed that the HC was reporting that it was finding dozens of stars in areas of the sky where I still couldn’t see any. After a couple of minutes, the SSA wrapped up and reported success. At this point, I was 90% certain that the device hadn’t actually done anything – it was just a little too quick and easy. I told the HC to find Albireo. There it was – off center, but within the FOV of my 20mm eyepiece. Not bad. I told it to find Antares in the south. There it was. Whoa. At this point, Celestron has you resolve the error between the SS camera and your telescope by performing a centering procedure. This is done in the HC’s software and doesn’t involve adjusting the camera physically, which was a relief – I think I’ve had enough “dance of the thumbscrews” for one lifetime. The HC has a process for this that involves centering the star in your eyepiece and then confirming that it is centered with the HC. This was simple enough, but the (printed) instruction manual actually has a mistake in it about the steps in the process. It's a good idea to just download the (corrected) online manual if you buy this device. After the centering procedure, the HC tells you that you will need to repeat the SSA process. At this point it was a little unclear whether it expected me to simply run the process again or actually reset my mount to the alignment marks and start over. Thankfully, the former seemed to work just fine. Now, I had done all of this before entering the date, time or my current location. It seemed wrong to move on to polar alignment without entering that data, but then again – does the HC need to know the time or location if it knows the positions of all of the stars, especially if you’re not targeting solar system objects? The HC certainly didn’t seem concerned about it – I had to go menu surfing to even find where to enter the date\time\location – I was never prompted for the information. I went ahead and entered the info and the HC told me to perform SSA again, which I did. The polar alignment process was simple. ASPA normally has two steps – the first where you center a star using the direction buttons on the HC, then the second when you’re asked to center the same star using the mount’s ALT and AZ alignment knobs. With SSA, the first step is done automatically and the user is left with the ALT and AZ adjustments. After the centering\calibration process and ASPA, any stars or objects I selected were perfectly centered in the reticle eyepiece. I spent some time selecting objects near the four points of the compass and just being amazed when they all came up dead center. I started guiding and did some test shots using the CCD – I had perfect pinpoint stars for 12 minute exposures. That night I took 14 12-minute exposures of the Pelican Nebula and had some of the sharpest, roundest stars I’ve ever imaged. Long story short - ASPA was very easy and very accurate. On the second night out, I was just doing a rough alignment so I could take pictures of the moon with my bigger scope. I simply took the device off my refractor and put it onto my SCT, put the OTA on the mount, hooked it up, turned it on and let it align. I started even earlier that night, with only a few stars visible to these middle-aged eyes. No re-centering or fine-tuning, no entry of date or location, no polar alignment. A couple of minutes later, the SSA was done and the GOTO put the moon in the FOV of my 20mm eyepiece on the first try – this is with a 10” SCT – the FOV was less than a moon-width. I also tried several stars and they were all close to center, despite a different OTA and not performing a new centering\calibration procedure. The bottom line: this device exceeded expectations on its first two nights out. I’d say if you have a portable setup this is a no-brainer purchase. Pros: Easy setup (other than the firmware update); easier telescope alignment; simplified ASPA; more accurate polar alignment (at least in my experience). Works in twilight, so you can start your alignment earlier. Works despite trees and\or buildings obstructing large parts of the sky. Fast. Cons: Mounting brackets aren’t all that they could be (see above). Finder mount base not included. New HC has small-print display by default – can be hard to read especially from a distance.

