Celestron StarSense Autoguider

The Celestron StarSense Autoguider is an all-in-one solution that makes using your telescope easier and more rewarding than ever. This powerful, compact device connects to your Celestron mount to enhance its pointing accuracy and help you create sharp, long-exposure images with ease. Whether you’re an experienced astroimager or just starting in the hobby, adding this game-changing accessory will ensure you have more quality time under the stars.

Automatic Alignment: Be Ready to Observe in Minutes

StarSense Autoguider aligns your telescope to the night sky in about three minutes with the press of a button—no user input is needed. Celestron’s patented StarSense technology “sees” star patterns overhead and matches them to its internal database to automatically orient the telescope. This feature eliminates the hassle of manually aligning your telescope, so you can focus on what’s important—observing and imaging.

Precise GoTo: Supercharge Your Pointing Accuracy

Celestron’s computerized mounts are already hailed for their pointing accuracy, but your mount gets even better when you add the StarSense Autoguider. Instead of placing celestial objects within the telescope’s field of view, Precise GoTo places them in the center of the field—even if you’re using a high-powered eyepiece or today’s small imaging sensors.

Autoguiding: Create Your Celestial Masterpiece

Capturing images of astronomical objects is one of the most exciting things you can do with your telescope. But to capture stunning deep-sky astroimages, you need autoguiding—the power to make tiny adjustments to the mount’s tracking to keep your target locked in over long exposures. Previous autoguiding setups were complex and expensive, usually involving a separate autoguiding camera, a guidescope, and a computer. StarSense Autoguider replaces all that—so even beginners can dive head-first into the world of imaging. Your targets are crisp and detailed, while background stars look like sharp pinpoints, never oblong or streaky.

Assisted Polar Alignment: Dial in the Best Alignment Possible

Many users find that adding StarSense Autoguider to their setup improves accuracy so dramatically that they no longer need to polar align their German equatorial mounts for most casual observing and imaging.

But if you want to achieve the best accuracy possible, the autoguider dramatically simplifies the polar alignment process. Simply follow the on-screen instructions on the hand control or in the CPWI software, and you can complete a full polar alignment in less than five minutes.

High-quality 4-element Optical Design

The StarSense Autoguider features a high-quality 4-element optical design devised by the famed optical designer Mark Ackermann. Its unique design delivers sharper images than other mini-guidescopes. The optical tube is threaded to accept 2” astronomical filters. Add an IR-pass filter to align your mount in twilight or a neutral density filter for daytime focusing.

The device also includes an onboard computer and a highly sensitive Sony IMX290-DLL monochrome CMOS image sensor, all working together to provide exceptional guiding accuracy. You can view a live image from the camera via your PC if desired.

Advanced options

Advanced users will love fine-tuning their autoguiding setup via CPWI’s advanced settings. You can enable dithering options to move the mount slightly between camera sub-exposures, which may help your image processing software perform at its best.

You can also guide on a comet via CPWI. Simply select the comet from the software’s regularly updated database of more than 100,000 celestial objects. Guiding directly on the comet will produce better results than guiding on nearby stars.

Best of all, you can unlock more exciting features like these throughout the lifetime of your StarSense Autoguider. Your purchase grants you access to all subsequent firmware updates. Celestron engineers are constantly adding new functionality to our products, and with a simple firmware update, you’ll always be able to enjoy the latest and greatest.

Works with your current setup

You choose how you want to control your StarSense Autoguider. It works with your NexStar+ hand control, CPWI telescope control software via a wired PC connection or WiFi (with a WiFi-enabled mount or the SkyPortal WiFi Module accessory). The autoguider also works with the rest of your Celestron accessories for a seamless solution that fits in perfectly with your telescope setup.

StarSense Autoguider works with most current Celestron computerized mounts, both German equatorial and altazimuth. See the chart below for full compatibility details.

Some items that are showing as in stock are in stock at our holding warehouses, not at the shop. To double check the stock levels at the shop, please contact us on 01909774369 or sales@rothervalleyoptics.co.uk.

The delivery times for most items is 1 - 2 days but again, please double check stock levels on important orders before placing an order via the website.

The delivery costs for courier next day are for mainland UK only. If you live in the Scottish Highlands/Islands, Channel Islands or Northern Ireland, then a shipping surchage will apply. please contact us for prices. Smaller items can still go 1st class via Royal Mail.

