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Very interested in this technology...will make setup much quicker...no more 2 +4 star alignments.

Wonder what the procedure will be after letting this thing do its thing and then doing a ASPA and manually adjusting the mount....guess just let it align itself again to take into account the mount being moved in alt/az...?

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anyone and i mean anyone even first timers can buy
a very large mount like Cge pro and C-11 Edge HD
and start no problems first time.

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From what I've seen looking at a SkyProdigy HC the display is different, it seems to have a four line display, the lowest line has help information.

There's a SP manual on the Celestron site, I doubt the StarSense manual will be put there until after it's released.

We can only speculate about what the SS will do, especially with an equatorial mount, because so far the SP has been alt az only. There's all sorts of possibilities - polar align helper where the scope tells you how far to move each axis - multiple align stars - auto precise goto where the scope moves, has a look to see how it's doing and then does a final update. Possibly guiding although that may be more challenging.

I guess that the first version will not have everything but that additional features will be added later.

Chris

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From what I've seen looking at a SkyProdigy HC the display is different, it seems to have a four line display, the lowest line has help information.

There's a SP manual on the Celestron site, I doubt the StarSense manual will be put there until after it's released.

We can only speculate about what the SS will do, especially with an equatorial mount, because so far the SP has been alt az only. There's all sorts of possibilities - polar align helper where the scope tells you how far to move each axis - multiple align stars - auto precise goto where the scope moves, has a look to see how it's doing and then does a final update. Possibly guiding although that may be more challenging.

I guess that the first version will not have everything but that additional features will be added later.

Chris

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Chris, and JRCrilly - I don't quite get it. I can see how Starsense will help out for an AltAz'muth mount - but for a GEM? Are we assuming you don't bother with an initial polar alignment, and just let Starsense do its thing first (with poor polar alignment) - and then how does the mount maintain tracking thereafter? Without reasonable polar alignment, both the RA and Dec need constant driving to maintain tracking...? Or maybe as other said above, ASPA is still required thereafter...? Fox

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Accuracy is the break or make. I can't see a 20mm f2 with that camera being as accurate as using my mallincam through my C11 at f10. I hope I am wrong

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I don't want to hijack this thread but my frustration was that I set up my scope in the dark and I didn't get the Telrad's dovetails inserted into the holder correctly. To answer my own question, I just read the March Sky and Telesope. There is a Celestron scope review in which the author says Starsense is good enough to get an object in the eyepiece, but not centered. You then go to a calibration page in the menu to get things centered up.

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The answer, I think, is not the Celestron gadget, but tuning up your setup procedure. That's a lot cheaper, too.

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I think others or maybe myself are thinking of this accessory in the wrong way.

I see its usefulness out of the box being:

Level tripod
Attach mount (alt/az for me)
Power on and let starsense do initial star alignment while I continue setting up
Then do a quick calibration between starsense and ota.
Then enjoy

For a Eq you will have to add all star polar alingment after callibrating starsense to ota to get a better polar alingement.

This would, to me, elliminate the need for a finder scope during the alingment process.

Also as mentioned before the starsense makes a map of the stars and the calibration tells the mount where the ota is pointing on that map. So the two don't have to be actually aligned like a finder scope does.

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I am thinking tat the camera to ota calibration should be done before aligning with Starsense.....

Or have i missed something?

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I think others or maybe myself are thinking of this accessory in the wrong way.

I see its usefulness out of the box being:

Level tripod
Attach mount (alt/az for me)
Power on and let starsense do initial star alignment while I continue setting up
Then do a quick calibration between starsense and ota.
Then enjoy

For a Eq you will have to add all star polar alingment after callibrating starsense to ota to get a better polar alingement.

This would, to me, elliminate the need for a finder scope during the alingment process.

Also as mentioned before the starsense makes a map of the stars and the calibration tells the mount where the ota is pointing on that map. So the two don't have to be actually aligned like a finder scope does.

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I'll get back to you on that in a month or two. I have a CPC 1100 and a CGEM DX 11 Edge. I'll be trying it on both.

