SkyScout

[richlevy]

It's amazing how fast technology becomes dated. I just picked up a new SkyScout on Woot for $80. This came out only 7 years ago for over $600. A lot of people say that Android apps have made it obsolete, but being able to look through a viewfinder and find stars and planets is not something you can do on a cellphone, unless the astronomy apps somehow use the camera.

I got my first trial of it last week in my backyard. I would have gone on longer but it was freezing. I will say that instead of two batteries lasting a half hour they should have allowed four. The batteries each have to be placed in sort of reverse Faraday cage sleeves because the thing is so sensitive to magnetism. It was still impressive to look at the moon through a viewfinder and have it list the moon and maybe 3 other objects. Consider the positioning required in something the size of a binocular to figure out where in the entire sky the dime-sized viewfinder is pointing.

The SkyScout has a 12 channel GPS receiver and orientation sensors that measure location and pointing angle. From an internal database of some 6,000 celestial objects an object is identified simply by centering it in the device's zero-power optical finder and pressing a button. The LCD screen displays the name of the object (star, planet, deep sky object, etc.) and other relevant data. An audio presentation is available via earphones on 200 of the most popular celestial objects.
The SkyScout will also locate an object; the user selects the desired object from the database and red arrows in the viewfinder direct the user to point the viewfinder to the object. The SkyScout also features a "Tonight's Highlights" mode, leading the user through the night's best objects.