It arrived! The Celestron PowerSeeker telescope that was to be our Christmas gift to our son is finally here!
It took a long time, but my son has been blessed with patience, so no worries there. We’re celebrating Christmas in March.
I bought it from Amazon in September and was shipped to my sister-in-law’s place in New York. It was to be brought home by my mom-in-law last November, but it was a “pain-in-the-neck to pack”, so it was taken out of its Amazon packaging and put in a Balikbayan box and sent via cargo.
The long wait is so worth it. We unboxed it yesterday, and in my excitement shared the first photo on Instagram.
Because I was working, I didn’t get to participate in setting it up. But father and son had an awesome time bonding over it.
The package came with an instruction manual and the Starry Night Basic Edition astronomy software from Simulation Curriculum. According to their website, the Celestron PowerSeeker telescope series is designed to give the first-time telescope user the perfect combination of quality, value, features, and power. Sounds perfect for a 12-year old!
Other downloadables are: Astronomy Basics, Celestial Observing, Telescope Basics and Telescope Maintenance.
The astronomy software is so cool, I think I want to download it to my computer as well. I’m just not sure if the download code can be used on more than one computer. I have not tried it yet but will do soon, when my workload is light.
I took some screenshots of the software from my son’s laptop.
This is the screen that pops when you click on the icon. You’ll see that our location has been set up, along with the date and time. The What’s New dialogue box shows some trivia relative to the present date.
I clicked on one of the icons on the left sidebar and went to find out about the moon. The date changed to the actual date the image being shown was taken.
When you hover your mouse to any of the dots on the screen, it will tell you what that dot really is. Below, you’ll see that my mouse was on Jupiter. The image on the screen is actually moving and it will give you a feeling of being out there.
I wanted to see Venus, and an information popped out, saying that Venus is not visible at that time where I am. So I clicked on the button that tells the best time to see Venus from where I am, and as you can see, I will have to wait until tomorrow to try and find it. 🙂
There’s a lot to discover on that software still. All I know at this time is that it is a great tool to plan and execute observing sessions. It will tell us to which part of the sky we should look when we want to observe a particular heavenly body.
Meanwhile, I just let my son discover what other features the software has, and I’ll just wait for his show-and-tell. I’m thinking that the Starry Night will be a perfect complement to his Kerbal Space Program software. He can build the spacecraft that will take him to all the other planets.
Planning to buy your own Celestron PowerSeeker telescope? Just click here to get the exact same model that we have or check out the other models here.
Celestron also has a YouTube Channel, if you want to check first their line of telescopes and get an idea of what will best fit your needs.
And I just found out that there is a local Celestron distributor here in the Philippines! I have to find out how to buy from them as they don’t have a shopping cart. Will update this post once I have the correct link to the distributor.
Do you, have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them on my Facebook Page.
Marge, also known as The Happy WAHM, is a virtual assistant who turned her passion for entrepreneurship into a worthy endeavor of offering complete business solutions to CEOs and business owners around the world. She turned her back on a thriving corporate career to become a hands-on mom and created a lifestyle that allowed her to build a homebased career, homeschool her children, and still have time to pursue her passion for arts and crafting.
She only posts her content on her website, TheHappyWAHM.com. If you see this content on someone else’s site then it is NOT by any means authorized.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks