I've been pursuing the madness referred to as astrophotography for well over a decade. In that time I've gotten fairly good at harnessing the myriad variables that go into achieving success in this deep, complicated pursuit.My motivation for giving the Celestron Origin a try was the thought that it might make the process faster to get from inception to result (and hopefully with less wear and tear on my approaching-elderly body).So, as an experienced astrophotographer, I'm delighted to report that the Origin system has exceeded my expectations, both for operating convenience and for quality of results!Just in terms of the time-required-to-set-up for a session, the Origin is a dream come true. My traditional system can easily take an hour to roll out, set up, and align the scope and its mount to prepare for imaging.With the Origin system, it takes mere minutes to be ready for an imaging session!The Origin automates many of the subsystems required for advanced imaging, but it also provides manual overrides enabling an experienced user to intervene in any of the automated systems a situation might call for. That's a major plus!The Origin system can perform the stacking and processing of subimages automatically, but it also permits the user to offload subimages for external processing with advanced tools such as Pixinsight. That's another major plus!That said, the Origin system's automated image processing works well. I typically let the system do its thing, then perform a little post-processing in Lightroom to tweak the final results.Again: astrophotography is a very deep, very complex pursuit. The Celestron Origin system can ease the entry into that pursuit for newcomers. And even for the experienced astrophotographer, the Celestron Origin system offers many welcome quality-of-life features. I'm very happy with this system and how it fits in alongside my other astrophotography gear, and I look forward to the continuing development of the Origin system's potential by Celestron as a sophisticated tool for serious astrophotography.For example, the Origin mount is configured as an Alt-Az Mount (using Altitude and Azimuth axes of movement). Celestron says software enhancements are coming that will permit the mount to be operated on an equatorial wedge to enable one-axis tracking of objects. This will, in turn, permit longer sub-exposure times, from a current range of between 10 and 30 seconds of exposure each, to longer sub-exposures, potentially up to minutes in length each.Celestron also enabled the Origin system's camera to be upgraded by the end user, to accommodate the continued evolution of cameras and sensors.Both of these are examples of areas in which Celestron has left room in the design, both for technical improvements in Astrophotography itself, and for personal growth in skills and interests by the astrophotographer over time.We have yet to see this kind of future-proofing in the design of other 'Smart Scopes' on the market, many of which seem destined for disposal upon obsolescence.

The Origin telescope is absolutely amazing. Prior to buying it, I've been using a 12 inch SCT for astrophotography. As someone else mentioned in a review, it typically takes at least an hour to roll the 12 inch out, level it, and polar align it before I can even start to use it. Then, with its f/10 optical system, I have to take a lot of very long exposures to accumulate what I need for image stacking, followed by hours of post processing to try to get an image that I'm happy with.With the Origin telescope all I have to do now is roll it out into my driveway, level it to within 5 degrees, turn it on, and wait while it, on its own, focuses on stars, determines where it is, and figures out how it is oriented with respect to the sky. It takes a little more than a minute from the time it is turned on to the time that it indicates that it is ready to start imaging. You tell it to center itself on something that you want to capture an image of, tell it to start, and it takes a series of pictures, stacking them internally, and continues until you tell it to stop. I'm controlling it with my Android phone and it provides an image on my phone of what it is photographing that updates with each exposure, so you can see the results of the stacking in real time. When you stop the collection, the result is downloaded to your controlling device. With its f/2.2 optics, it requires much less exposure time than my 12 inch f/10 to get the same results. It does a very good job internally, but if you want to process the images yourself, you can output the individual frames to a USB device.I collected all of the attached pictures on the first night that I used the Origin telescope, in a little more than one hour of total time. I live in a suburban area and there is a fair amount of light pollution here but the telescope still performed very well. The pictures of the galaxies were taken with the default plain glass "filter" installed and the ones of nebula were taken with the optional nebula filter. I edited the output pictures using Photoshop to produce the final results seen here, primarily through cropping and increasing contrast and color saturation.

Great telescope for deep space objects like the Andromeda galaxy, even in moderately light polluted suburbs. Great app to control the action... from inside the house when it's cold outside. Just saying. Astrophotography was never so easy. First rate, top quality scope, no question.Still, this isn't for everything....NOT FOR PLANETS OR THE MOON! You really don't get the detail on those closer objects.

AWESOME!!!

The origin is easy to use. I live in a Bortle 6 zone and the images are great.

If you want the best smart telescope on the market, here it is. Just set it in your yard and tell it what you want to see. Even in large cities, it takes great images.

Easy to get going out of the box. Instructions and tutorials all very clear. Love the planetarium app. Worth $4K? If you have it to spend, 100%.