DIY phone holder for push to plate solver App.

[tomato]

Or in other words a StarSense phone holder. I purchased a used Explorer LT 80 to put the StarSense functionality onto my Flextube Dob, with the intention of handing the refractor sans StarSense over to my granddaughter as a surprise birthday present. However I was really impressed with how the StarSense app worked, it seemed just churlish to hand the scope over without this brilliant beginner’s feature.

So @Tomatobro had a look at the unit and fabricated another using PCB, CF, a mountain bike phone holder and a rather pricey flat mirror from Edmund Scientific. It looks the business and works a treat on the Dob, and my granddaughter will be off and running first clear night after her birthday. 👍😊

[DaveL59]

Looks excellent 🙂

I used a prism for the DIY holder I made from Delron sheet, works very well. I did in early testing try just a plain mirror to see if it'd work as it was kicking around (fell off the handle of one of those folding travel hair brushes). The Mirror also seemed to work OK but never tested much with it, so it may be feasible to use a non first-surface mirror to get a working setup.