i have SkySafari Pro on my iPhone 6S+ and am requesting a much-needed feature.
as it is stated on the app documentation - the internal phone compass/gyroscope can be off as much as 10 degrees. when recently looking at Venus and trying to line up the app with what i was pointing the phone at, it is consistently off by up to 10 degrees (the planets/stars are further left by a significant margin than where they are on the screen). this isn't a recent issue - it's always been off slightly on all the app versions and iPhones i've owned.
i have other astronomy apps that let you dial in or move the screen left/right/up/down in degree or half-degree increments and 'set' it. that way everything lines up much better and still uses the compass function as you move the screen around or search for stuff. however, SkySafari is the best astronomy app that I have :)
could you PLEASE add a 'compass/gyro offset' feature?
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24 comments
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Keiron Smith Official comment DevOps reference: https://starrynight.unfuddle.com/a#/projects/7965/tickets/by_number/1855
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H4y6d2e Has anyone looked at this or anything? I was told I had to submit it here and would get a response. It's been a few days so I thought I'd ask.
Thanks in advance.
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Keiron Smith Hang in there! We did not forget about you ;)
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Bill Tschumy The compass on mobile devices can be very inaccurate. There is not a consistent offset that can be applied in our experience. Generally you should make sure you have removed a magnetic case if you have one and use it away from meal or electro-magnetic fields.
What apps do have that let you specify an offset? I've never seen that before.
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H4y6d2e - pocket universe allowed in-app calibration
- i believe star walk 1 let you find a body, then using augmented imaging allowed you to place the app moon or venus or whatever over the one showing on your screen in real-time from your camera then let you 'lock' them in sync
- star walk 2 currently has a compass calibration button
- I have used many astronomy apps over sever iterations of the iPhones and their OS'. I don't remember which one had the two adjustments for vertical and horizontal dialing in. I am trying to find it in my past purchases but it could have been an older version that had it and now the newer version that I can download either doesn't or the calibration has improved to where the devs don't feel you need it.
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regardless - it doesn't change the fact that the compass or gyro is oftentimes not accurate and it would be very hand for this very expensive app to allow one to move the screen left/right/up/down in increments to better line up what we are seeing in front of us with our eyes. sometimes planets/stars/moon is 1-5 feet or more left of where I am pointing my phone.
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Bill Tschumy We contend that this is a bug in iOS. We have looked at this code ad nauseam. In all cases where the compass is inaccurate, iOS is feeding us bad information. I have asked Apple about his and they have not been able to find a solution. The app will automatically display the calibration screen if it detects there is a problem. You can also do the equivalent by just turning the phone over along all 3 axes while the compass is on. You can also try calibration by holding the screen facing up and wiping all four edges in succession (not sure how to describe this motion but it is what you are doing in the calibration screen when rolling the ball around the circle).
There is just not much more we can do about this. If it makes the app not useful, you can ask Apple for a refund (we can't issue refunds ourselves).
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H4y6d2e Bill,
are you you telling me that you are unable or unwilling to add a feature that moves the display that we are seeing while in compass tracking mode to the left/right/up/down until the screen accurately reflects where the stars are in front of us? this wouldn't be hard to code.
if the 'x' axis is +/- 180° (or 360°) and the 'y' is +/- 90°, then all you are telling the app to do is move the *displayed content* say 3° left and 2° up and then 'set' it so as the phone moves around in compass mode whatever it is displaying on the screen is what you set it at. a 'reset' button could be added or simply the ability to further tune it to accurately reflect the position of the moon and stars that a person is seeing. it doesn't even have to save the settings. a person could just tune the onscreen image each time they open the app for the duration they use it.
it doesn't make the app unusable but it would be a lot less irritating to be able to point the phone at Venus and have it accurately centered on the screen than be 3 feet to the left (or x number of degrees to the left of where it should be on the phone screen).
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Bill Tschumy I'm unwilling to add a feature that I don't think will adequately fix the problem. In my experience the bad data we receive is very inconsistent. It will be off for a short time and then inexplicably corrects itself. Or it will be off, I'll briefly switch to a different app, and then it will be correct again when I come bad. In your case it is consistently (say) 40º off? That is the only case where I'd see an offset would be useful.
I will look at Pocket Universe to see what they do and see how useful it is.
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Bill Tschumy I will also add that in the 7-8 years of SkySafari's existence, you are the first to request this. That is why I'm approaching it slowly. Not saying it is not a good idea, but I'm a bit skeptical.
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J Oltion Forgive me for reviving an old topic, but I was about to start a similar topic before I discovered this one, and figured one topic was better than two.
On my phone (Samsung Galaxy 7, Android 8), the compass is pretty accurate in all apps, including SkySafari, but unless I have an Internet connection SS defaults to magnetic north rather than using my magnetic declination to give me true north. This happens even if I have GPS and Location Services turned on, and even if I have calibrated SS with Internet on and not changed locations since. If I close the app and open it again without Internet service, it defaults back to magnetic north.
I would like to have the ability to enter my magnetic declination manually so SS will calculate true north correctly even without an Internet connection. Or at least have the app remember my magnetic declination as well as my latitude and longitude when I define a location. (But being able to fine-tune the declination manually would be a far better option.) I often observe in areas without cell service, so I can't always connect to the Internet to let it recalibrate every time I fire up the app.