Please note that if you are wanting to take advantage of our Saturday and Sunday timed services or next day pre 12 or pre 10:30 services, you MUST check that the stock is here at the shop before placing orders. Also, orders using the Saturday and Sunday services must be placed before 1pm the previous working day. Also, please remember to check that the stock is here at the shop before placing orders. If the stock is not at the shop, we won't be able to ship on any of the timed services. 

Please note International customers will need to contact us for a shipping price prior to ordering via the website. We don't ship all items internationally. It is at our discretion what we ship outside of the UK. This all depends on the size and weight of the items. Please get in touch with us for any postage costs. Please note we do NOT ship telescopes or heavy items outside of the UK. This is due to massive postage costs and problems regarding returns.

If you have any questions regarding stock levels or delivery, please get in touch.

Zygo Interferometer Testing For ED Refractor Telescopes!

We are extremely pleased to announce our Zygo Interferometer is now installed and ready for use! Our experienced staff can test refractor lenses up to 120mm aperture and provide a comprehensive 2 page report showing the optical quality and Strehl ratio, plus much more information. We are using the very latest Zygo MX software to provide a more detailed report compared to other standard reports.

The interferometer is essentially a measuring instrument. Within the interferometer is a calibrated laser that is pointed through the optical test surface, then onto a high quality reference sphere, then back through the test subject then to an internal camera which gives us the measurement on the screen. From this, we can adjust the position of the test optic and the reference sphere to obtain a perfectly calibrated system. The more central the laser to the test optic and then on return, the better and more accurate reading and measurement we can take. This takes a lot of adjustment to get the best results from the optical surface. Once the measurement has been taken, we are provided with a series of results that show the optical quality of the surface plus other information. Continue reading for an explanation of the individual values and you can also see a test report that was done on one of our RVO Horizon 60 OTAs. 

We are offering certain telescopes with a Zygo test at an extra cost. Mainly ED doublets and triplets. All available telescopes with a Zygo test report are listed here. Just select Zygo Test Report from the drop down box at the top of the listing and we will test the optics in house and provide a full 2 page report with your scope. This will show you the optical quality of your telescope optics. We can also offer this service on your refractor telescope. Please get in touch for more details about this. 

At Rother Valley Optics, one thing we pride ourselves on is customer service and quality of our equipment. When we test your telescope, we will ensure that it is of the highest quality otherwise, we will reject the scope under our strict quality control and test another model for your peace of mind. One of the main values to look at when testing a refractor is the Strehl ratio. The higher this number, the higher quality lens you have. At Rother Valley Optics, we will guarantee the highest possible Strehl ratio for your telescope.  We will aim to provide 0.95 Strehl or higher on Takahashi, RVO Horizon, William Optics and many more! Generally, the higher the Strehl ratio, the lower the Astigmatism and Coma meaning a better image quality from your instrument. 

Other measurements such as the PV and RMS are important too. With these measurements, the lower the number the better as it shows less curvature on the lens. The flatter an optical lens, the better it will perform. The PV rating (Peak To Valley) is a measurement from the highest point (Peak) to the lowest point (Valley). From this we get the RMS (Root, Mean, Square). This is a similar figure to the PV and measured exactly the same way. The RMS is basically an average height difference from the PV so again, the lower the better. As you can see form the example below, we measured an RMS of just 0.027 wave which is a very good value.

We also measure the Power with our systems which is essentially the error from the reference sphere to the test optic. The reference sphere we use on our system is a very high quality sphere so the closer to zero the Power, the less error between the 2 elements thus ensuring a higher quality optical surface. 

You will also see some more values such as Astigmatism and Coma. Again, these are measured by the interferometer when we take measurements of the optical surface after adjustment. These are values which ideally would be at 0 but as our test optics are all curved lenses, there will always be astigmatism and coma present. The lower the number, the less of these aberations you will effectively see but with most refractors, you can buy field flatteners which will compensate for the coma anyway. The astigmatisms value is explaining the error between the symmetrical curvature of the lens. Basically, no lens will be perfectly symmetrical, the lower the astigmatism, the more symmetrical the lens surface is. 

Once the Zygo test report has been completed, the optical alignment is thoroughly tested and tuned to ensure they are spot on before they leave us. 

All available telescopes are on the website at the link below and ones we've tested already that are available straight away are also listed.

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/zygo-tested-refractors.html

Here is an example of the test what we provide. This was a test on one of our Horizon 60 ED OTA's.

For any questions about this amazing new service, please either call 01909774369 or email sales@rothervalleyoptics.co.uk.

Are you interested in this product but would like to speak to someone with some more information? Simply fill in the form below and we will get back to you as soon as we can!

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