Stargazing apps

[Zermelo]

16 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

SkySafari Plus .... is that the former allows you to adjust and align/sync on your GOTO targets, so you can compensate for any inaccuracies in the GOTO

which is a nice feature that I sometimes use - it maintains internal offsets to the scope's native sky model - but note that it does have limits on how much of a discrepancy it can deal with: when you perform an align/sync it will refuse (gracefully) if you are too far away. In those circumstances, it's better to adjust the model in the scope's own software (e.g. a pointing accuracy enhancement in SynScan).

Edited May 23, 2021 by Zermelo

[Spile]

22 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

I've just bought the Plus version for £5.99 - the advantage of Sky Safari Plus over Stellarium Plus is that the former allows you to adjust and align/sync on your GOTO targets, so you can compensate for any inaccuracies in the GOTO.

It is worth checking out SkEye which has a great insta-align function. The free version is fully functioning https://astro.catshill.com/skeye-a-push-to-finder-app/ and the Pro version is £8.49 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeyepro

[Gfamily]

31 minutes ago, Spile said:

It is worth checking out SkEye which has a great insta-align function. The free version is fully functioning https://astro.catshill.com/skeye-a-push-to-finder-app/ and the Pro version is £8.49 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeyepro

That's potentially useful for a friend who is looking at the Celestron StarSense with a Manual mount , but might find Skeye useful as an alternative

[Louis D]

6 hours ago, Zermelo said:

note that it does have limits on how much of a discrepancy it can deal with

I regularly force SkEye 90 degrees off the sky with it's object align function so my phone can be cradled parallel to the tube.  It seems weird that SkySafari Plus doesn't support that same functionality, or does it?

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

I regularly force SkEye 90 degrees off the sky with it's object align function so my phone can be cradled parallel to the tube.  It seems weird that SkySafari Plus doesn't support that same functionality, or does it?

How accurate is your pointing when using Skeye with a 90 degree offset? Does it give you accurate 'Push to' centering on targets to within "eyepiece viewing" precision ?   

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, Gfamily said:

How accurate is your pointing when using Skeye with a 90 degree offset? Does it give you accurate 'Push to' centering on targets to within "eyepiece viewing" precision ?   

It gets me within 4 or 5 degrees of objects generally after aligning on some easy object(s) like bright planet and stars.  Sloppy by traditional DSC standards, but because it's showing me the star pattern on the screen around the object, I find it fairly simple to use either a Telrad/QuikFinder or GLP to fine tune the pointing enough to get the object within my widest field eyepiece in the main scope.  This presumes you can see stars down to about magnitude 3 or so.  Once it's centered, I realign SkEye on the object, and pointing in that region improves quite a bit.  During centering, I zoom in on the SkEye screen view to match what I'm seeing in the eyepiece.  I'm still getting familiar with it, but I've found it fairly handy so far.

It's not for the inexperienced for sure, but if you're experienced and are looking for new or difficult objects with a scope on a mount with no traditional DSCs, it's a huge help.  It much faster and more convenient than referring to a paper star chart or non-linked planetarium software on a tablet or laptop.

[Gfamily]

Thanks, that's useful to know. 

[Spile]

SkEye relies on the inbuilt magnetometer of your phone but the calibration app does help if you get the strange magnetic fields message.

https://astro.catshill.com/skeye-a-push-to-finder-app/

[xvariablestarx]

I am thinking of either mounting the phone perpendicular to the tube like the picture below, and using Skeye.

Or buy a  Celestron Starsense Explorer scope and using its hardware and app license to mount it to something like a Dob

I can use Skeye instead of a finder, or should I use a finder a long with it?

 

[Spacecake2]

For a beginner I used star walk 2 it’s good for referencing and info and it’s like a simplified version of sky safari which I also recommend. You can get star walk 2 for free in the App Store and sky safari for not much.

[Spile]

20 hours ago, xvariablestarx said:

I am thinking of either mounting the phone perpendicular to the tube like the picture below, and using Skeye.

Or buy a  Celestron Starsense Explorer scope and using its hardware and app license to mount it to something like a Dob

I can use Skeye instead of a finder, or should I use a finder a long with it?

 

I use one or more off Telrad, RACI and SkEye indirect mode!

[Spile]

I took my iPad out last night and used Star Chart. It is free so appealed to me (!) and I was quite impressed. It never seems to get mentioned with everyone using Sky Safari.