Tim

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You know what would be cool? A similar product but generic to all mounts, one that would for example plate solve on PC (without the purchase of extra software) and do pointing corrections through ASCOM driver of your mount. I'm thinking a sleek simple to use, integrated solution

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You know what would be cool? A similar product but generic to all mounts, one that would for example plate solve on PC (without the purchase of extra software) and do pointing corrections through ASCOM driver of your mount. I'm thinking a sleek simple to use, integrated solution

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Any reviews for this product?

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You know what would be cool? A similar product but generic to all mounts, one that would for example plate solve on PC (without the purchase of extra software) and do pointing corrections through ASCOM driver of your mount. I'm thinking a sleek simple to use, integrated solution

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There is a little video review here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDK_rrpAn6s

Im pretty unimpressed with its performance. Jupiter was at the outer edge of the eyepiece.

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Any reviews for this product?

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Taken right from Celestron's StarSense page: "Preorder - shipping June, 2013" So, no reviews yet.

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Now it's changed to July!!

Another product I know was slated to come out in early 2012.. it's now 2013.. (the site still says available in 2012) come on manufactures.. the suspense is maddening!!

What will be interesting is if the star sense aligns on the refracted pole and if the point model takes atmospheric refraction into account for the object when the object is in different parts of the sky..

Uh.. look ma.. no wires!

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There is a little video review here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDK_rrpAn6s

Im pretty unimpressed with its performance. Jupiter was at the outer edge of the eyepiece.

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After that, gotos are really quite good (about a 3 minute automated process). StarSense does NOT track, however--at least not in the skyprodigy incarnation.
...
I recognize that many don't see the need for this tech--but I have found that it further decreases the energy barrier to getting out and observing. It takes 3 min to start slewing to objects--and if clouds roll in, I don't feel like I have

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Sucks this is delayed. One thing this product would really help is people who rarely make it to dark skies. When I align in a dark sky I have a hard time telling which star is which everywhere you look there are stars. At home there are a very limited number of visible stars and in some ways this makes it a lot easier to align.

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I'm way more interested in the pointing model feature than the alignment feature.

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After that, gotos are really quite good (about a 3 minute automated process). StarSense does NOT track, however--at least not in the skyprodigy incarnation.
...
I recognize that many don't see the need for this tech--but I have found that it further decreases the energy barrier to getting out and observing. It takes 3 min to start slewing to objects--and if clouds roll in, I don't feel like I have

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Make sure tracking is no Disabled in the menu (you can select Sidereal, Lunar, Solar, or Disabled). The mount will track once aligned.

You're spot on with your conclusion, the scope just makes the decision to bring out the scope so much easier (yes, regular SLT/SE/CPC/etc. alignment for a quick look should only take but a couple of minutes) - just the other day when I was back late evening from an observing session on the outskirts of town, I don't think I was done yet with observing, but wasn't up to pulling out the gear from the car to setup all over again - I took a couple of minutes to bring the SkyProdigy from inside the house to the backyard and fired it up; in the meantime I unloaded the other astro gear from the car into storage. 15min later when my other stuff is put away, I stepped into my backyard and the SkyProdigy was there waiting for me to get my last fix for the night (granted, sky conditions was bad compared to where I just came from).

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My apologies--the Sky Prodigy DOES track (quite well). It does NOT autoguide. Sorry for the confusion!!

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Still at this location;
http://www.celestron.com/astronomy/celestron-starsense-accessory.html

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I'm way more interested in the pointing model feature than the alignment feature.

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How does the pointing model feature differ from the alignment feature?

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2+4 is kinda a pointing model. A pointing model keeps track of where stars and objects are in the sky. Bisque pointing model takes flex, refraction, etc into consideration. I hope the star sense does too.

It would be more like a 200+ star calibration.

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Yes, hardware plate solving would be awesome.

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The SkyProdigy telescopes are toys with autoguiding piggybacked onto them. They're the same kind of telescopes you'd find at Costco or WalMart.

The LSs are serious SCs. There's really no comparison.

