The StarSense Explorer telescope 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.
Leave complicated star charts, imprecise planetarium apps, and computerized mounts behind. With StarSense Explorer, locating objects has never been easier, faster, or more accurate. Within minutes of setting up the telescope, you’ll be navigating the sky with confidence. Simply place your phone in the unique StarSense dock and launch the StarSense Explorer app. After aligning your phone to the telescope’s optics (a quick, 2-minute procedure), StarSense Explorer generates a list of celestial objects currently visible. Make your selection and arrows appear onscreen, guiding you as you to move the telescope. When the object is ready to view, the bullseye turns green.
StarSense Explorer uses patent-pending technology and your smartphone to determine exactly where the telescope is pointed in the night sky. A Lost in Space Algorithm (LISA), like the ones satellites use in orbit to correctly reorient themselves, helps the app match star patterns it detects overhead to its internal database.
Even if you live in a light polluted city location, StarSense Explorer is advanced enough to be able to pick out Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, the Orion Nebula, double stars, and a few more of the most famous celestial objects.
The minimum SmartPhone requirements and a list of already tested models is available here: https://starsenseexplorer.simcur.com/
The Schmidt-Cassegrain optics by Celestron:
Despite the long focal length of these telescopes, the OTA itself has a very short length, making the system a compact telescope which is extremely easy to transport. Light first hits an aspherically figured Schmidt corrector plate and is then thrown onto a spherical main mirror. This reflects the light back up, throwing it onto a secondary mirror which subsequently throws it back in the direction of main mirror. The light then passes through a central hole in the main mirror and into the focuser at the bottom of the OTA. Thus the system is closed and hence does not suffer from air turbulence which could degrade the image. Of course this also means that the system is optimally protected from dust. The Schmidt plate is multi-coated, ensuring bright images which do not suffer from stray light reflections.
This telescope provides a very good image, boasting high contrast and definition and provides a lot of pleasure when planetary observing. The Schmidt-Cassegrain design provides a good all-round system suitable for both observing and astrophotography and with an enormous range of optional accessories available. Using the bottom end of the OTA to look through means easy orientation. The system is also optimal for occasional terrestrial observing, e.g. birdwatching at close range. Celestron SC telescopes have an aperture ratio of around 1:10 which, so astrophotography is also very easily possible.
Main mirror focusing means a very large range of focus is made available, which allows virtually any common accessory to be used. Two pre-loaded ball bearings are used in the main mirror focus positioning mechanism in order to prevent 'mirror shift' - a typical problem when using simple bushings. The use of high quality materials such as CNC-milled aluminium components, cast steel and stainless steel guarantees extreme robustness with low weight. This means that a very heavy mount is unnecessary, not always the case for other telescope designs.
Features of the optics:
- long focal length with short OTA
- low weight aluminium OTA
- high quality XLT multi-coating
- closed system
- pre-loaded ball bearings for low mirror shift main mirror focusing
The azimuthal mount facilitates intuitive telescope movement and alignment with the desired celestial object.
It not only matters which telescope you buy but also where you buy it. Our additional services:
- We are a leading telescope dealer and know the devices we sell. Our customer service team will gladly help you after your purchase if you have problems with assembly or operation.
- We provide a copy of the 80-page "Telescope ABC" beginners handbook with every telescope.
