# Celestron SkyPortal — user reviews > 186 indexed App Store user reviews of Celestron SkyPortal by Celestron, LLC, rated 3.60/5 from 350 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/celestron-skyportal/id877780544/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/celestron-skyportal/id877780544.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 165 · 4★ 54 · 3★ 42 · 2★ 19 · 1★ 70 ## What do users think of Celestron SkyPortal? Overall sentiment: neutral **Pros** - 👍 Great app - 🚀 Transforms stargazing - 💡 Wonderful features - 👍 Convenient control - 👍 Incredible for free **Cons** - 🐛 Alignment issues - 🐛 Connectivity problems - 🐛 Laggy controls - 🐛 Inaccurate compass - 🐛 Crashes and freezes - 🐛 Lacks deep sky objects - 🐛 Unreliable and unresponsive **Commonly reported bugs** - Fails to align telescope - Telescope points in wrong direction - Disconnects frequently - Doesn't show deep sky objects - Crashes on startup - Incompatible with iOS 14 **Most requested features** - Add red night mode - Improve focus motor control - Integrate weather data - Provide RA/DEC coordinates - Add more celestial objects - Improve video streaming - Enhance user interface ## Newest reviews (14 of 186) ### 4/5 — Quite a bit inaccurate on determining the location of planets, stars, nebulas, and etc. *2026-04-01* I’ve tried to get my telescope centered using this app by aligning it to the moon’s location, and I’m being dissatisfied by the app’s performance as when I tried to aligning the telescope through the app, the lens showed a blank sky because the telescope was offset to the right of the telescope’s direction of focus. I had to literally manually align the telescope due to this. I do have a screenshot of what I am speaking of. Finding planets took me time because of a similar scenario. It would be great if the app could make improvements with aligning the iPhone so that telescope users won’t have to turn on their battery powered laser that comes with their StarSense explorer telescopes or any other telescope of this brand. ### 4/5 — Good app but misleading *2026-02-24* The only reason I gave this app 4 stars is that the box from my telescope says to download this app but to take pictures with the telescope on your phone all you need is the camera app. But overall pretty decent app but if you want to take pictures with the telescope you don’t need this app 🙂 ### 4/5 — Feature Request *2025-04-19* I don’t see why the hand controller and base firmware couldn’t be automatically updated via the App. Updating via a PC is not simple and the Celestron help in the CFM are is extremely poor. ### 4/5 — No problems *2025-02-18* I’ve read various reports about how this app doesn’t work or the wifi is flaky , but to be honest I think most of the issues are user related. If you disable your wifi connections and allow the Celestron wifi to connect you will have no problems, it’s only because your home wifi puts out a stronger signal that sky portal disconnects. There are plenty of videos on utube , to name one Lucas Campos, this is the one I followed and I have 98% success rate. Even the most expensive apps can have issues, sit down , work through calmly and slowly and you will get there. ### 3/5 — NEEDED APP UPGRADE *2025-01-02* This app needs a news feed and a comment section. It would be great for this app to track my gps location, check weather conditions, have accurate gyroscoping capabilities, and send push notifications about great galactic anomalies so that we can just be told when and where we can setup our telescopes in order to get perfect views. ### 2/5 — Database issues *2024-10-22* There are many objects that don’t show up when the designation is inputted. I have tried multiple designations, re-installing the app, etc…. My latest example is Comet C/2023 A3 Atlas. The comet showed up in the search prior to nighttime but at nighttime when I needed it to find the comet it would not show up. ### 2/5 — Alignment and flickering screen *2024-10-15, version 3.5.0* Not so good. When connected, the app alignment target does not line up with the scope. Therefore, unable to align. Phone screen flickers constantly ### 3/5 — Convenient, but limited *2024-10-12* A good tool. Nice to no longer need the handpand to control my Celestron Evolution mount. Catalogue is too limited though. Has Messier and Caldwell Catalogues, but users would be better served if it had the full New General and the Index Catalogues. So many unavailable targets! A person could starhop to the ones they know, but that defeats the purpose of a Go-to telescope ### 2/5 — No alignment possible *2024-10-06, version 3.5.0* I’m trying to Align my telescope with the app but always says error in the alignment, the object is always an inch away but in the app it shows its right in the spot ### 2/5 — Very laggy with astro fi mount/telescope *2024-08-28* Its a good planetarium app. BUT IT IS COMPLETELY FRUSTRATING TO USE WITH THE ASTRO FI SERIES TELESCOPES. It is sooo laggy! Please fix this issue! It also does not have alot of targets especially nebula eg, the rim nebula, lobster nebula, cats paw, prawn nebula. ### 3/5 — It’s alright, but if you’re serious… *2024-08-13, version 3.5.0* Get Stellarium