This is a great technology. I attached it to a Celestron 9.25" NexStar Evolution. It works very well. However, Celestron WiFi doesn't. When I tried to set up StarSense using Celestron WiFi and the SkyPortal app on iPhone (not iPad), the StarSense alignment process would align, then lose connectivity, then need to be aligned, then lose connectivity, then freeze. I have been reading several online forums for amateur astronomy, and the Celestron WiFi combined with the SkyPortal app freezing the phone is a common problem. Some users have wireless providers that use "smart" WiFi apps to bounce back and forth between WiFi and Cellular Data, shutting off WiFi on disconnect, and thereby "improving" battery life. These apps appear to conflict with SkyPortal and Celestron WiFi. I have no such app, but I did have tethering enabled, and this probably does pretty much the same thing to SkyPortal as the smart WiFi apps. I'll give it a try again with tethering disabled, but after 5 weekends of trying to get Celestron WiFi to work with SkyPortal (I also tried with SkySafari 5 Pro, where I can save and restore all kinds of settings, but SkySafari 5 Pro is just as bad as SkyPortal with respect to losing connectivity and freezing) I am pretty fed up with SkyPortal. None of this compatibility information is available from the Sky Safari folks, who are contracted by Celestron, nor is it available from Celestron. You have to go out and dig it up yourself. Celestron should have a better knowledge base, along with better unit testing and quality assurance. I know they aren't software developers, and they don't charge for SkyPortal, but I also can't charge them for all of the time I spent trying to get SkyPortal to work with StarSense. Take a lesson from Apple: to sell your hardware, you need easy-to-use software that actually works. I have found the StarSense hand controller much easier to use than SkyPortal. StarSense will do alignment provided it can find enough stars. I have never tried to align on solar system objects, and I don't even know if that is possible with StarSense. You will still need to calibrate StarSense after you've aligned it, which essentially tells StarSense how misaligned the camera is with respect to the telescope aperture. In theory, you should be able to remove the camera from the telescope and replace it without recalibration. I have never been able to affix the camera to the telescope so that recalibration can be skipped. It only takes a few seconds, but afterward, you have to align again. With the hand set, this is about a 5 minute process: align, calibrate, align. With the SkyPortal app, you may never complete this process. If StarSense can't find enough stars, use the NexStar controller together with geolocation information, sky maps, and a star finder. I know you can solar system align NexStar, because I do that in my front and back yard several nights a month using the moon or a planet, and I can even align on the sun when I have a white light solar filter attached. StarSense just gets lost in my light polluted neighborhood, with a very busy airport located 6 miles to the south putting all kinds of lights in the evening sky. I'm not sure I would recommend this item for beginning astronomers. For one thing, it costs about as much as a kid's (really nice) starter scope. For another, learning how to read and use a sky chart - and compass - is not a bad thing. It's also a good thing to know how to align your telescope to a finder scope, and how to use the finder scope to point at objects in the sky. Since StarSense gets the information it needs directly from the telescope hardware, you also don't need to know what kind of mount you have, which means that you don't know all that you can do with your telescope. Lastly, if something doesn't go right in the connection, alignment, and calibration of StarSense, you should be able to swear very loudly, remove the StarSense camera and controller, attach the NexStar controller, cycle power on the scope, and then align it yourself.

Genial. un poco complicado de usar al principio, unas dos veces y practica, y alineas tu telescopio en 5 minutos.

Fabuloso , perfecto

First time out, seems to works well, no more fiddling about for ages finding/centering alignment stars. Magic to watch it do it all itself, much faster than you can! (Everything (location,time, mount mechanics) has to be set correctly of course.) Its a bit pricey, but there is a lot to it, and the quality is good. Note: there is no new version of nexremote (to do the pc mimic of the new handcontrol), which is a shame - i found that really useful with the original nexstar handset. However, to make set up easier without nexremote, Ive found I can set the location and time data from a laptop via the starsense handset serial port, communicating with the same command protocol as the old nexstar handset. Once aligned, Goto's etc should therefore work with stellarium etc, communicating through the serial port, but i havent tried that yet.

