What did the postman bring?

[DaveL59]

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

 A couple of boxes for a little project.and a few other bits. 🙂

 

ooh let us know how you get on with the starsense hack 🙂 Been considering ordering one too but kinda have to watch the funds for the moment.

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

The postman brought something that combines my three hobbies;

A Raspberry Pi4 (bought from the forums, thanks @Stuart1971) - that's my computing hobby. 

An sd-card running astroberry, to see whether I can finally get away from using Windows at the mount... Astronomy, obvs. 

All safely wrapped in an old filament box - and that's my 3d printing fix sorted too 😂. 

Glad it all arrived ok...

Let me know if you need any help at all... 👍😀

 

[johninderby]

12 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

ooh let us know how you get on with the starsense hack 🙂 Been considering ordering one too but kinda have to watch the funds for the moment.

Just dissasembled the phone holder and mirror and ordered a bit of acetal  plate to fit between the holder and finder  dovetail  so will be able to fit the unit to a standard Synta finder shoe.🥳🥳🥳

Thread coming up when I have it sorted. 🙂

Edited September 10, 2020 by johninderby

[Steve Clay]

53 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Just dissasembled the phone holder and mirror and ordered a bit of acetal  plate to fit between the holder and finder  dovetail  so will be able to fit the unit to a standard Synta finder shoe.🥳🥳🥳

Thread coming up when I have it sorted. 🙂

Looking forward to this. Which scope did you buy to cannibalise?

Steve

Edited September 10, 2020 by Steve Clay

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

2 hours ago, johninderby said:

Just dissasembled the phone holder and mirror and ordered a bit of acetal  plate to fit between the holder and finder  dovetail  so will be able to fit the unit to a standard Synta finder shoe.🥳🥳🥳

Thread coming up when I have it sorted. 🙂

The thought of trying this crossed my mind, but being an engineering incompetent, spending the money would be a gamble!

Looking forward to a full write up. 😁

[johninderby]

2 hours ago, Steve Clay said:

Looking forward to this. Which scope did you buy to cannibalise?

Steve

The cheapest. The LT70 Starsense Explorer. Think this one is being discontinued and being cleared off at a big discount. Getting hard to find now. Don't know if UK dealers will be getting any more. 🤔

Edited September 10, 2020 by johninderby

[Davey-T]

Arrived today thought it would be a quick job to stick it all together but focuser bracket was no good so just spent a couple of hours making one.

Dave

[gilesco]

Just now, Davey-T said:

Arrived today thought it would be a quick job to stick it all together but focuser bracket was no good so just spent a couple of hours making one.

Dave

heh, my helical focuser and ASI290MM mini arrived today too, so FLO just had a ZWO delivery!!!

[Deadlake]

I have a  Bortle 4 sky to observe the nigh sky, even so too much light pollution from London leaks over the top of the Surrey Hills.

Good thing this came in the post.

 

[Steve Clay]

41 minutes ago, johninderby said:

The cheapest. The LT70 Starsense Explorer. Think this one is being discontinued and being cleared off at a big discount. Getting hard to find now. Don't know if UK dealers will be getting any more. 🤔

Hi John, I asked Harrison telescopes and they are expecting more at the end of Sep. I'll order then as I can see no reason why it won't work. My grandson can then have the scope and tripod.

Steve

[Robindonne]

9 hours ago, johninderby said:

 A couple of boxes for a little project.and a few other bits. 🙂

 

I might have been sleeping, but whats the good part about this starsense part?

[Dantooine]

I haven’t bought anything for 3 weeks.. I’m getting withdrawal symptoms.. however, I do enjoy seeing what everyone puts up on here 👍

[Alan White]

7 minutes ago, Dantooine said:

I haven’t bought anything for 3 weeks.. I’m getting withdrawal symptoms.. however, I do enjoy seeing what everyone puts up on here 👍

It certainly is lighter on the wallet this way.

Gone cold turkey and not bought kit for longer than you, which is quite an achievement.

 

 

[johninderby]

The next generation of push to. Instead of having to align the mount and of course needing encoders. You just point the scope at a star and it takes a photo and uses plate solving to workout where it is pointing to and that’s it. Then select something using the plantarium app that you  want to look at and it guides you to  the target using arrows on the screen and tells you when you have reached the target. 

