Saturday, February 22, 2025, 9:10AM |  27°
MENU
Advertisement

Celestron's SkyScout answers questions about the night sky

Celestron's SkyScout answers questions about the night sky


Michael Conroy, Associated Press

Aim the Celestron SkyScout personal planetarium at a star, and it identifies what's in sight. The star's vital statistics appear on a small screen, and users can plug in earphones to hear a woman's voice describe what they're looking at.

By Rick Callahan
The Associated Press

OMEGA, Ind. -- Take a walk on a clear, dark night far from city lights and be prepared to be awed by a sky blanketed with stars of various magnitudes, the Milky Way's wispy arm and brilliant planets.

It's beautiful and can be overwhelming, particularly if you don't know the North Star from Polaris -- or that they're the same object.

Advertisement

Celestron LLC's new SkyScout (www.celestron.com/skyscout) aims to give stargazers their celestial bearings: Simply aim the camcorder-sized gadget at a star, and it identifies what's in sight. The star's vital statistics appear on a small screen, and users can plug in earphones to hear a soothing voice describe what they're looking at.

Weighing about a pound, the $399 SkyScout isn't a telescope. It's a no-magnification spotting device that harnesses global-positioning-system technology and two sensors -- one to detect the Earth's magnetic field, the other, its gravitational field -- to identify what it's being pointed at.

SkyScout's built-in database of the sky's predictable appearance -- depending on date, time and an observers' position on the planet -- can lead observers to more than 6,000 heavenly objects.

It's perfect for family camping trips when children or adults gazing up from the campfire inevitably ask "what's that star?" and no one has a clue.

Advertisement

I recently gave the SkyScout a tryout at a family gathering in a rural area about 40 miles north of Indianapolis, and it quickly became the center of attraction, providing instruction on the sky's mysteries until mosquitoes drove the party inside.

Not long after sunset, just as a few fireflies began blinking in nearby fields, a bluish-white star appeared nearly overhead and became the first target of the night.

I pressed the SkyScout's power button and it took a few minutes for it to link up with the GPS satellites that fed it the time and my precise location just east of the town of Omega, Ind.

Information appears on the side of the device, in a reddish-orange LCD screen.

Determining the name of that bluish-white star was simple. I selected "Identify" from the simple menu and peered through the SkyScout's viewfinder, positioning the star in the center of its two reddish spotting circles.

A push of the "Target" button on the SkyScout's side prompted a circle of eight red arrows to flash inside the viewfinder as it locked onto the object's position before it delivered its ruling: "Vega ... Constellation Lyra ... distance 25.30 light years."

As it grew darker and the Milky Way's hazy arc appeared overheard, the SkyScout identified numerous stars before I switched over to its "Tonight's Highlights" function with a listing of 20 objects of interest.

Next, I tried out the "Locate" option, which can find objects that aren't even above the horizon -- in which case the user ends up pointing the SkyScout at the ground.

When I entered a search for Antares, a reddish star in the constellation Scorpius, the directional arrows in the viewfinder led me to it.

An arrow appeared at the bottom of the viewfinder, and I pointed the SkyScout down, then to the left after another arrow appeared, followed by other arrows, each blinking faster as I neared the star.

When Antares appeared in the viewfinder, the ring of arrows blinked in unison, signaling that the target had been reached. After a few such searches, I found that aiming the SkyScout at objects was easiest if it's held a few inches away from the eye.

The SkyScout, powered by two AA batteries that provide about four hours of continuous use, comes with earphones so that observers can hear spoken descriptions, in a woman's voice, of the objects they've just identified as well as lectures about astronomy's history.

It also includes a padded carrying case with a strap and a USB port and cable to upload new software and amend its database with information such as the orbits of newly discovered comets -- or the details of Pluto's recent demotion from planet to dwarf planet status.

First Published: September 2, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

RELATED
Comments Disabled For This Story
Partners
Advertisement
Preston Coleman, 52, was beaten and strangled inside an Aliquippa VFW on Jan. 5, 2025, in what police described as a vicious, unprovoked attack.
1
news
Bartender working at Aliquippa VFW during beating that left man unconscious facing charges
The University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning
2
business
Amid funding uncertainty, Pitt pauses doctoral admissions
Mayor Ed Gainey during  a press conference at the Downtown Public Safety Center on Thursday. He angrily criticized what he believes negative media coverage of his work as mayor.
3
opinion
Brandon McGinley: ‘The wheels are coming off’ the Gainey administration
On the UPMC Mercy Pavilion's rooftop terrace, the Rehabilitation Garden provides a safe environment where patients can practice navigating training ramps, steps and diverse surfaces like gravel, turf and concrete. The garden includes fragrant herbs and other pleasant sensory stimuli.
4
business
East Liberty-based artificial intelligence firm raises $250 million, deploys AI platform in 100 healthcare systems
Longtime KDKA-TV host Jon Burnett on May 22, 2019.
5
a&e
Jon Burnett, long a KDKA-TV staple, leaves legacy of ‘putting good out into the world’
Advertisement
LATEST business
Advertisement
TOP
Email a Story