Unlock the Night Sky: Family-Friendly Astronomy with Celestron's StarSense Telescopes

Rob speaks with Lance Lucero from Celestron about the StarSense Explorer tabletop Dobsonian telescopes. Lance walks Rob through the main features of the StarSense Explorer and they both share stories of their experience as leaders of outreach groups where they share their passion for astronomy with the public. One thing is for sure, Celestron's StarSense Explorer Tabletop Dob is one of my favorite scopes right now.

A Special Thanks to Will Young at https://www.deepskydude.com/ for the right to use his awesome music.

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Celestron - StarSense Explorer 114mm Tabletop Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/3Rc05kY
Celestron - StarSense Explorer 130mm Tabletop Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/48hy4Ok
Celestron - StarSense Explorer 150mm Tabletop Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/3UM0g94
Celestron - Starsense Explorer 10" Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/49kiFhy
Celestron - StarSense Explorer 8" Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/3QPOpTM
Celestron - StarSense Explorer 12" Dobsonian | https://bit.ly/48m2zmf

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

I'm here with Lance from Celestron and we were going to talk a little bit about the StarSense X4 DAW. It looks to me like it's a good like beginner scope for a family, like they want to spend a couple bucks on the scope and actually get started in the hobby, and it sounds like it might be more accessible to people. Can you tell me a bit about that?

Speaker 2: 0:31

absolutely.

Speaker 2: 0:32

What we've gone for here is basically larger aperture scopes with the most simplistic mount that we could possibly make for it just a simple alt azimuth mount.

Speaker 2: 0:41

The key factors to this is that it does use our StarSense technology, which we have used on previous smaller scopes, and it basically takes the computerization that you would normally have to pay for in a go-to scope and utilizes the computer that everybody has in their pocket. So you would simply attach your phone, start the app, you adjust your camera so that the camera's looking through this mirror and it sees what the scope is seeing. Then, to find an object that you want to see, you can either select it from a list of suggested objects or you can use the star map, select the object and tell it that's what you want to find. Hit the star map, select the object and tell it that's what you want to find. Hit the star sense button. It will provide arrows showing you the direction that you need to move the scope. So then you would just manually move the scope following the arrows and when, as you get closer, it zooms in on your target and the crosshairs will turn green when it appears in your eyepiece.

Speaker 1: 1:44

That's fantastic. That sounds super easy, so you don't even need to know the night sky.

Speaker 2: 1:49

It's all done by plate solving the sky, just like the larger telescopes, observatory telescopes have been doing forever, using the computational power of your smartphone.

Speaker 1: 2:00

That's fantastic. I'm just thinking of the new family taking this out, because I've heard from many families as a planetarium guy. Many families are like, hey, I bought this telescope and it doesn't work. And I'm like, no, it works, you just need to use it right. But then it takes a while to get in. It sounds like you can just take this out of the box and set it up, put the phone in and then it just tells you where to go.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Once you get your phone in and you've calibrated the image where it's looking over the mirror, you're finding your first target in under a minute.

Speaker 1: 2:29

That's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Whether it's a star, whether it's a planet, whether it's a deep sky object like a galaxy, Andromeda, anything like that. Yes, it's so easy.

Speaker 1: 2:41

That's fantastic. I love it, and it's going to be on the cheaper side because it's a Dobsonian right, exactly so it's going to be a lower price point.

Speaker 3: 2:49

Exactly, but what?

Speaker 1: 2:50

if I wanted, can I do something even bigger than this.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Yes, now we do offer the tabletop version in three different sizes. We have the 114, the 130, and this is the 150. Okay, but for people who are interested in even larger apertures, we do have the 8, the 10, and the 12. Oh, wow, so we've got full-size versions Now. One thing I do want to point out about this is that we do show this on a tripod Right, this is an optional tripod. Being a tabletop mount, it's meant to go on like a picnic table if you're at a park or something of that nature, but we do find that sometimes it can still be a little awkward. If you have a very long table Looking at certain parts of the sky, you kind of have to lean over the table to get to the eyepiece. So we created a tripod that just simply bolts to the bottom of the base that you would see, so it can be used either on or off the tripod, on table or freestanding.

Speaker 1: 3:44

That's fantastic. I like that. That ability to switch definitely helps Exactly.

Speaker 2: 3:49

It makes it much easier to access the eyepiece without having to contort yourself around the table.

Speaker 1: 3:53

Yeah, I've been out with some scout groups and such and I've set up my telescope and then we set it and we're going to look at the moon. But then the moon is like you have to the eyepiece is over here but the rest of the table's over there, so you're like holding people on shoulders and trying to make sure that they can see it, it's, it's a whole mess exactly so I, I like that, and just being able to uh move it to where you want it to go sounds amazing absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:18

So it's a push to scope. No again. No built-in computerization, right. So, and again, the. The beauty of the dobsonian mount is that you're putting more of your money into the optics, which are really the important part of the telescope, and not worrying about, you know, having a high-tech mount yeah well, thank you for showing me this this is fantastic. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 4:40

Thanks a lot, thank you if you're still listening and like this podcast, please consider becoming one of our patreon patrons. Memberships start as low as three. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. You think the podcast will be available every third Tuesday of the month.

Speaker 2: 5:25

When I was seven, first time I ever looked through a scope, I was given this little tiny toy store refractor. I pointed it at the brightest star I could see, looked through the eyepiece, realized I was looking at Jupiter. Oh nice. Oh, it blew my mind. I've been hooked ever since. Yeah, but yeah, just the concept that you have the ability to have someone with no knowledge and a smartphone find anything they want to see on their first night without having to worry about, well, star hopping or star maps or anything like that. It's all in the power of your phone. That's cool.

Speaker 1: 6:00

And it's nice that you can adjust and go to different sizes then too. Yes, that's cool, nice, thank you.