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How To Use iPhone As A Finderscope Using SkySafari?

Andrew Amiet

October 14, 2018 22:44

Answered

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Hi there, I'm just getting into Astronomy as a hobby, and picked up a second hand Celestron 130EQ off ebay recently. This is a manual alignment scope, and the finderscope is pretty poor. I'm wondering if anyone has mounted their iPhone (or equivalent) to their scope and used SkySafari as a de-facto finderscope. It seems to me that if (and it's a pretty big if) the phone could be aligned with the telescope then it might make a reasonable finderscope. Once they are both pointing in the same direction, I could then dial in the object of interest (say NGC 7293) and I could then move the scope to the approximate correct location using SkySafari. Once I'm close, I could then hunt around for the object (in theory).

Alternatively the phone could be mounted on the eyepiece (I've seen adapters for when you want to take photos with your phone), and might be able to be used as a finder that way (once its been calibrated to be pointing in the "wrong" direction of course).

Has anyone heard of anyone doing this, or done it themselves? I had a quick search on the database, but came up with nothing specific.

Thanks, Andrew.

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2 comments

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  Steenkh October 15, 2018 04:43

  I believe that an iPhone would make a miserable finder. First of all, it cannot see any stars, only planets and the Moon. The stars drown in noise - at least on my iPhone SE. Secondly, the compass and gyro are not accurate enough to tell SkySafari where the telescope is pointing to the degree of accuracy that is needed for pointing a scope. That means that you cannot let SkySafari show the stars when when the iPhone cannot.

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  Andrew Amiet October 15, 2018 04:58

  Hi Steenkh, thanks for your comment. I wasn't planning on using the camera in the iPhone since, as you rightly point out, you can't really see anything from the iphone camera.

  I was more interested in using the GoTo-like feature in SkySafari, where it shows you arrows on the screen as to where to point to when you search for an object. However, if the compass and gyro aren't up to the task, then I guess it will be of limited use. Just a thought.

  Thanks,

  Andrew