[Louis D]

On 12/06/2021 at 15:33, xvariablestarx said:

I am thinking of either mounting the phone perpendicular to the tube like the picture below, and using Skeye.

Or buy a  Celestron Starsense Explorer scope and using its hardware and app license to mount it to something like a Dob

I can use Skeye instead of a finder, or should I use a finder a long with it?

 

I mount my cell phone running SkEye at an angle convenient for the part of the sky I'm observing using a cheap photo ball head.  Using a three way finder mount, I also mount two of a QuikFinder, a GLP, and a RACI.  I use the RACI with the 127 Mak and the QuikFinder with the 90mm APO.  At 600mm focal length with a 40mm 2" eyepiece, the RACI is completely redundant for the APO.

Edited June 13, 2021 by Louis D

[PEnglish82]

After reading through this thread I was keeping my eye out for a Sky Safari sale, and noticed that the prices had been reduced (on the UK iOS store at least).

Sky Safari (£2.99) Sky Safari 6 Plus (£6.99) Sky Safari 6 Pro (£19.99)

I'm unashamedly of the 'The more expensive the better' school of thought and so opted for Pro even though it's probably overkill for my purposes.

[AstroGee]

On 16/06/2021 at 08:27, PEnglish82 said:

the prices had been reduced (on the UK iOS store at least

It seems they've rejigged the prices again... catch them with the cheap basic app..

Sky Safari (£2.49) Sky Safari 6 Plus (£12.99) Sky Safari 6 Pro (£34.99)

[Stu]

On 13/06/2021 at 17:53, Spile said:

I took my iPad out last night and used Star Chart. It is free so appealed to me (!) and I was quite impressed. It never seems to get mentioned with everyone using Sky Safari.

I’m guilty of recommending SkySafari all the time but only because I genuinely believe it is an excellent app which can really enhance your enjoyment of stargazing. I downloaded Star Chart and it is a decent, basic app but I found it quite clunky to use in terms of zooming in, and limited in being able to set star visibility etc. I agree, there are plenty of free apps around that will do a perfectly good job so I have no desire to discourage their use.

A lot of this comes down to personal preferences. I know that Luminos is a blooming good app, it just doesn’t work for my brain! I keep wanting to like it but end up being able to find and do stuff in SkySafari far quicker and easier than Luminos. Conversely, I am sure plenty of people find exactly the opposite so there are no right or wrong choices, just what works for you.

[Deadlake]

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

I know that Luminos is a blooming good app, it just doesn’t work for my brain! I keep wanting to like it but end up being able to find and do stuff in SkySafari far quicker and easier than Luminos.

Luminous to me is a great app, it's rendering is better then Sky Safari and GRS calculations accurate. 

However sky safari is more productive and at present supports more mounts.

For example I can upload a doubles list in sky safari on the desktop and it will sync to my mobile. I can also plot a viewing list on a desktop and upload so much quicker then a mobile app.

For getting stuff done, Sky Safari is a winner. 

Same time given the cost of kit, Luminous and Sky Safari are rounding errors in costs. 

Why not have both?
 

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Deadlake said:

Luminous to me is a great app, it's rendering is better then Sky Safari and GRS calculations accurate. 

No disagreement that it’s also a great app. I think the rendering in SkySafari 7 is much improved over the previous version. Also, they have added an option to set the longitude of the GRS to ensure it is accurate. I’m not sure whether this is automatically updated from a web source but that would be good.

[markse68]

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Also, they have added an option to set the longitude of the GRS

oh that’s very cool Stu. Does it show Rigel b yet?

Mark

[AstroGee]

Agh. I missed Sky Safari 7, not sure why that didn't come up win my app search.

Hopefully should be able to refund/switch.....

[Bioboybill]

Is this Luminosity app iOS only? I have searched for Luminosity, Luminos and Luminous (all spellings in this thread), but came up with nothing!

[Stu]

38 minutes ago, markse68 said:

oh that’s very cool Stu. Does it show Rigel b yet?

Mark

Unfortunately not Mark  

[Bioboybill]

To answer my own question, I found it's Luminos and only available for ios.

[AstroGee]

Night Sky (On iOS) has a very intuitive interface, augmented reality and approachable (especially for kids).

In terms of general stargazing it seems head and shoulders above Sky Safari, and therefore worth a mention here.