Separating out the Gyro and Compass modes the way it was in earlier versions of the app would also be a workaround for this problem. I would love to see that capability return. (I've got versions Pro 3, Pro 5, and Pro 6, and often still use Pro 3 because it was the last version to do this.) But I would also like to have the ability to manually adjust my magnetic declination setting.
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Ast29 Hi all, I was just about to write exactly this request myself. I have a Dob and would love to be able to track from a planet / bright constellation to something more obscure. I wanted to use Sky safari to act as a Push to, but the compass on my iPhone 12 is not accurate. I have tried many things (there are no magnets nearby), but it is simply not accurate. I would love to see a feature in Sky safari where I can hold up the app and then offset / recalibrate the position of the sky to what I am seeing in real time. I could then use that to find tricky objects in the sky. I would have also thought this is relatively simple to add to sky safari and would certainly help me.
I would be grateful for a response on this request. Thank you,
Andrew
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Keiron Smith Andrew,
Your request has been made before, but the internal accuracy of the mobile device's compass is not good enough to be used as a push-to. You can find other apps have tried to solve this problem, and offer that functionality as a feature, but the results will not be very good. Our developers are not going to invest time trying to make the app work in ways that it can not, in the end, do very well.
That said, partnered with Celestron, our developers HAVE developed such an app, that uses plate solving in order to achieve the pinpoint accuracy required to successfully push a mount around from object to object.
https://www.celestron.com/collections/starsense-explorer-smartphone-app-enabled-telescopesAt this time, the app is only available for specific Celestron mounts. The StarSense Explorer line of scopes has been very successful for Celestron so I imagine we will see them expand the available line of mounts in the future.
Thanks!
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J Oltion What we're really asking for here, and have been asking for since version 4 came out, is to give us back the gyro function that worked so well in version 3. When the compass misbehaved, we could fix on a known point, activate the gyro, and move to other objects with near-perfect accuracy. Maybe not with go-to scope accuracy, but we could find things in the sky visually. With the later versions of the program that offer compass-only, accuracy is far worse than with the gyro on version 3. I don't understand why such a useful feature -- a feature that enhanced the program's usability -- was eliminated, and why there's such resistance to bringing it back.
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Ast29 Yes, I am a bit confused by the resistance also. Isn’t the point of having a feedback forum, to listen to said feedback? I know the compass is rubbish, as I said this in the first line of my comment. It might even vary with the use of the compass over longer times. That said, it doesn’t bother me, if there is a feature that effectively cancels this issue by allowing a user to manually reset and put an offset in.
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Keiron Smith Yes, the forum is for open discussion and your feedback, positive or negative, is very welcome.
My reply was specific to the question about using SkySafari as a push-to app with a dob. My reply is not resistance. Without plate-solving it is not a viable project.
I will ask the developers to consider adding an offset for the compass mode, so when holding the phone to the sky, if the mapping appears inaccurate, it can be nudged into place.
Sounds good?
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J Oltion An offset for compass mode would be useful, but reinstating gyro mode as a totally separate, compass-free (and therefore compass-error free) mode would be even better.
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Ast29 Thank you Keiron, this would be very much appreciated
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Keiron Smith I can't promise anything except to say that developers will again review this request.
And thank you for sharing your passion and vision for SkySafari in our community forums!
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Dean I would also like to add my support for the return of the Gyro mode button that was removed several versions back.
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H4y6d2e originally, i had stated that i [had] "other astronomy apps that let you dial in or move the screen left/right/up/down in degree or half-degree increments and 'set' it. that way everything lines up much better and still uses the compass function as you move the screen around or search for stuff."
that's not hard to do. gyro inaccurate? venus not lining up? use this up-right-down-left control to center the object you are looking at and then hit 'save'.
we KNOW the phone compasses aren't accurate, but the inaccuracy on a per-use basis can be greatly improved with the ability to offset the inaccuracy - which the developer could easily implement.
unfortunately, the reason this is still an issue several years later is because of Bill Tschumy's "I'm unwilling to add a feature". he didn't want to. plain and simple.
today, Keiron Smith stated "I will ask the developers to consider adding an offset for the compass mode, so when holding the phone to the sky, if the mapping appears inaccurate, it can be nudged into place." that's EXACTLY what i was requesting 5 years ago.
hopefully you guys get some traction on it. would certainly help us non-Celestron iPhone-only skywatchers have a better experience while using such an expensive app.
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Keiron Smith Just set expectations, I'm only going to re-surface this query for review
5 years ago this same request was made. And, Bill, then lead developer for the app, said no. Although Bill has retired we may get the same reply now.
So, I'm not promising anything.
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J Oltion Understood. But thanks for trying. If it goes through, it would be a big deal for me.
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Ast29 Ditto - I have always thought that was the biggest issue. Clearly not the fault of sky safari, but something that could help fix offsets would warrant an upgrade for me. I would not mind to do the offset for each time I use. Anyway, fingers crossed it progresses
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Tomgoldie With small scopes being used for astrophotography via a cellphone through a 90° bend, the ability to recenter the view would be really handy - at least for the use I had envisioned.
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