[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]

By Hodag from Charleston, WV on 2/12/2007

The device works pretty well as described. It is easy to use but the GPS may take a long time to lock in. It may not lock in well if near any type of metal--cars, fences pipes.

The device does help you find the location of numerous stars and deep sky objects. I found that you ought to recheck the location as we occasionally were directed to the wrong place. It may be a GPS error from metal. My students enjoyed using it to verify a number of stars though we found it less useful the dimmer the object was. For many the objects there is an audio commentary which is well done and a highlight of the product. The text version is hard to use as you have to scroll a lot. They promise you will be able to download more descriptions and tours in the future but at this writing, they were not available.
As noted, the device goes through batteries quickly.

Overall, it is a fun and useful product. I would recommend it more for the novice or the beginner as more experienced sky gazers will find it of limited use though it will show you the general sky location of many telescope objects.

I think the product is quite good for a first version. In the future, I hope they find a way to upgrade the unit to allow the user to input their own commnetaries, to lock in a list of user-defined objects (it would be great with students if you could have a predefined tour of objects you choose)and if you had control over the intensity of the red light on the device.

By tachyon450 from hollywood, Fl on 2/5/2007

easy to use out of box, all that is advertised

By Richtex from Lewisville,Texas on 2/5/2007

I'v been able to locate objects that I didn,t know where to find them.

[4 of 4 customers found this review helpful]

By Lenny from Los Angeles on 11/29/2006

I just got a Sky Scout from Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope last night. Since they are backordered until Spring all over the country, I'm feeling pretty lucky. I brought it home and installed the batteries into their special metal shields and took it outside to try it out. I was in the middle of our apartment complex in Los Angeles with 3 story buildings surrounding me and it managed to find GPS lock in under 2 minutes.

This thing is seriously cool. The operation is very easy and I was identifying objects very quickly. I asked it to locate the moon and it took me right to it! Wow, that is cool. The audio narrations are few but very informative.

Now like people have been complaining it does have some issues:

It goes through batteries like water ( 4 power on's and they were half dead.)
The GPS is slow/under powered ( GPS lock can take up to 2 minutes, and does not store your location on power down)
It does not like to be near metal objects (Cars, Fences, Gates, Beams...etc)
Limited audio narrations
Its made of plastic
Cheap earbuds
Red lights inside the scope make it tough to spot dim stars.
No Mac support


Despite all this, I really love this thing. It works like it says it does, and it's easy to use.
If you can find one, I recommend checking it out.