Tablet... Gutted

[trogre]

Hi All.

 Got an iphone which I use to track & learn stars etc but my wife was given a Archos 101B  10" tablet for Xmas but she is not really interested in it. I thought it would be ideal to view the stars as much bigger screen. Downloaded and paid £9.99 for skysafari+ as it has good reviews. Could not make out why sky was not moving as I turned tablet round. What I did not know being a bit green was the tablet does not have a built in compass, gutted.

I suppose I could always download a compass app but not very accurate. It seems for live views I am stuck with the iphone small screen. No point in doing research on a tablet with compass to buy as 1st priority is to decide what telescope to buy.

[Sirius Starwatcher]

Hello trogre sorry to hear of your troubles. Do you have a laptop/computer if so Stellarium is free to down load and is very good I know it does not help with the hand held app but it is something.

[ronl]

I think the program needs GPS, if your tablet has it it needs to be switched on.

[JG777]

But that shouldn't stop you using it. Your phone or even better a real compass perhaps a decent one like a Silva will tell you what direction is where and once you know that just set Sky Safari to the direction your interested in. I rarely ever use live compass view on Sky Safari or Stellarium. Or look up find a constellation and put that central in the Sky Safari view.

[Mick J]

You would thing that there may be a way of displaying the iphone screen on the android tablet,  then gaffer tape them together........

something like this  or team viewer or......... 

[trogre]

Thanks for all you replies. Tried downloading a compass to the tablet but it tells me there is no compass activation on unit.

Still I have done as you advised just used a normal compass to get bearing then pointed skysafari+ in the same direction, it works fine, just need some clear skies now.

[happy-kat]

Are you running the Archos in windows or android flavor. Only stellarium you can tell it your location manually either the windows or android version. Don't have to have a compass or gps if set location manually.

[Ianladd]

Looks like your up and running without the compass. I usually turn it off on my iphone. After a while it gets to be a pain when you actually want to focus on one thing in the sky.. 

[AndyWB]

I actually hate the compass function in SkySafari - and had great difficulty turning the damn thing off! I'd far rather use it without that!

Which doesn't really, help, other than to say, it doesn't stop you using it!

[Paul73]

Don't worry about it. As soon as you know a few of the brighter constellations. You will use it just like a map and would find the moving screen massively annoying.

Sky Safari pro on an iPad is my preferred tool for planning sessions and when out with the scope.

Paul

[Paul73]

Don't worry about it. As soon as you know a few of the brighter constellations. You will use it just like a map and would find the moving screen massively annoying.

Sky Safari pro on an iPad is my preferred tool for planning sessions and when out with the scope.

Paul

[BargeGazer]

Totally agree with Paul.  I have it on a couple of Android tablets.  One has a magnetic latch on the cover which screws up the compass anyway! 

David