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Celestron 22460 StarSense Explorer DX 102AZ Smartphone App-Enabled Refractor Telescope, iPhone/Android Compatible, Silver/Black

£199.995£399.99Clearance
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An ultra-stable altazimuth mount provides a sturdy foundation for StarSense Explorer DX. Slip clutches and geared slow motion controls in both axes help you move the telescope smoothly and zero in your target. As celestial objects appear to drift across the night sky, you’ll be able to follow them with just a few turns of the knobs. It’s all anchored by an adjustable, full-height tripod. It takes just 15 minutes to set up the Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ. (Image credit: Celestron) A great value all-rounder with the added convenience of alignment by smartphone, this large yet affordable Dobsonian telescope offers sharp and immersive views of galaxies, nebulae but also planets and the Moon. If you decide to forgo using the app, the supplied red-dot finder proved to be useful for star-hopping. (Image credit: Celestron) This great telescope is featured in our best telescopes for beginners guide, along with its highly-recommended cousin — the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ — featured as one of our best telescopes for 2021.

The optical tube and mount are of a good quality. One especially nice point is how lightweight and portable this system is, allowing the astronomer to easily move around with the entire assembly with no problem.

With your fingernail on either side of the battery, pry the battery up and out of the battery compartment. The user-friendly planetarium interface allows you to scan the skies for objects you wish to view. You can also search for objects in the extensive database. All mirror surfaces are coated with our XLT optical coatings to visibly increase contrast and light throughput for brighter views. With XLT, you'll be able to discern subtle details while viewing the Moon and planets, as well as faint galaxies and nebulae. The mirrors are made of low-expansion optical glass, which helps ensure the best images under changing environmental conditions.

The Moon may be very bright in the night sky. The Moon’s big, bright disc can blind StarSense Explorer so that it cannot locate objects near the Moon. To see if this is the problem, try selecting another object to view in a different part of the night sky. Also, keep in mind that any deep-sky objects will appear washed out when the Moon is bright in the night sky. The best nights to observe are when the Moon is in or near the New Moon phase. Turn on “Save Images & Logs” from the Menu as described above. After you use StarSense Explorer at night, there will be images and log files stored on your phone. Accessing them requires connecting your smartphone to a computer. To retrieve the files:The camera views the sky through a mirror, enabling you to view the phone’s screen at a convenient angle. The StarSense app displays the camera’s view of the night sky, using a time exposure if necessary so it may take some seconds to appear or refresh. The method of alignment is to aim the telescope at a chosen object — which is where the red-dot finder comes in handy — and then move the red crosswires on the app to the same object shown on the phone view. You can zoom in for better precision. Manual altazimuth mount with smooth, dual-axis slow-motion controls makes it easy to follow the on-screen arrows to your desired target. When the bullseye turns green, it’s ready to view in the telescope’s eyepiece. Newtonian reflector with highly reflective coatings and enough light gathering ability to view all the best celestial objects. Mitigation of potential damage caused by user attempting to use wrench to turn focus motor while powered on XLT reflective coatings with silicon dioxide and tantalum pentoxide protective overcoatings for primary and secondary mirrors

I've been using telescopes for 50 years and set up a DX 102 starsense explorer for a friend who bought this as a beginner scope. Let's start with the good. For a beginning achromat it is solid and very good quality. The red dot finder is great. The alt-az mount is sturdy and mount head movement is smooth and stays where you put it. Also very good assembly instructions. Now the app. I think the app itself is actually great as a tool for seeing what's out there. It has great graphical interface, a ton of information about the objects you're looking at. Unfortunately the whole smart-phone to telescope alignment and telescope orientation using that patented LISA algorithm or whatever does not seem to work very consistently if at all. I did get the telescope to orient initially and tried moving it to M42 and it was about 1 field width off. Then I tried improving telescope alignment and after that the telescope would not locate at all. Optical Coatings: XLT reflective coatings with silicon dioxide and tantalum pentoxide protective overcoatings for primary and sceondary mirrors Celestron has reinvented the manual telescope with StarSense Explorer—the first telescope that uses your smartphone to analyze the night sky and calculate its position in real time. StarSense Explorer is ideal for beginners thanks to the app’s user-friendly interface and detailed tutorials. It’s like having your own personal tour guide of the night sky. cfg. On connection will set state of mount's onboard WiFi module. valid values : Ignore Enable DisableOther astronomy apps do not use plate solving. Instead, they rely exclusively on the smartphone’s internal gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compass to estimate the smartphone’s pointing position. When coupled to a manual telescope, the resultant pointing is not accurate enough to place astronomical objects within the telescope’s field of view. The process of extracting star pattern data in images to determine a telescope’s current pointing position is called “plate solving.” It is the same method used by professional observatories and even orbiting satellites. The Celestron StarSense Explorer 8-inch Dobsonian telescope is a hugely impressive telescope. Although we're sure beginners could get used to it, it's primarily aimed at intermediate users after a good quality, good value Dobsonian telescope and who have the confidence to manually aim it. As such it's a great telescope for learning the night sky, too. However, it's not lightweight. Although there are some excellent handles to carry the tube and the base separately — and it's easy enough to swivel and pivot once in place — a telescope this size requires some careful consideration. However, if you have the space it comes highly recommended and should give you many years of incredible deep sky views. If the Celestron StarSense Explorer 8-inch Dobsonian telescope isn't for you If you are unsure how to align the camera, tap the Menu icon button and turn on the Camera Setup Assistant. Now, when you go through the camera alignment screens, there will be information and videos to walk you through the process.

The StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ is a great choice for a first telescope or for those just starting out. Its great user-friendliness and capable StarSense App make this telescope an impressively powerful tool that will offer many hours of observing pleasure. If this product isn't for you The StarSense Explorer app is the first app ever developed that uses plate solving to determine the smartphone’s current pointing position. The app provides a typical pointing accuracy of about 0.25 ° . If you received a red dot finderscope that looks like the unit pictured here, follow the instructions below to replace the battery:

Celestron LT 80AZ StarSense Explorer Telescope

Celestron has reinvented the Dobsonian telescope with StarSense Explorer App, the first Dobsonian that uses your smartphone to analyze the night sky and calculate its position in real-time. This large-aperture Celestron 10 inch StarSense Explorer is ideal for anyone looking for a very capable telescope, thanks to the app's user-friendly interface and detailed tutorials. It's like having your own personal tour guide of the night sky. The large aperture will ensure that you won’t outgrow the telescope as you continue on in your astronomical adventures. This one-of-a-kind app uses patent-pending technology in combination with a Celestron StarSense Explorer telescope (sold separately) to analyze star patterns overhead to calculate the telescope’s position in real time with pinpoint accuracy. With a large 130mm (5”) objective lens, this telescope has enough light gathering ability to bring out impressive detail in celestial objects. You can expect sharp, bright views of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, its cloud bands and Great Red Spot, the rings of Saturn, the trapezium in the Orion Nebula, and beautiful Ple ia des Open Star Cluster. Highly reflective coatings on both the primary and secondary mirror enhance the views even more.

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