Celestron - StarSense AutoAlign Telescope Accessory - Automatically Aligns Your Celestron Computerized Telescope to The Night Sky in Less Than 3 Minutes - Advanced Mount Modeling, Black

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.

I have been a Celestronomer for almost two decades, using a variety of their Alt/Az mounts and SCT telescopes. Up until now I've wrestled with and relied purely on manual alignment, and have become quite proficient/efficient at the process over the years. With that said, even on my best night, the manual alignment process yielded only "fair" results - with "Go To" being relative, normally getting my target in a very low power eyepiece FOV, but not always, even with the addition of 5 additional alignment stars. And, on my best night, it was a 15-20 minute proposition.Sky time is precious. Observation time is precious. This year I made the move and upgraded to a combination of the Celestron Advanced VX 6" Refractor scope and Celestron CGX GEM mount. A big scope, a big mount, a bigger PITA to align. I stumbled upon the Celestron StarSense Autoalign accessory while researching the scope itself. The reviews I read were mostly positive, but many opinions seemed to say "usually works, but why waste the money, manual alignment works just as well, just takes a little longer". Because Sky Time is precious I decided to take the plunge - I've had great luck with Celestron gear and since this is part of the Celestron ecosystem I figured what they heck. FYSA, I also use the SkyPortal Wifi module and iPhone App. This is important. I think my experience might be much different, but all of this comes together in one easy to use interface on Sky Portal.So, all of that is preamble. I've been using the StarSense for just over a month now and have 4 sessions under my belt. Important note, as soon as I got the StarSense I connected all components of my system (StarSense, StarSense hand controller, CGX mount, SkyPortal Wifi module) together and updated all the firmware using CFM. All Components needed firmware updates. I suspect that many of the frustrations described in reviews are because of incompatible or out of date firmware. Firmware update was easy (I couldn't use a hard connection, had to update over WiFi, good thing I had that, Celestron needs to figure that one out and update their manuals - quite frankly WiFi should be built in as a standard feature). After firmware update I took everything out and set it up during twilight. As darkness settled I powered up the system and opened the SkyPortal App, hit "Connect and Align". The app detected the StarSense just like it's supposed to, and immediately went to work. 3 minutes - 4 star alignment complete. I was flabberghasted - it all worked, and it was easy! I took the next step and calibrated to my scope (you only need to do this once), then re-aligned. The entire process from start to finish took me 10 minutes, maybe. And the alignment - amazing. I moved around the sky using the Sky Portal App (which is so easy, just touch the target to select, and hit "Go To". Pointing accuracy with Star Sense is orders of magnitude better than a manual align - will put your scope on target using short focal length eyepieces. I added alignment stars as I hopped around to sweeten an already superior solution - Star Sense was dead on.Since that first night I've enjoyed 3 more sessions, using StarSense every time to align. It has worked flawlessly - every time. I have found it will find stars not visible to the naked eye, so you can align during late pinkie time and be ready when true darkness arrives after CNT, again, maximizing Sky Time. It just works. It is completely automatic, fast, and easy. Alignment is now just a brief interlude, not a major chore, and the quality of the alignment is incredible. The accuracy of the alignment saves more time - puts me right on target so I can spend more time looking and less time adjusting. Where it's really made a difference is with faint DSOs. With StarSense, when I GoTo a DSO, I KNOW it's in the FOV, even if I can't see it. If I can't see it I can work on the eyepiece/focus solution and either bring it out, or not, but I don't have to spend time wondering if I'm even looking in the right piece of sky.So, if this seems like a glowing review, it's intended to. It's so refreshing to buy a piece of technology and have it completely exceed expectations. If you are on the fence, don't be, the StarSense is worth every penny and more - pure magic!