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Celestron Sky Scout: Personal Planetarium

by Khalid Hosein on February 17, 2007

One of our readers sent in this cool suggestion for a Gizmo of the Day and we couldn’t agree more. The Celestron Sky Scout is one of the new wave of high-tech telescopes for personal use. In fact, we even noted a brand new product from Celestron at CES. Back to the Sky Scout. No more manual, painstaking, time consuming locating stars and other celestial objects with old-school telescopes. With the Sky Scout, you just point it at the sky and hit a button and it can help you locate over 6,000 stars, planets, and constellations from a built-in celestial database. It then provides scientific information for each object. Without writing a book on this product, here’s a quick look at some of its other features: USB port for updating database, SD card slot for additional audio presentations, a customized list of the 20 best objects based on your location.

Features

Identifies celestial objects with the click of a button
Locates over 6,000 stars, planets and constellations from built-in celestial database and provides scientific information for each object
Provides comprehensive text and audio descriptions providing history, mythology and other entertaining information for the most popular objects
Tonight’s Highlights: customized list of the 20 best objects to view for your exact date, time and location anywhere in the world
Constellation Lessons: if the star you identify or locate is part of a constellation like the Big Dipper, you can actually take a guided tour through all the stars in that constellation and even see an onscreen map of the constellation
Introduction to Astronomy: a six part audio lesson on the origin and history of astronomy
Glossary of Terms: text defining popular astronomy terms including planets, comets, galaxies and more
Great Astronomers: text bios on some of the world’s greatest astronomers including Galileo, Einstein and Copernicus
Man Made Space Objects: text description of some of the coolest objects man has sent into space including the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Space Shuttle
Comet Guide: text descriptions about history’s most famous comets including Halley’s Comet and Comet Hale-Bop
SD card slot: for optional “Sky Tour” audio presentations that provide hours of entertainment on a variety of topics
USB Port: allows database to be updated with new objects as they are discovered, comets, etc
Built-in Help Menu: includes a quick start instruction guide for using the SkyScout
Compact and light design makes it easy to carry and durable construction makes it safe for rugged environments