Home > Consumer Reviews > Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium

Excellent product. I've been following the reviews here since I heard about the Skyscout so the negative writeups kept me from purchasing for about 6 months. I decided to buy one this December and it has worked great. I live in Anchorage and have found GPS units don't work quite as well here as down in the lower 48, although they do work reiliably up here. However, with the Skyscout I can get a lock from inside my house. My Etrex Legend has a problem doing that. I cross referenced the Skyscouts identify function against my computer program Starry Night, and it identifies everything correctly. The locate function can be just outside the viewfinder every once in a while but the documentation said extreme Northern latitudes may experience this. After a few nights outside with the Skyscout you almost don't need to take it with you because you become so familiar with the night sky. The magnetic interference symbol lights up consistently when I'm in a couple of locations but I move a few yards away and it goes off. The battery usage is high so I bought some quality rechargeable 2500 mAh AA's and I always have a fresh set with me. The update program is excellent as well. Simply hook your Skyscout up to your computer with the included USB cable and it updates with the push of a buttone. Overall the unit is easy to use with minimal startup familiarization involved. All said I'm very pleased with the Skyscout and it will be something I use the rest of my life.

Lots of reviews so far on how great this device is, and I agree with all the accolades. However, my unit gobbles up batteries like crazy. I went through 3 sets of batteries in 3 or 4 hours. Changing the batteries should be a LOT easier. You have to unscrew a battery cover instead of having a latch. The batteries are hard to pull out with the springs pushing the battery and no place to grasp the battery to remove it. You have to put shields over the batteries to reduce magnetic interference. So changing batteries in the dark in a field location is somewhat of a hassle.

The device powers down in 5 minutes to conserve power. Instead of "sleeping" and remembering the satellite locations, it starts all over again and took 4 or 5 minutes to acquire the satellites in an open field. That delay takes away a lot of the fun. I can see why it could take time to acquire the first time. But if you don't move, it would be nice if the SkyScout started with the last observed satellites and did the acquisition in seconds instead of minutes...further reducing the devices useful time due to the high battery drain.

All that said, it is, indeed, a wonderful device. I mounted a green laser pointer on the top and use it to point out stars and plugged in a powered speaker so others can hear the voice descriptions.

Related to the SkyScout is the support available from Celestron via the internet:

The little program that comes with the SkyScout works well for downloading firmware updates. However it only works running under a Windows OS. The Celestron support area for the SkyScout, in general, is poor. I hope this is due to the "newness" of the device. When I accessed the top level SkyScout page it says the latest firmware release is 1.20.29 but the release notes were only current to 1.20.23. The downloads area doesn't identify which version of firmware of Windows SkyScout utility you are downloading and has multiple entries that look the same but are different versions.

The support knowledge base has no entries in it for the SkyScout. When you submit a ticket to point out problems, you are guided through a list of irrelevant topics before being allowed to submit your trouble ticket.

(I'm an Intel Mac user and was a little disappointed that I have to use Windows XP to do the firmware downloads. It would have been nice if the firmware update process wasn't made Windows specific. I tried to do the firmware upgrade with a virtual machine running Windows XP, Parallels, but the Parallels USB support isn't robust enough for this device. Maybe sometime soon, I'll be able to use Parallels for the SkyScout and other Windows centric devices and ditch my PC which is now only used for USB downloads for devices like this.)

I finally returned my first SkyScout to Celestron. It was consuming batteries way too fast. The replacement unit arrived about 10 days after I sent the original unit back to Celestron. I did a quick GPS test on the back deck and it did acquire the GPS signal much faster.

It has been a couple of months since a firmware upgrade. I do hope the GPS acquisition process gets improved in future firmware. My Garmin GPS units "remember" the last satellite pattern and start acquisition with that pattern, making the process much shorter if I'm still in the same area of the glove. Of course, if I move, the Garmin has to start all over again. It appears the SkyScout starts with no knowledge of the last position so it takes much longer to do any acquisition.

I was happy with the speed that Celestron answered my appeal for help on their web based system to get tech support. I was provided some ideas to try and the process to get an RMA within 2 days of posting the request. I mailed the original SkyScout back to Celestron using priority mail so they got it in 2 days. The return back to me was via UPS so it took 8 days. I live on the east coast. They shipped a completely new unit.

This thing does just what it says it does, and well. You point it at something and it tells you what it is. You ask it to locate something in the night sky and it leads you there with a ring of friendly flashing arrows. It's light enough to hold at arm's length for minutes on end, the eye relief is generous, the controls are easy to master, and the battery life looks good.

The flaws I've found so far are minor. It can't see GPS satellites well through clouds, which limits its use as just a GPS device. (Obviously, the designers had starry nights principally in mind, and may have saved some weight or power consumption by sacrificing some sensitivity.) On the other hand, it complains too easily about magnetic distractions, though that has yet to compromise its usefulness, best I can tell. And the guide arrows are kinda dim for daylight use. But what the heck -- overall the design is superb.

I'm taking it to Hawaii next week for a real workout. Airport security can keep my Dom Perignon, but I'm not parting with my SkyScout for anything.

This is a wonderful item if you're interested in the night sky. It identifies stars and displays precise GPS longitude and latitude with exact time, both of which may be important in aligning computerized "go-to" telescopes. It is amazingly accurate and reproducible. Point it at the same star three times and get the same identification each time. It has the ability to located celestial objects, which works well, but is a little more cumbersome. You need to follow the little red directional arrows in the view finder. Slow movement of the skyscout is necessary, otherwise, the arrows jump around can give you misleading directional advice.
Since the unit is unaffected by obstructed views or light pollution, it has advantages over sky charts. Having had the experience of pointing the skyscout towards an urban sky obstructed by tall buildings and light pollution to try to identify one of the two or three "stars" visible, only to have the skyscout promptly identify "Mars," I'm quite impressed. It seems to be well constructed. It feels solid in the hand and appears to be able to weather a drop or two, although admittedly I haven't put this to the test.
The manual warns you that it might have difficulty getting a GPS signal if you're next to a tall object and this is true. It works better in small clearing than near a building or large trees. The view finder is direct view and zero magnification, so this is a device for identifying but not observing celestial objects. They do market a telescope now that the skyscout can be mounted piggyback on, but I haven't tested this. It does aid in using my freestanding telescope. The unit is small and very portable. I'm going on vacation to area with much darker skies than to which I'm accustomed, and I'm looking forward to bringing my skyscout to help me identify stars I've not seem before. Since it is small and lightweight, it will pack easily and is much more convenient than packing books with sky charts and red-beam flashlights. I really like this device and recommend it without reservation for anyone interested in identifying stars and planets

It really works. You look up, press a button, and it tells you the star you are looking at. Or, if you want to search, it will find a star or planet. The GPS is sensitive to nearby magnetic fields, so it's difficult to amplify the audio narrative with a powered speaker or headphones, but the earpiece works well. Most microscopes and telescopes end up ignored. This is fun every night, and it even works in the daytime.