Luddite needs advice

[rowan46]

In my quest to be more portable I no longer use my nexstar 5 much instead I use a small refractor on a 2 way video head as this is marked with degrees both vertically and horizontally It struck me that I could use these markings as setting circles. I don't want to carry a laptop with me and I have read on the forum about phones with astronomy apps. I have never owned a mobile phone and wondered what is the cheapest phone that carries these apps, how easy are they to learn to use and what sort of app should I get to enable me to use my alt az mount as a push to. I was looking on ebay at an iphone 3gs for about a £100 would this do the job as it's about the max amount I wish to pay

[Jiggy 67]

Wow!!...Never owned a mobile phone?!?!?...How do you get by in life?

I have an Iphone 3GS and a number of apps....SkySafari, Pocket Universe and a couple of others, I just find that they are interesting toys with some useful aspects, but on the whole, I don't use them during observing sessions, they are to finicky, not always accurate and to prone to magnetic interference which messes up the internal compass. There are some that you can connect to the mount which will control it but I've never used them and they usually require the premium version of the app which can be very expensive, I think its about £60 for the premium version of SkySafari.

[pete_l]

Instead of buying a phone (just to host an astronomy app), have you considered a cheap 7inch Android tablet?

They are available for < £100 new and will give a much larger screen (c.f. 3GS 3.5 inch diagonal). The problem with buying a used 3GS off eBay is that iPhone batteries are not user-replaceable and in a 2 - 3 year old device could well be nearing the end of it's life, that manifests as a lower charge capacity.

If you also feel the need for a mobile phone, there would be lots of non "smart" PAYG phones available from £10 new. to fulfil the call-making function, at the cost of having 2 things to carry (although with a lower chance of the battery failing just when you need it).

[rowan46]

to be honest I don't really want a phone, I have managed this long without one what I really need is a pocket sized computer to work out alt az coordinates and then I can use the setting circles on the mount. It works for dobs so i figured it would would work for an alt az mounted refractor. i just figured a second hand phone was the cheapest and most portable option. push to was an inaccurate term perhaps.

[66mikeg]

An android tablet would do the trick, most of the apps are free the only one that I have paid for was polarfinder which set me back £0.68

[66mikeg]

Skeye is accurate enough to use as a push-to guide

[ronin]

Quite a few phones will do it, the obvious ones being android so quite a few Samsung.

You will need one with GPS built in possibly compass as well although I would have assumed that gps=compass.

Also the bigger the screen the better for the simplicity of viewing.

Try this site for information:

Phone Reviews

[Alastair Rae]

Cheap tablet sounds good. If you're just using SkEye to get AZ coords, you don't actually need GPS or any of the other fancy sensors. You can enter the Lat/Long manually - it saves a list of favourite places so you don't have to do it every time.

[MAN or ASTROMAN]

Bravo, Rowan for not bowing to the pressure to own (or be owned?) by a mobile phone ! I bought one two years ago,ot of need, due to a family crisis.I've probably used it a dozen times since. WHAT do people find to witter on about incessantly on their mobiles?? Years ago,if you had walked along the street 'talking to yourself' you would have been sectioned (lol).And as for those stupid handless earpiece things..............I reckon mobiles are just a form of GPS! Sorry have to go now-I've got a couple of weaving looms to smash!

[bluesman81]

Instead of buying a phone (just to host an astronomy app), have you considered a cheap 7inch Android tablet?

They are available for < £100 new and will give a much larger screen (c.f. 3GS 3.5 inch diagonal). The problem with buying a used 3GS off eBay is that iPhone batteries are not user-replaceable and in a 2 - 3 year old device could well be nearing the end of it's life, that manifests as a lower charge capacity.

If you also feel the need for a mobile phone, there would be lots of non "smart" PAYG phones available from £10 new. to fulfil the call-making function, at the cost of having 2 things to carry (although with a lower chance of the battery failing just when you need it).

Maplins sell the tooling and the batteries to replace the 3gs one. Its well within the reach of most people...

[bluesman81]

Have you considered a netbook???