Celestron 93973 Skyportal WiFi Module, Black

Was a little techy to setup. Use it with an iPhone. So far connectivity has been stable and once configure correctly it connects fairly quickly.

After finding out about this product in an Astronomy magazine ad, I decided to give it a try for my Celestron NexStar-4SE telescope (which I power with a Celestron external AC-to-DC power supply). I watched a couple of YouTube videos about this WiFi module and the SkyPortal App that works with it and was pleased with how I could control the NexStar-4SE telescope via the SkyPortal WiFi module that plugged into my telescope's Aux port and the App that I downloaded to my Android smartphone. At first I had difficulties getting the telescope aligned, but after I upgraded the red dot finderscope that came with my NexStar telescope to Celestron's StarPointer Pro finderscope, I found it easier to center bright stars in the telescope and achieve alignment. Note that the SkyPortal alignment process is different from the NexStar telescope's normal alignment process because SkyPortal requires aligning with three bright stars, not three bright objects (although using a bright object like the moon to manually align the finderscope with the view in the telescope eyepiece before doing the star alignment process helps, which one can do in Connect mode before running Connect and Align). After getting the NexStar telescope successfully aligned, the SkyPortal App that controls the telescope has some great features in the Search menu that enabled me to select celestial objects for the telescope to Go To from submenus including Tonight's Best, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and deep sky objects. These add-ons provided an enhanced celestial object observing experience (after your session, don't forget to turn off the finderscope red light switch so that you don't run out the battery).

Just picked this up and plugged it in to my Nexstar 102SLT and my laptop discovered it right away. I use this with the CPWI software, not a tablet/skyportal, and the software connected instantly to it vs fighting with drivers to create a COM port out of one of the USB ports on my laptop, then remembering which USB port I used each and every time I want to plug the scope into the computer.Is it overpriced....well yes (hence 4 stars plus nothing is ever perfect). But I believe like many things in Astronomy/Astrophotography, once you add Astro (insert anything) it doubles the price. Don't believe me look at Marine equipment. Add Marine in front of any product and the price will undoubtedly increase.How is the range on this little thing? I was actually impressed with it's range. I didn't take it too far away from the computer, about 20-30 ft or so. This was not line of sight either, I was inside the house and it was outside on the other side of three interior walls, three doors and an exterior wall made of stucco. So I was pleased with those results.There are reviews about it dropping out, never had this problem. Used the scope for about 1 hr and it never dropped out. I should note that my Goto mount's firmware was fully updated only one week prior to getting this so everything was current and I have the mount hooked to a power bank not 8 AA batteries.I have not tried the access point function but I live in such a light polluted area (white on the light pollution map) that I take my scope to the beach so I will almost never be near a internet connection when using it so that function is not priority to me, eliminating wires was.Hope this review helped.

Not even sure how I came across this gadget. I checked with Celestron to see if it would work with my 15 year old 4 SE and they said it would. Sure enough, it works great. Dead-easy setup by simply plugging it into the Aux plug.People having problems with the WiFi setup are probably misunderstanding the process. It connects directly by WiFi to my phone (NOT through a router); the phone still has internet connectivity via cell reception.This thing is awesome and the app is great.

This is a lot better then running a cable to the hand controller (and more stable connection).You control the mount via the starry night program.I use a trackball mouse while moving the telescope for alignments.It also makes it easier with a visual representation of the object you wish to view on the software esp since after I get setup I change to a camera for viewing on the laptop.