We were honored to show this remarkable young lady how to use her new Celestron Starsense Explorer 10” Dobsonian telescope.
Early in September Rachel came into the office and enquired about a telescope for her daughter Zoe’. The telescope was for her birthday and was a surprise gift. The criteria was short and precise, “easy to use but also not too entry level”.
After 3 face-to-face consultations with Rachel, lots of research and debate we settled on the Celestron Starsense Explorer Dobsonian, firstly being a 10” which is perfect for observing dim object and of course the planets in our solar system, and the ease of use with the Starsense capabilities which makes this the most user-friendly range of scope in our galaxy.
Zoe has been using her grandfathers’ old refractor telescope and when we met Zoe’ on that Saturday, 7 October, we were blasted away by her knowledge of the night sky and how she used the refractor telescope to view objects in the night sky without any guidance.
Adding to this Zoe’ showed us paintings of various Nebulae that she painted herself and to add has taken an image of Saturn through the vintage refractor using her smartphone. Part and parcel of this wonderful gift she received was a Celestron NexYZ smartphone adapter and we cannot wait to see some more images taken through the 10” Dobsonian telescope!
Giving Zoe’ a run down on the features of the telescope I found that she grasped the concept very quickly and the rest of the training went smoothly. Using the Celestron Starsense features Zoe quickly found her way to Saturn which is always a spectacular view in the eye piece! We star hopped to a few objects and had an amazing view of the Ptolemy Cluster in Scorpius.
Zoe’ wants to become an Astro Physicist and has taken a great leap forward with this new telescope, we wish her a prosperous future in Astronomy and hope to stay in contact in the future.
Remember to always look up!
Frank Barbato
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