Celestron Skyportal

[dansmith33]

Hi all I have bought a astro fi 130mm I am having problems aligning with skyportal. I try and align the three stars but every time it fails. I disconnect and realign but it seems to remember, i uninstall the app and still the same problem cam anyone help.?

[Greymouser]

I too have had similar problems with the sky portal app, for me with my Evolution mount, it is just not well thought out imo. Geoff Lister sums it up really well. It is just not an improvement to my mind over a hand controller and is little more than a gimmick. Luckily for me the Evolution mount came with the optional hand controller too and it has without any doubt vastly improved my enjoyment of using my Evolution mount. There is just no comparison. I would suggest you contact whomever sold you the scope/mount, and ask them which hand controller will work with it. You will not regret it.

However that said I use the Sky portal app on an Android tablet and just yesterday there was an update to a newer version, ( I presume it was a little later with Apple, ) which they allege means you can tilt the tablet to move the mount, instead of trying to find non tactile buttons on screen. If true it would perhaps be a huge improvement. I may try it out at some time, but as Geoff says, that is not the only problem with the app, so I think I will stick to the hand controller. That is as soon as I can motivate myself to observe at all again. 

This worry over the app is what is putting me off a little bit, when I  am considering getting the Skywatcher version, with a AZ GTI mount. All gimmick. less function? 

Edit: Incidentally I have read of several Astro Fi users say they have bought a hand controller for it, but they do not mention which controller... I have heard the same of the AZ GTI.

EDIT 2: Oops I just noticed the old date of OP of this thread, sorry about that mods...

Edited April 21, 2019 by Greymouser

[sqrutinizer]

When you set the motor speed using the slider at the bottom of the Sky Portal app you can really fine tune the adjustment.