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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

SkyScout from Celestron

The SkyScout is a revolutionary, one of a kind, patented handheld device that instantly identifies and/or locates any celestial object visible to the naked eye, providing educational and entertaining information, both in text and audio.


Using the SkyScout:
Point the SkyScout at any bright star and it will instantly identify the object or choose an object from the celestial database of over 6,000 objects and the SkyScout will guide you to it.

The SkyScout includes great information and stories about the most popular celestial objects in scrolling text and narrated audio

How does it work:
SkyScout combines GPS technology, which gives the time, date and location of the user, software that calculates the position of the objects for that moment and 3 axis sensors measuring gravitational and magnetic fields to determine the true orientation of the SkyScout to the earth.

More here: www.celestron.com/skyscout/no_flash.php?Flash=N/

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Quite a cool toy...almost Star Trek like.

[starbux]

Virtually all discussions of this that I've seen suggest that there is alot of potential in this sort of thing. Mainly as a sort of digital object finder that would not require encoders to use.

Right now the item as is, is a kind of novelty gadget, not really something I'd be anxious to own. Take out the audio commentary and increase the object list to include many objects NOT visible to the naked eye with a bracket to mount as a finder on a larger scope and they will have something revolutionary.