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8" LX90-GPS
NexStar 5SE
ETX125
>UNQUOTE

Nothing could be further from fact, WRT Sky Prodigy. Cloudy Nights prides itself on objectivity - before you categorically snob a telescope, please consider owning or at least operating one for a spell to give it a fair shake. The staff here obtained two early on, to study the guide algorithm. Stand by for long-winded response <wink>....
Been an ATM/AA for about 44 years, scratch-built optics, mounts, gotos and robotic scopes and their electronics and systems. Bought the same, too. Eventually became a professional astronomer and observatory director in that time. I say that because, I have not only been involved with buying, making and operating goto and upper end avocational telescopes for many years, I am quite familiar with the astrometric methods used in a Sky Prodigy that we use in large professional instrumentation in the $ten-figure class. So I think I can speak with some accuracy on how the little Prodigy's work.
Contrary to the innuendo, this kind of sky alignment algorithm is not used in dimestore telescopes, but is a technique used in the orientation and navigation of billion dollar spaceborne intelligence systems, strategic aircraft, and special shipboard systems. That "ACN and ST" (Automated celnav & star-tracker) field is far, far more advanced than anything seen here on CN; and while the little Sky Prodigy is not so fancy either, its pointing heritage certainly does not put it anywhere near "dimestore" class. Having used one at length, I can say it does not deserve that slight.
While Sky Prodigy certainly is aimed at novices, that alone is important to an amateur astronomer -- most of whom want to perpetuate the hobby. I get countless PR appeals from newbies that they cannot align the telescope to then "goto", and along those lines, I am sure Celestron wanted to answer that key issue for novices. You can't maintain an avocation's people-base by intimidating entrants. But Sky Prodigy still is useful for more than just the rote beginner as we see it (and no we were not paid by Celestron LOL).
When my staff got ours a year ago to actually see how Celestron's code aligned the instrument the turned out surprisingly easy for us to use (our pro's know the night sky BTW) and reinvigorated an aesthetic appreciation for the sky. Like I said, we were comparing SP to advanced alignment systems -- specifically to understand the relationship of the StarSense algorithm to angles-only Kalman filtered algorithms . There even, Celestron did a quite good job -- especially for the price. We may look at "Autoalign" on Meades next, but they are really not in the same alignment league, relying on GPS, time of day, expected positions, etc, not star fields alone. Last year's news, Meade and Celestron (with somewhat similar SkyAlign, have tested those), can go arm-wrestle about who is on who's turf there; we wanted to focus on how the SP did its alignment.
We've tested a Sky Prodigy for a year... and it is no dimestore telescope. While optomechanically similar to its Nexstar brethren, and at least equal to that line of optics, the mount at or better than an SLT's beefiness, and it is much much easier to operate. Every time I could walk up and goto 30 objects in sequence across 2 pi-steradians -- and find them well centered, after every starsense alignment. I know the night sky well, but it sure is impressive to set the unit out, and go inside for a coffee, come out and watch it finish self location, then present itself for tracking. The 130 would be easy to backpack as well; did that. Optical collimation remains quite solid both using ole Techtron tools, and also cross checking in our optics lab on a Zygo interferometer-- after a year being roughly used.
BTW people here have hip-shot that the instrument is basically a" Nexstar with autoguiding piggybacked onto them". This is also false and very misleading; sounds like someone got confused with Meade's Starlock system.... Go read up on how the Sky Prodigy operates (and some nice videos and Youtubes out there too). I don't believe it's the best principle instrument for an advanced amateur... any more than I would put an advanced amateur on a robotic liquid helium cooled IR 2-meter with an echelle at the naysmith, a professional's tool... BUT, SP would be a great, quality beginner telescope to bridge a lack of sky knowledge and get an exhuberant youngster excited to keep looking at he sky. It's a great knockabout quickie scope too, can throw in the car or the pack (sort of) for some desert fun.
In fact it would come from a line more capable, and is IMO better than than the LS. And as an aside, I'd be careful about how one uses the term "serious SC" as amongst amateur telescopes, as _very few_ currently marketed SC's are indeed "serious" telescopes, from an expert point of view, either - Point being -- it's *all* a *point of view* - and such subjectivity should be avoided when fairly evaluating an instrument... SP is as optomechanically decent as most all other small Celestrons.
Finally, I know some AA's disdain making alignment and learning the sky 'too easy', as abjuring some rite of passage. To them I'd say don't dismiss this novel and simpler method for aligning a telescope, as some short circuit as to learning the sky, anymore than oldsters of yesteryear used to dismiss a 4 function calulator as cheating vs. a slide rule... I've actually seen little kids at open houses marvel at the auto-alignment, then start to spatially grasp the sky as the SP marched from object to object. It is the future, and hopefully the method will spread into upper end amateur instrumentation, like GOTO once did.
So, the technology under the Sky Prodigy's hood is actually advanced, and not dimestore-trivial, and so instead makes the alignment, goto and operation all the simpler -- time to pay attention to other things more important. Like your smartphone made life simpler (allegedly LOL). If you are satisfied with Nexstar and CG quality, the Prodigy easily equals or betters that, but is just alot easier to use. If you like GOTO this is the next step. Try one; I will probably buy my own 6" variant in fact, after our staff experience with the littler SP's (I do wish Celestron sold just the Starsence mount, sans OTA; I have a nice 6" R-C that would be just great riding on a Sky Prodigy arm!). FWIW.... again sorry so long - I just did not want a dimestore innuendo have people miss what a different experience for our staff the little SP's provided. Your mileage may vary.

