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| Home >> Toy Details and Reviews >> Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium | ||||||||||||
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User Submitted Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium Reviews (cont...)Date: 2008-03-15 Star gazer I have always wanted a way to map the stars and learn more about them, and this gadget really works. It does not magnify anything, just points you in the right direction, so you still need a good pair of binoculars or a telescope and a celestial map to make the experience mean something... Can't wait for Summer months when I can take more time outside on a comfortable deck chair and do some serious Star gazing... Date: 2008-02-29 Feels like a quality piece but mine arrived dead with GPS error. This looked and felt great as I unpacked it from it's box for the first time. It feels solidly constructed, was heavier than I expected, and was not cheap feeling at all. Trouble is, it won't even boot up all the way. After splashing the start-up screen, a message reading "Error: GPS hardware problem detected. Please contact Celestron Technical Support." is displayed, and I can only adjust the brightness/contrast of the display or turn it off after this happens -- no other buttons respond. I'm a gadget-hound and know my way around both GPS receivers and astronomy optics and other goodies, so this is not a case of technophobia. It's dead, Jim. I see I am not the only one who recently had this error recently, based on other reviews here. I will call Celestron tomorrow and determine whether I should try to get it repaired or just ship it back for another unit. I will revise this review once I have a repair or replacement unit in hand. Date: 2008-02-20 It's Amazing! The idea is genius - marry a GPS with an accelerometer and create a device that can tell you exactly what star it is pointing at, or direct you to any visible star. And it pretty much works as advertised. We've used ours on several nights so far, and everyone in our extended family has wanted a turn spotting different stars. The info on the major stars is plentiful. The audio is a nice idea, but it just reads the same information that is on the text display. Sighting can be a little tricky through the plastic tube, but even faint stars took no more than two or three tries to spot. The precision is good, but not great. If you point to Orion's belt, it's going to list all three stars. You'll have to read the descriptions to determine whether you are interested in the eastern-most, western-most, or middle star. Did you know that the middle star of Orion's belt, Alnilam, is 50% farther away than the other two? Or that Alnitak, the leftmost star in the belt, is primarily a hot blue supergiant star that is 6 million years old and has already begun to die? Those are the kinds of things SkyScout will tell you. Fun stuff. It is very sensitive to metal - you can't use rechargeable batteries, and it comes with special tubes to you have to put the batteries in. We couldn't use it standing next to a big swing set, for instance. A little symbol pops up on the video screen and it refuses to work. The software is PC only. No Mac version in the works as of now. We haven't tried running the updater in parallels or VMWare yet. Updates seem fairly rare anyway. It's a little pricey, but all in all, I really can't find too many negatives about it. It's amazing. Date: 2008-01-23 celeston skyscout. big dud....the company brand new and didn't work at all, right out of the box. had a gps error with instructions to contact tech support. customer service very slow to answer and only did so after many prompts. tech support needs serial number of unit before return authorization and gives procedure to access that info. they are tech support and don't realize nothing is accessible with a gps error. took forever to get return authorization (3 weeks). now they say maybe another 30 days for repairs to happen. hey...brand new. either send a new replacement or refund the price. no answer. pricey toy. save your money and download some freeware for same features. Date: 2008-01-10 Husband loves it! I bought the SkyScout for my husband for Chistmas with more than a little trepidation since customer ratings and comments seemed to be all over the place. I was concerned that he would not have the patience to go through what many of the previous reviewers had in order to get the thing up and running properly. It turns out there was no need for worry. After doing the online update, the Celestron has worked like a charm. Getting a GPS fix takes a few minutes, but after that it works amazingly well. He's been able to identify countless stars in the past two weeks and so far, he's totally thrilled with all that it can do. The SkyScout has been wonderful for finding a particular constellation and them identifying the individual stars within it. The informative audio information is not only educational, but surprisingly enjoyable since the recorded female voice isn't too robotic. I agree it's a somewhat costly item, but from my perspective, the WOW factor has been worth it.
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