Gizmodo: skyscout

CES 2008: What You Missed So Far

Benny Goldman — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:00:00 EST

We arrived at CES yesterday, and despite being separated into bloggers and press, and watching the game in standard def, we've had a great time so far. If you've missed the coverage, let's catch you up to speed:

• After Warner's announcement, HD DVD won't be attending CES this week, a fact that only looks worse after they put their logo on the press bags. Adding insult to HD DVD's injury, New Line Cinema also joined the Blu-ray exclusive crew.

• WowWee showed us three robots aiming to attack AIBOs, Robosapiens and autonomous helicopters everywhere. The only thing missing was a robot to bring us beer. Luckily, Inter Active Toy covered that with the RC Cooler.

• Other good finds included the Celestron SkyScout Scope, Cobra's OLED radar detectors, and an in-dash CD player for audiophiles. On the GPS front, Magellan's 5340 with built-in Google local search and Garmin's 880 with voice recognition stood out the most. Finally, Logitech unveiled a whole bunch of stuff, including a networked music player, a sleek set of speakers, and an IR remote with capacitive touch.

So far, so good, CES. We'll be looking forward to the press conferences today, and the floor opening on Monday. Until then, keep up with all of our CES 2008 coverage to date.

Celestron SkyScout Scope Makes You a True Space Cadet

Charlie White — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:45:17 EST

Match Made in the Heavens: You saw the Celestron SkyScout a while ago, and now here's a scope on which to mount it. See galaxies with the SkyScout Scope's high-power eyepiece, or get your bearings with its included its low-power counterpart. But It'll Cost Ya: To use this with the excellent $400 Celestron SkyScout spotter, you have to buy one of those, too.

The $299 telescope, now available, works like a champ with the SkyScout piggybacking on top. . If you have your own telescope, get the SkyScout Connect, that aquaints your own scope with this easy-to-use spotter. [Celestron]

Smoke a Doob and Enjoy Celestron's SkyScout

tgrumet — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 14:06:39 EST

Do you loooooooooove the night sky? Yeah, me too. So, to make it easier to zone out—I mean check it out, Celestron introduced its handheld, portable celestial viewing device called the SkyScout, here at CES. It's about the same size as a camcorder and weighs less than 16 ounces, so it's definitely portable, and the SkyScout lets you identify and/or locate over 6,000 celestial objects viewable to the naked eye. Wowsa. Sure, it's not a telescope, and I know how much we all love our telescopes, but this could be a great addition to any camping trip and/or geeky astronomy get together. To make sure it's on target, the SkyScout uses patented technology that combines data from sensors measuring both the magnetic and gravitational fields of the Earth, along with internal GPS and a huge celestial database. No price yet, but this thing has been in the works for 3 years and should be available in March.

CELESTRON SKYSCOUT TAKES HOME TOP HONORS FROM CONSUMER ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATION [Celestron]

Celestron SkyScout Is Almost As Cool As A Pink Floyd Laser Light Show

gizmodo.com — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 09:53:51 EST

When I was a kid it was enough to stick those glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling. At first, I tried to do a scale model of the universe but realized there was no scale that would make any sense in my bedroom. I got a bit older and turned the ceiling into a Van Gogh Starry Night-inspired trip-o-sphere. A month later, it became clear that the Starry Night was even dorkier than the scale model of the universe, and that I would never be able to convince a girl to come over and listen to my Pink Floyd albums, anyhow.

Puberty would have been different if I'd had the Celestron SkyScout. This gadget is about the size of a video camera and becomes your own personal planetarium. Just go outside into the freezing night and point the SkyScout to the sky at a specific star or object, and you'll get commentary on that particular object. Up to 6,000 objects are pre-programmed into the SkyScout, so expect to be entertained for hours.

One day, it might even play Pink Floyd.

The SkyScout won a Best of Innovations honor from the Consumer Electronics Association.

Celestron SkyScout [Mobile Whack]

More Celestron sky and telescope products [Amazon]