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Well, 2 mb isn't enough to get a catalog into it. It'd be cool if it was expandable via SD card or something.

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It depends on the catalog. It holds the current 40,000 nexstar catalog database and the plate solve database with room to spare..

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I only have one concern. Celestron can't you make the included handbox's cord longer. I find it frustrating that the cord is so short and there's no connector on the handset so you can't replace it with a longer cord. Or make it wireless, this is 2013 not 1985.
neilson

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Well you can.

Celestron has the Nexremote software and the SkyQ link. Bot h of those work together to make it essentilly wireless. Also you can use an iDevice withe their skyq app. Or you can use Sky Safari and SkyFi module to be wireless. The skyfi module also allows you to connect with most popular software. For me I have a usb hub on my mount that I plug the celestron serial cable into and I control my mount via a long usb cable. So to recap, if I am standing right at the mount I pick up the hand controller and use it. If I am doing outreach or walking around at a distance away I use my iPad for wireless control of the mount and if I am doing imaging I am controlling it via a long USB cable so I can be somewhere warm. As for making a longer cable there is nothing special about the cables. Perhaps you can buy an extra hand controller and make your own longer cable for it. Maybe Scopestuff sells them already made. I haven't looked.

Edit: I looked Cable

Edited by Whichwayisnorth (03/19/13 01:06 PM)

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Hi,
Like I said it sure would be nice if the cable was a decent length. Its very short.
Those devices only make the computer connection wireless not the handbox. I have had a wireless handbox on my LX200R 10" for years. And on my TV, Vcr/DVD player Satalite box ect. I don't know of any modern device that still has a wired controller. But I would be happy with just a little longer cord.
Some time back I bought one of those extention cables and it fried my handbox. Now they say they test them but it would be nice if the one that comes with the mount was a little longer, or if Celestron offered an extension themselves. And I shouldnt have to modify a new handbox and make a longer wire just because they want to save 2 cents on wire. A foot or Two longer would do.
There are plenty of other people who complain about that wire being a little short too.

neilson

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I'm glad someone finally came out with this technology. And I'm really glad it was Celestron.

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Well, 2 mb isn't enough to get a catalog into it. It'd be cool if it was expandable via SD card or something.

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It depends on the catalog. It holds the current 40,000 nexstar catalog database and the plate solve database with room to spare..

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You are speaking very authoritatively about this Wolfman, do you have some sort of inside knowledge about the Sky Sense?

Chris

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Actually, I think that the Meade Lightswitch mounts were the first to do this.

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It doesn't even do polar alignment for that price.

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