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Star testing the telescope at higher powers revealed well-corrected optics, and stars focused nicely into tiny airy disks as you would expect from a good quality telescope. It's a shame much higher-powered eyepieces or Barlow isn’t included as you need a substantial magnification to see planetary details: the supplied eyepieces don't offer this.
While this reflector is a fine telescope for visual observing, it is not really suited to astrophotography. Since the mount is undriven long exposure work is impossible. You can of course take simple afocal images by holding a phone to the eyepiece, and the moon is a great target for this purpose. Should you buy the Celestron StarSense DX 130AZ? Celestron has reinvented the manual telescope with StarSense Explorer—the first telescope that 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.While you observe, you can access detailed information, images, and audio descriptions for the most popular objects. It’s a great way for the entire family to learn scientific facts, history, mythology, and more, deepening your understanding of the night sky.
It takes just 15 minutes to set up the Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ. (Image credit: Celestron) Overall, the Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 130AZ is a great telescope for the beginner skywatcher. It has an affordable price tag: you get a very capable system for your money. It's also extremely user-friendly, we discovered a youngster at the age of eight years old was able to start getting to grips with it.
Once you select an object, the app displays pointing arrows onscreen. These indicate where to move the telescope to find it. Follow the arrows until the bullseye appears centered on target. When the bullseye turns green, the object is visible in the telescope’s lower powered eyepiece. Peach has provided astronomical images for magazines and books throughout his career. His images have been featured in Astronomy Magazine, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Now & The Sky at Night. He has also authored articles on astrophotography for these magazines. Peach has also been a co-author on several professional scientific papers on planetary astronomy, especially regarding work on Mars and Jupiter. He was one of only a few amateur astronomers to have work featured as part of the national Explorers of the Universe exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall in 2007. His work has also appeared at the Edinburgh Science Festival, and The Royal Greenwich Observatory. The word “achromatic” implies a freedom from the false color that bedevilled refractors in the very early days of telescopes, but this is a comparative term. Like other achromatic refractors, the Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 102AZ still has some false color, which reveals itself as colored fringes around the edges of objects, particularly at high magnification, and the short tube results in inherently more false color than with a longer focal-ratio achromatic instrument. To completely overcome false color you need a considerably more expensive apochromatic refractor or a reflector. However, refractors are traditionally more robust than reflectors, so there is no ideal instrument to suit everyone. Computerized telescopes typically require an alignment process with the night sky. Although Celestron has simplified the alignment procedure over the years, it still requires the user to center the telescope on several stars before it can accurately find objects. What’s more, re-alignment may be needed if the mount is bumped or otherwise moved. With a large 130mm (5”) objective lens, this telescope has enough light gathering ability to bring out impressive detail in celestial objects. You can expect sharp, bright views of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, its cloud bands and Great Red Spot, the rings of Saturn, the trapezium in the Orion Nebula, and beautiful Ple ia des Open Star Cluster. Highly reflective coatings on both the primary and secondary mirror enhance the views even more.
Other astronomy apps do not use plate solving. Instead, they rely exclusively on the smartphone’s internal gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compass to estimate the smartphone’s pointing position. When coupled to a manual telescope, the resultant pointing is not accurate enough to place astronomical objects within the telescope’s field of view. StarSense Explorer uses patented 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 orient themselves, helps the app match star patterns it detects overhead to its internal database. While other astronomy apps may claim that they can help you find objects, they rely exclusively on the phone's gyros and accelerometers, which aren't as accurate as LISA technology. No other app can accurately tell you when your target is visible in the eyepiece. StarSense Explorer uses image data captured by the smartphone’s camera to determine its pointing position. The app captures an image of the night sky and then matches the star patterns within the image to its internal database in a process like fingerprint matching or facial recognition.
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There may be something in the camera’s field of view that is affecting the phone’s ability to “sense” stars, such as power lines, trees, or the edge of a building. Try moving to an area with a clearer view of the night sky, without interference from anything on land. The process of extracting star pattern data in images to determine a telescope’s current pointing position is called “plate solving.” It is the same method used by professional observatories and even orbiting satellites.
Setting-up and alignment is all about Celestron’s magnificent StarSense app. Bypassing the hand controllers in use by ‘Go To’ telescopes, StarSense lives on your smartphone and your smartphone lives on the telescope. The StarSense Explorer app is the first app ever developed that uses plate solving to determine the smartphone’s current pointing position. Other astronomy apps rely on the smartphone’s gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compass to estimate its pointing position. These methods are not accurate enough to place objects within the telescope’s field of view.If you examine the images, it may be easy to determine what is going wrong. Here are some examples: The battery compartment on this finderscope is located on top of the unit. Use a Philips-head screwdriver to loosen the screw holding the battery door closed. The screw is captured and will not fall out when you open the battery door. Select all the files shown in the “StarSense Explorer” folder and copy them to a folder on your computer. A typical system able to plate solve would require several pieces or expensive equipment, such as a sensitive imaging camera, camera lens, external computer, and specialized astronomical software. Using a smartphone to independently do astronomical plate solving is a significant step forward in the progression of amateur astronomy and astronomy apps. StarSense Explorer technology transforms your smartphone into the perfect telescope observing assistant. In doing so, it allows StarSense Explorer telescopes to provide an upgraded astronomical observing experience without the cost associated with more expensive computerized systems.
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