Ich bin vom StarSense insgesamt sehr begeistert, auch wenn es in einigen Punkten ganz leichte Mängel zu verzeichnen gibt. MONTAGE: Ich habe ca. 10min gebraucht, um das StarSense-Modul an mein Celestron NexStar 8SE zu schrauben. Es nimmt einfach den Platz ein, an dem bisher der Sucher saß. Dieser ist durch das Modul überflüssig geworden. WICHTIG: Entgegen der Produktbeschreibung wurden sogar zwei längere Schrauben mitgeliefert, die ich aber nicht benötigte. Dennoch gibt es hierfür einen halben Stern mehr von mir. Also ruhig erstmal vorsichtig testen, ob das Modul auch mit den Originalschrauben hält - zu lange Schrauben können den Spiegel beschädigen! Lediglich einen Kreuzschlitzschraubenzieher muss der Käufer besitzen; alles andere liegt bei. Die Handsteuerung auszubauen war kein Problem; die neue einzustecken hat ca. 5min gedauert, da der Anschluss beim NexStar SEHR schlecht zugänglich ist. Aber das ist dennoch machbar - kostet nur eben ein bisschen Geduld und Nerven. ERKENNUNG: Erster Alignment-Versuch fand bei ca. 60% Wolkendecke auf einem nach Westen gelegenen Balkon statt -- mit Blick genau auf das abends hell erleuchtete Frankfurt a.M. Erwartungsgemäß wurden nicht viele Sterne gefunden, so dass das Modul ein zweites Alignment vorschlug. Nachdem ich in der Wohnung das Licht ausgeschaltet hatte, klappte der zweite Versuch bereits - trotz der oben angegebenen schlechten Bedingungen. Tagsüber ist leider kein Autoalignment möglich - es handelt sich eben um eine Kamera, nicht um ein Teleskop oder Spektiv. Hier braucht es dann schon einen fortgeschrittenen Hobbyastronomen, der auch tagsüber im Okular gefundene Sterne benennen kann. Nach dem Alignment ist eine (einmalige) Abstimmung der Kamera auf den Tubus erforderlich. Wird diese genau genug vorgenommen, sind die künftigen Alignments eben nicht nur sehr schnell abgeschlossen, sondern auch erstaunlich exakt. Deshalb sollte die Abstimmung mit zwei möglichst unterschiedlichen Okularen (z.B. 22mm und 8mm) erfolgen. SOFTWAREUPDATES: Bisher habe ich - trotz beiliegender Skizze, wie Modul, Teleskop und PC verkabelt werden - noch kein Update zustande gebracht. Woran das liegt, weiß ich noch nicht. Auf jeden Fall ist negativ zu bewerten, dass ein Mini-USB-Kabel benötigt wird, um Updates auf die Kamera zu spielen - dieses liegt NICHT bei. Daher ein halber Stern Abzug. VIELSEITIGKEIT: Das StarSense-Modul ist ausschließlich für die Einrichtung des Teleskops geeignet. Weder lassen sich aufgenommene Bilder ansehen, noch lässt es sich mit dem Okular verbinden - dazu ist es nicht konzipiert worden. Seine Aufgabe erfüllt es aber sehr gut, sofern die Abstimmung mit dem Teleskop genau genug vorgenommen wurde. FAZIT: PRO: einfache Montage bei gleichzeitig sehr hoher Stabilität bei halbwegs klarem Sternenhimmel automatisches Alignment innerhalb von 2-3min (!) ermöglicht auch Anfängern das Finden lohnender Ziele ohne Kenntnisse von Sternnamen und -positionen Anschlussmöglichkeit eines (optionalen) Suchers neue, leicht verbesserte Handsteuerung inklusive passende Schrauben für alle unterstützten Teleskope liegen bei CONTRA: einmalige Abstimmung mit Teleskop für Anfänger nicht ganz einfach recht hoher Preis gemessen an der Einsatzflexibilität Softwareupdates benötigen zusätzliche Hardware (Mini-USB-Kabel); bei dem Preis dürfte die durchaus dabei sein! benötigt neue Handsteuerung, die leider bisher kein Deutsch unterstützt (ist aber in Arbeit) tagsüber kein Einsatz möglich, da das Modul keine Sterne findet

Un sistema semplice e pratico per ottenere in poco tempo un ottimo allineamento del telescopio, PURCHE' si provveda, appena arrivato, ad aggiornare il software del dispositivo (servono un cavo USB, ed il cavo RS232 usato per tutte le interfacce Celestron, non compresi nella confezione). Purtroppo non funziona con il programma di interfaccia Celestron NexRemote e, se il telescopio non dispone di un GPS, bisogna ogni volta introdurre a mano ora e coordinate geografiche. Ho risolto questo fastidioso problema ho scritto una piccola app che permette di trasferire questi dati da un PC collegato al controller di StarSense via seriale e di leggere i dati interni del controller, incluso l'orientamento del telescopio. Per il controllo del telescopio durante le osservazioni si può usare il programma free Stellarium.