Smartphone Red Screen for Astronomy night vision

[Tiago Ferreira]

This short video shows the app i use to get red screen during my observing sessions with my 12" dobsonian reflector newtonian telescope. Enjoy.

 

 

[AlexK]

That's better than nothing, but not enough if you are after really deep views with your 12". The star charting app must support your EDA (Eyes Darkness Adaptation) natively. If it does not then it's a toy app for children amusement.

The proper dark adapted app UI must be minimalistic and mostly wireframes based (less pixels lit) to limit your rods bleaching and prevent switching the perception to cones. Programmatic filters like above may render a non-supportive app hard to use at low light levels as its UI will be altered by that filter app (and many other similar offerings, including the iPhone red light mode) in a weird way, not expected by the app's UXD developer, so you most likely will have to crank the general brightness lever up to see it better, rendering that "redness" feature counterproductive for the EDA preservation.

That's all only true for OLED screens. If you have an ordinary TFT screen you must use the physical red film piece (sometimes two) over the screen to reduce the screen glow where it's seemingly dark and at sharp angles where such screens leaking a lot of bright white light.

On a side note, each phone screen is different at rendering its content, so on some phones the same app may be looking OK in the dark, while on another it will be just blinding or hard to use at low brightness levels (all the way to some UI elements being simply invisible). That's why a proper UXD design of an astronomy app for the visual field use must support elaborate colors adjustment! If it does not. It's a toy app made for the profit of the developer, not for the demanding end user.

Edited May 5, 2021 by AlexK

[SuburbanMak]

On iPhones you can place a universal red filter via the accessibility settings (they are enabled to activate filters to help with dyslexia, RG colour blindness etc).
This can then be assigned to the main control button - three clicks and everything is under a red filter. With brightness to minimum and nighttime background enabled I find this suitably dim for most sessions. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by SuburbanMak

[Stu]

12 hours ago, SuburbanMak said:

On iPhones you can place a universal red filter via the accessibility settings (they are enabled to activate filters to help with dyslexia, RG colour blindness etc).
This can then be assigned to the main control button - three clicks and everything is under a red filter. With brightness to minimum and nighttime background enabled I find this suitably dim for most sessions. 

I do the same, setup for three clicks to enable the red filter. I find SkySafari easier to read if it is also set into night mode, then I just turn the brightness down sufficiently so I can just see the screen. Normally I observing in such poor conditions that I don’t bother, but under a dark sky this is what I do. I don’t feel this affects my vision anymore than a dim red torch/map.

[Froeng]

I am also a big fan of the iphone triple click! However, I have been wanting to try a film on the phone’s screen for a while. Does anyone know of a good product to use?

Thanks!

Frank

[AlexK]

1 hour ago, Froeng said:

I am also a big fan of the iphone triple click! However, I have been wanting to try a film on the phone’s screen for a while. Does anyone know of a good product to use?

Thanks!

Frank

Hey, Frank. Google for "rubylith masking film". The many years top praised brand for the exact that purpose in the US (I'm using it too), but might be available locally for you as well.

I would also highly recommend the OtterBox Defender cases with the integrated screen protector (available for all top smartphone models and then some). They are not only protecting your phone in the field from elemens and kicks/drops, but also easy to open just on one side so it's convenient to slide in the precisely cut piece of the rubylith under that screen protector (transparent film). Other similar phone cases might be available for your model as well and cheaper. On a bottom-cheap you can simply use several stripes of packing tape going to the back. Just cut the film larger, as it may shift and expose a blinding content on the screen (especially care about the top and bottom of the screen where random popups are displayed (to minimize the latter I'd recommend switching the phone to the airplane mode).

Edited May 6, 2021 by AlexK

[Froeng]

Thank you Alex! I will have a look at this.

Frank