Celestron StarSense

[TechnoViking (James)]

has anyone seen or used one of these before?

http://www.celestron.com/astronomy/c...accessory.html

It looks like a bit of a toy, or is it possible that a unit like this would be useful for fast alignment for portable scopes?

[TechnoViking (James)]

lol perhaps i should have read about the release date before asking if anyone had used one... Spring 2013.

[Rod771 (Rod)]

I wonder how much they're going to retail them for?

This is the same camera used on the Celestron "Sky prodigy" Telescopes. Would like from anyone who has one, to verify its accuracy.

If its good it would replace the "All star" goto alignment procedure, but it still says you can add calibration stars to improve pointing accuracy. So really only doing half the the goto alignment.

If its too expensive it might not be worth it, although I am a sucker for all these gadgets

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I am in two minds about them. They might make astronomy accessible to more people, specifically those with some money behind them but no or very little experience. But on the other hand, I have a CPC925 and it is not exactly hard to set up, I think I have had about three align failures in two years and even they were rush jobs where I was none too careful about centering alignment stars.

[TechnoViking (James)]

I wonder if someone will hack these units and turn them into primitive astro guiders? Its basically working on the principle of guide star alignment.

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Found the USD price $310. So the Aussie price will be ....... its doesn't matter

I'll give it a miss for now.