Celestron 94005 StarSense Automatic Alignment Telescope Accessory, Black

I'm not sure Celestron aren't milking it a little with the separate autoguider, Be nice and would seem to make sense to combine them but I guess that's business and there may be technical reasons, perhaps. But it's a great bit of kit, I still take time to polar align as well as I reasonably can after all it's not going to hurt - and anything to get the best results. It's quick to get going and within a couple of minutes it's oriented itself and you can then further add precision by adding other stars, systematically using a more powerful lens and then precision tuning it. It's not cheap clearly but really does mean you can get viewing quicker which is even better if it's not an entirely clear night, or you only have a short time. Reassuring too as it's scanning numerous stars across the night sky. After a quick alignment I've certainly had stable 45s-1min 15s exposures.

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.

Excellent item. I use this to align my avx mount. Once calibrated to your scope setup it works great. I run it from the cpwi software an not the handset. I think I set the axis limits to 20 degrees so it won't search for stars below my fence line. The calibration to your scope is very important but is not difficult to do, an you don't have to calibrate each time you use it. Once you click the star sence auto align ,it only takes a few minutes to align it self. You can also run a polar align routine if you want to get your mount spot on, but read up an how to do it in the instructions first.

First I notice the fix in the box, I thought that will be a problem, after a week waiting to get clear skies to do the first test, I got the message that never ends “application init please wait”. After 10min, it still there, it supposed to be 10 to 60 seconds. Looking at internet, shows that is a defect. Returning the product. Really poor experience.

This accessory works very well now and I am able to auto align and GOTO stars and planets with ease.At the time of writing this review, it does not yet work with all Celestron GOTO mounts such as the GT but they are working on it.Be prepared to spend time updating the camera and handset to the latest firmware online. The manual that comes with the unit does not explain how to do this. You will need to join 'Team Celestron' to download the latest update(s) and connect the handset and camera to the PC and the mount to install.Alignment is very accurate. Overall very pleased so far with this purchase, it saves a lot of time and effort aligning my C8 AVX telescope.***** Update **** Planet pointing has now been fixed, planets and earths moon now appear near or even right in the centre of the eyepiece every time. Polar Alignment has also been fixed. You will need to download, install and update your mount and StarSense camera to the latest version from the Team Celestron website.Recommended.

Great piece of kit. Bit pricey but worth it makes star gazing a lot better...

Without doubt, this is the best accessory I have bought for a telescope. Initial set up took a little while but was straight forward. Now I have a fully automatic scope that works flawlessly. Select the auto-align option from the replacement handset and the scope moves to various parts of the sky and after a few minutes it is done. Now select from the thousands of objects and it will put the item in the centre of a 20mm eyepiece. It makes casual stargazing in town so simple, even I can do it.

Expensive for what it is, but being a novice it saves me a lot of time when using just the spotter on my scope and the alignment of my scope is now much more accurate, It also works with the sky portal app so aligning & selecting what to view is sooooo much easier.