Push to made easy.

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by johninderby

[Dantooine]

32 minutes ago, Alan White said:

It certainly is lighter on the wallet this way.

Gone cold turkey and not bought kit for longer than you, which is quite an achievement.

 

 

By the way, that’s not counting the Antares barlow as that’s been 9 days oops 😬 

[Dantooine]

34 minutes ago, johninderby said:

The next generation of push to. Instead of having to align the mount and of course needing encoders. You just point the scope at a star and it takes a photo and uses plate solving to workout where it is pointing to and that’s it. Then select something using the plantarium app that you  want to look at and it guides you to  the target using arrows on the screen and tells you when you have reached the target. 

Push to made easy.

 

Is that with a mobile phone in a holder?

[johninderby]

7 minutes ago, Dantooine said:

Is that with a mobile phone in a holder?

Yes it is.The phone holder has a mirror on the front.

[Dantooine]

39 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Yes it is.The phone holder has a mirror on the front.

Well being a manual AZ bloke, that looks like the limited technology I may enjoy. I use only a red dot finder, prefer it to a finder scope so this may well work well with my setup. 

[Robindonne]

16 hours ago, johninderby said:

Yes it is.The phone holder has a mirror on the front.

But what exactly happens if you just turn your phone 90 degrees, in a phone mount, with the camera facing in the direction of the telescope?

Sorry if its not really part of “The postman thread”.

[DaveL59]

5 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

But what exactly happens if you just turn your phone 90 degrees, in a phone mount, with the camera facing in the direction of the telescope?

Sorry if its not really part of “The postman thread”.

there's a mirror under the camera so the phone "sees" the sky 🙂 It was tried to just aim the camera at the sky and didn't work - on the CN thread IIRC.

Edited September 11, 2020 by DaveL59

[Robindonne]

7 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

there's a mirror under the camera so the phone "sees" the sky 🙂 It was tried to just aim the camera at the sky and didn't work - on the CN thread IIRC.

Ah ok.   Then its the app that only recognize mirrored view.     I was looking for a post here from a member who did just that, facing his phonecamera to the sky, probably with skysafari.   Can’t find it anymore here.  

Edited September 11, 2020 by Robindonne

[johninderby]

Yes uses a mirror so wthout the mirror the camera would see things the “wrong way up” and wouldn’t work. The app needs a unique unock code to work which is only available with the scope.

Te Acetal sheet I need to make up an adaptor between the phone holder and a finder foot has been posted so hopefully will be able to get it sorted this wekend. 🙏🏼

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by johninderby

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

Yes uses a mirror so wthout the mirror the camera would see things the “wrong way up” and wouldn’t work. The app needs a unique unock code to work which is only available with the scope.

Te Acetal sheet I need to make up an adaptor between the phone holder and a finder foot has been posted so hopefully will be able to get it sorted this wekend. 🙏🏼

 

It looks a great bit of kit, is there anyway of just getting the phone holder part to fit another telescope or do you have to buy the whole star sense scope all as one 

[DaveL59]

59 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Yes uses a mirror so wthout the mirror the camera would see things the “wrong way up” and wouldn’t work. The app needs a unique unock code to work which is only available with the scope.

Te Acetal sheet I need to make up an adaptor between the phone holder and a finder foot has been posted so hopefully will be able to get it sorted this wekend. 🙏🏼

 

fyi John, tried a small prism from a miniature bino against the camera on my note-10, hand held and no shielding so not an ideal test. Plus the prism is spalled on the long edge. To give an idea of size:

 

and a pic with it holding it to the camera lens, camera set to x1.0 to not use the wide-angle lens:

Will try a regular size from a 8x30 or 10x50 when I have one apart and show the result in the other thread. May give a better (wider) image without the vignetting but in principle it may work. Wonder if a BK7 may be better for this than a BaK4 in but I expect a lot of my junk ones are BK7 so won't be able to compare the types.

[DaveL59]

6 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

It looks a great bit of kit, is there anyway of just getting the phone holder part to fit another telescope or do you have to buy the whole star sense scope all as one 

at the moment, no, sold as a complete kit only and you can't buy the activation code alone either. Things may change tho if Celestron see a demand and decide to offer a standalone option but no reported plans so far.