ON SKYSCOUT, THE "KILLER" PRODUCT FROM CES (AGAIN)

BRINGING FRONTIERS DOWN TO EARTH

Robert Scoble is posting that "The Word-of-mouth" killer product of CES is the Celestron Skyscout. 

I was afraid I was premature in jumping up and down about after the first day of CES, proclaiming it the "unexpected innovation" at CES.  But the CES show is over, and it looks like the product reigns.

Robert's apparently had a chance to see the $400 gadget hands-on, and had a chance to speak with the inventor:

"...I asked the inventor, Mike Lemp about it. Here’s a picture of Mike with Shel holding a SkyScout.

Mike and his team has been working on this for five years. It is a revolutionary product. One that you’ll want the first time you play with it. I’m buying one...

You look through this device at the night-time sky and it tells you what you’re looking at. Oh, it doesn’t need to be night, either...

It has GPS, gravity, and magnetic field sensors to detect where it’s going.

But it just gets better from there. You can tell it “show me the cool stuff in the sky right now.” It’ll take you on a tour and show you how to point the device with a series of LED’s in the viewfinder.

But it gets cooler than that. It has an audio guide that tells you what you’re looking at and gives you some facts about it.

Oh, wait, there’s more! You hook it up to your computer via USB and it does even more! (Sorry, Windows only for now).

This is going to revolutionize astronomy. It is simply the coolest thing I’ve seen lately (and I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff walking around CES)."

There you have it...even cooler than I thought when I first posted about it (didn't know about the magnetic sensors).

It's definitely a cool product...I've pre-ordered it, and am calling it a Thriller! product without having tried it yet.

On a separate note, a device that potentially goes well with the SkyScout, is the Jasper Green Laser, which is described on it's web-site as:

"Jasper's bright green beam travels across the sky, further than your eye can see. You'll be able to point out stars, align a telescope, aim a firearm and simply amaze everyone you know!"

I've ordered this as well, and am counting on it be a great addition to the Celestron SkyScout.

Now if only Celestron or someone would come up with a telescope that automatically transmits the visual information directly via Wi-fi to a laptop PC. 

I know there are attachments and hacks to do this, but I've yet to see a telescope vendor to come out with a cool, auto-guided telescope for amateurs that makes it easy to see what the telescope sees via a PC or a laptop WITHOUT having to peek through the viewfinder like an astronomy geek.

And while they're at it, I'd like them to give me a weather proofing option so I can leave the telescope up on the terrace or the balcony and just gaze at the stars via any PC/laptop or plasma TV for that matter, in the comfort of the house/apartment and favorite couch.

There are gadgets that make it easier to view the sky outdoors, as these pictures from Bigha illustrate.

But some people (like me) are inherently lazy in their astronomical pursuits, and would like to to NOT have to lug a telescope and related paraphernalia out and set it up every time we want to gaze at the stars.  We'd rather do it from the great indoors.

Ideally, it should also hook up to my favorite astronomy program, Starry Night Pro, for additional data on what we're seeing on the plasma screen.

Now I know the purists among you will point out that some definition will be lost by going from the viewfinder to a PC/laptop/TV screen, but it's the price I'm willing to pay for the convenience.

After all, we've already made that trade-off with out music, converting billions of perfectly high-definition audio CDs into much less quality MP3 recordings to enjoy on our iPods.

And it's not like it'd be technically hard to do.

Google's already brought satellite images of the earth to mainstream audiences around the world.

And GPS gadgets are already getting affordable and mainstream to guide us around in our cars and out.

Space IS the next frontier to be brought down to mainstream audiences.

It's the next thing to be done, and when it is, it will take astronomy even more into the mainstream.

Now that'd be revolutionary yet again.

Comments

[Megan]

The Celestron SkyScout is now available for pre-order

http://www.astronomics.com/Celestron-SkyScout

[soma]

Your information strongly has helped me, thank you for it!