with the upgrade it’s a lot better. I got this and Stellarium and the latter was much better especially with the upgrade ### 4/5 — App Review *2024-04-10* I do find this app very useful the ability to connect to my telescope and enable control from the app. I would like to see a video link via wifi to allow viewing of telescope via phone tablet etc. ### 2/5 — Uses Notifications for Ads *2024-04-04, version 3.5.0* Decent app and works to control my telescope, but they are using notifications for advertisements which is bad. ### 2/5 — Wonky controls *2024-03-17, version 3.5.0* Yet another night foiled by telescope controls that are inconsistently laggy (both on iPhone and iPad) so that alignment becomes an untenable task. Please update the software or control responsiveness. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Awful *2026-05-01* Truly one of the single worst, least intuitive, least user friendly apps I’ve ever had the misfortune of being forced to use. ### 1/5 — Récente maj problème *2026-04-26* Une nouvelle mise à jour vient tout bouleverser. C’est extrêmement décevant. On n’a pas besoin de ça. Nul. ### 1/5 — New version sucks *2026-03-27* Harder to use, Crashes on iOS, Can’t navigate like I could with the previous version. If it’s not broken don’t change it !! ### 1/5 — Total veraltet und lieblos umgesetzt *2025-09-03* Auflösung von Anno-Dazumal, einfachste Darstellung, schlecht umgesetzt. ### 1/5 — Bug *2025-03-01* Deco intempestif mise en station impossible ### 1/5 — Impossible to align *2024-10-29, version 3.5.0* Impossible to align the 5SE telescope with this app. The PC app is much better, this one is garbage ### 1/5 — Wrong orientation *2024-10-13* It looks like it is not pointing to the right direction after you click the compass ### 1/5 — A fuir *2024-08-18* Cette application ne marche pas sur iPhone. Nous n’avons jamais les quatre flèches pour guider le télescope celestron. Pour les amateurs il faudra investir sur un iPad en plus. Mais même avec un iPad il est impossible, plusieurs essais sans succès, de réussir l’alignement du télescope ce qui rend les télescopes Astro-fi inutilisables!!! Il serait important d’ajouter un mode guidage manuel pour au moins pouvoir profiter du télescope à condition d’avoir un iPad. C’est inadmissible pour une maison comme celestron de produire des tels mauvais produits qui ne marchent PAS. ### 1/5 — A piece of garbage and a waste of money! *2024-05-26, version 3.5.0* This system has been the bane of my existence! I’ve never been able to get it to work right. One problem leads directly to another! If I could return it I would! What should be a pleasurable hobby and learning experience has resulted in nothing but frustration! Do not buy this system! ### 1/5 — Not bad *2024-01-19, version 3.5.0* Wish it would stay connected when Lock Screen goes on ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Will no longer connect or align *2026-06-30, version 4.0.1* It appears that the Scope feature is no longer working so you’re no longer able to align or connect to the SkyPortal Network. ### 5/5 — Perfectly neat *2026-06-09* Everything in this app is so tidy and it doesn’t show too many stars from further distances like with other apps it shows stars you can even see from earth and just makes it overcomplicated when looking for a certain star most certainly deserves a 5 star rating ### 5/5 — Amazing *2025-10-24, version 3.5.0* I got a telescope to my daughter and got this app. Amazing. Chef’s kiss ### 5/5 — SEHR GUT *2025-08-16* Also die App funktioniert sehr zuverlässig, alles gut!! ### 5/5 — Incredible app for free *2025-06-08* I keep finding more features. It shows the sky at your current location and time with ability zoom, rotate and change location and time. Click on any object for a long description and history. Perfect for any backyard astronomer, and no ads or in app purchases. ### 5/5 — Good *2025-01-02* A little outdated looking, but it works well. ### 5/5 — It’s a great app *2024-05-26* It shows all stars planets and other celestial bodies in the sky you can even search them up and see information about them also if you go to somewhere in 500,00 bc at like 5 am you can go through the years and see the moon crash into earth for some reason ### 5/5 — Dear devs *2023-07-08* This an incredible app and I love it but tonight i noticed that the Big Dipper is flipped horizontally showing Polaris at the “bottom” relatively speaking when it should be at the top. Just something I noticed. ### 5/5 — MacBook Air [M2] *2023-03-05, version 3.4.4* Seems to work just fine, on MacBook. 👍👍 ### 5/5 — Transforms stargazing *2022-10-30* This app is amazing! Linked to the telescope by Celestron’s SkyPortal module, it leverages your smartphone’s GPS to seamlessly enter location, time, etc. so you can be stargazing within seconds. With a touch of the finger, you can get the scope to effortlessly slew to all the targets you want to see, and to quickly go back and forth to compare, say, two different globular clusters. While observing a target, this app allows you to listen to an audio description which really enhances the viewing experience. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-07.*