Customer Reviews

Meade Personal Guide To Sky Exploration Handheld Night Sky Guide

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this as a Christmas gift for my 8 year-old daughter as she's very intrersted in sciencce and astronomy in particular. She wanted a telescope but I felt she was a bit too young and she can still look on when I use mine. The MySky Plus arrived yeasterday and I had read a lot of negative things about it on the internet so I wanted to try it last night to make sure it was working as advertised. The unit is very easy to understand, very intuitive. The directions are clear and concise. It started up without a problem and the screen was full and perfectly centered (a problem I had read about). As the first reviewer mentioned, there is no GPS on this unit. The GPS really only establishes the location of the user so if you are using the MySky within a 50 mile radius of your initial set up location, you really don't need the GPS feature. The first reviewer was right, the pick-list to choose your location is VERY long and tedious to navigate, but once it's done, you shouldn't have to do it again unless you use the unit in another state or very far away from home. The only object visible in the haze last night was the moon. The MySky correctly identified it when I pointed to it and it correctly found it when I searched the sky for it. Both were spot on with no pointing errors.

The only complaint I have is that the overall build quality is mediocre at best. It has a very flimsy feel to it and the buttons are cheaply made. It is very light and seems like it could break easily. At $149 it's a fair buy but at $399, the original price, it isn't worth it. I also own the Celestron SkyScout that I've had for about 2 years. It is made much better, more like a professional piece of equipment, but it doesn't have all the bells and whistles the MySky has. The MySky is a good, fun learning tool for kids and can also be used to point a Meade telescope. The SkyScout is more for adults (my kids don't think it's all that "cool").

My first MySky had to be returned - it was literally falling apart in the box. When I finally received the second - it actually worked, but I had terrible problems trying to upgrade the software - SO... Meade replaced the entire unit. The replacement worked reasonably well - but I never was able to perform an upgrade of the unit's software.

I recently attempted to upgrade my replacement unit - and this time it actually worked. Except when I put the SD card with the upgraded software back in the MySky,I wound up with a calibration error. So - Meade replaced my MySky with a MySky Plus. What they fail to tell you is THEY SUBTRACT OUT THE GPS - and the only way to set the location is by scrolling through a long list of choices. There's no way to set your own longitude and latitude - so you have to use a nearby city.

Meade's customer service is pretty good - they certainly want to help. It's just that there's not much that can be done with a product that is fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately I have had it for over a year - so I have no further recourse.

The new unit works - but it is terribly inaccurate.

DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT - I know I regret doing so.

I took a chance with this unit - it got very poor reviews. Mine was fine and still works. I keep it in my telescope box - we have had more fun with the my sky than I do with the telescope - we live in the North East in Rochester NY - No doubt why its theHome of Eastman Kodak and its film manufacturing - Rochester is a natural darkroom - its always overcast and very few clear nights forthe telescope the my sky works in the poorest nights where we only see one ortwo stars between the clouds and it shows onthe screen what they are a partof which we can't see. I love it!

This is a neat gadget. It was very slow clicking in. A manual would have been helpful but it came only with a computer disc. After following all the directions on its built -in instructions, it took two days before it would read any of the objects in the sky. Perhaps it was because I set it up during the day. The night sky stars and planets can now be read at night. The accompanying voice tour is excellent.