Celestron – StarSense Autoguider Telescope Accessory for Computerized Telescopes – 3-Minute Auto Alignment – Precise GoTo and Guiding for Astroimaging – Advanced Mount Modeling for Astrophotography

I’m really happy with the StarSense Autoguider, it’s making my life much easier for imaging with my AVX mount. I’m using a Canon camera with an 8” EdgeHD and was looking for a way to simplify my setup, as I don’t always want to use a PC, especially when I travel to dark skies.Love the automatic alignment feature, and guiding results have been great so far. I wasn’t planning on utilizing the polar align function, but I tried it out tonight and it was super cool! I was able to “dial in” so that I was polar aligned super accurately and it only took a few minutes. Oh, did I mention it looks really cool mounted on the telescope?Setup was easy, although it did take some time to go through the manual to get oriented. I had to update the hand control firmware first, which wasn’t a big deal. I had been playing around with the CPWI software in my backyard with my setup, so I was familiar with how that worked, I just needed to download the most recent version of that too. I like the guiding graphs in CPWI.It was a little more than I hoped to spend but has been worth it because it has been so fun to use. Kudos Celestron!UPDATE: I read the comments about people getting a box that was previously opened – mine was too, so I called Celestron Tech Support. They said the reason why the box was opened is that they did a 100% QA inspection before any units left the warehouse. So it's a good thing!

I was very excited about the idea of the product. I have Celestron 8” nexstar evolution telescope.But - after many hours reading online forums, updating software, trying with both hand held controller and phone app - I would get constant errors. Sometimes it would say plate solve was successful, at three different locations, but then would say alignment error too large. Or it would say it’s aligned, but the pointing would be way off.Eventually, gave up and bought the older AutoAligner. It worked on the first try, and works every time. Returned this item.

I have a Celestron C-11 SCT on a Celestron CGX mount. I use a ZWO ASI178MC-cooled camera with a 2-inch mount. I do only astrophotography and have no visual capability. I have used the StarSense alignment camera since it came out. The StarSense Autoguider is a direct replacement as far as mounting and cabling is concerned, so it mounted and plugged right in. I use Celestron's CPWI software to control the mount. I fired it up and it recognized the SSAG immediately. I ran the calibration routine to calibrate the SSAG to the telescope and then did the 4 point auto alignment. The scope aligned and was ready for use in just a couple minutes. I selected several targets and slewed to them to test the SSAG's "goto" ability and found it to be dead on for each target. I selected a target and enabled "autoguiding" and did a 3 minute exposure. The autoguiding failed. Instead of pancakes, I got eggs for stars! The same test using PHD software and the Orion ST-80 telescope I have been using for guiding worked perfectly. THE SSAG WILL NOT ADEQUATELY GUIDE A 2800 MM FOCAL LENGTH TELESCOPE. Researching the problem I find that the ratio between the SSAG focal length and the C-11 telescope are too great. I suspect the SSAG would work fine on a shorter focal length, but mine is simply too big! Returning the unit.

Very pleased with purchase.

This is experience of SSAG operating with a Celestron 9.25" EdgeHD on an Advanced VX mount.For guiding, it operates moderately to poorly with CPWI/SkyPortal. In my backyard with North blocked out, polar alignment is ALWAYS a long chore. CPWI or SkyPortal will always try North-side alignment, which will generally always fail. Endless loop of trying to see a star already blocked.More often it can take up to two hours to get reasonable alignment because you had to restart it due to APP FAILING TO ALIGN. Remember, each failure means RESETTING THE ENTIRE MOUNT SETUP TO HOME position -- even more of a tedious chore. So if you have only 30 minutes to get aligned to search-for/image that sunset comet/planet/star, GOOD LUCK.Meanwhile, by hand-controller, it will actually try for positions closer to the celestial equator and towards the South-side of my sky (which is plenty open) -- and succeed in initial alignment. Generally for CPWI/SkyPortal I resort to manual alignment where I manually slew to some bright target, add-it-to-model/sync-it and repeat until I get 5-6 modeled in CPWI, or something like 5 of 4 (yes FIVE of FOUR) in SkyPortal. Generally CPWI works best (of this lower tier of tracking software) because it can do more than SkyPortal's 4-stars alignment. SkyPortal will fail to plate-solve many times (a few times fictitiously), depending on the not-dark-enough the sky has enough stars to plate-solve with. So RESET mount and do it AGAIN.OTOH, the hand-controller has no UI so picking a star/object out of the sky is a chore (like texting your mount with a pager) vs CPWI (with its tiny database) or SkyPortal.SkyPortal has the prettiest UX and the largest/accessible selection of objects to search for, but ranks last here for ALIGNMENT luck. CPWI at least lets you load the last alignment, but even the last alignment will be "off".Updating the firmware is another 90's era chore as Celestron doesn't list any updated firmware version since at most Feb, 2023, and that's for CPWI at version 2.4.3 when its actual latest version is 2.5.5 -- that I know of. SSAG isn't even listed on Celestron 's page for software versions.However, to update SSAG's firmware, grab the ancient version of CFM from Celestron's website, and rinse and repeat update it to some 2024 2.9.410 version (that I know of). It's a JAVA app, so make sure you're still JAVA-enabled -- in 2024. Then either connect to the hand-controller by MINI-usb -- or if the Prolific serial driver BLUE-SCREENS your Windows, see if you can connect by WiFi. Make sure your mount has the necessary components and setup to connect by WiFi to your home-network. Then, make CFM connect by WiFi in Options->Connections->WiFi to same WiFi network. Then let it detect the SSAG, and other devices, on WiFi and update SSAG to 35.10.32 (that I know of). It's slower on WiFi than by serial (for some 90s era reason).Because SSAG is always more than few degrees off in slewing for a F10 telescope, a .7x reducer, and a wide-angle 50mm eyepiece is a necessary counter. For any DSO imaging, minimally it's best to use CPWI instead of SkyPortal, get SSAG aligned on around 3 stars closest to the DSO (after you've already gathered 7+ already), and THEN you can "trust it" to slew to the DSO in a bortle ~8 sky. I've then been able to get about a hour+ of SSAG autoguiding before it lets the DSO drift out of sight, or I need to reslew it to target again.The "cam-view" is accessible as a webpage if you connect it via USB-C to a computer, but that's only useful to see if you need to do any unnecessary focus-adjustments. Can't see it via CPWI because the "aux" interface is too slow.