What is Reddit's opinion of SkEye | Astronomy?

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There are apps which will show you what star/planet you are pointing your phone at, you could try one of these:

SkyEye

Google Sky Map

No idea, but here's some resources for next time;

• Skeye - Astronomical app. You'd be able to point it in the direction of whatever you're looking at and see whether it's a star/planet/space station etc.

• Flight Radar 24(free) - shows you flight plans of planes. If you upgrade to paid version, you can even get an Augmented reality view.

I use Skeye. Paid version only 6$ i think. Has all major catalogs. Satellite flythrus and comets listed too. I use it on my tablet and phone. Android only i think.

link to google store

[](#therethere)

If you use Android, I've been using an app called SkEye for all my basic astronomical needs ever since NEOWISE. It'll at least let you know which building/mountain/etc stuff is hiding behind.

It's not quite the same thing, but if she's interested in space in general, maybe buy her the game Kerbal Space Program (you design and fly rockets for little green aliens). It can often be found discounted now they're developing version 2.
An app I've found is quite good at identifying stuff in the sky: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeye

> I also bought her a star - but I've no clue where to start with that.

First things first, do you have somewhere to put it?

If you don't mind using an app, this one will get you both the alt and azimuth: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeye

For more accuracy, you can add an alignment to a known star.

For even more accuracy and support for polar alignment, I would recommend this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeyecam

This one uses the camera to figure out the scope's orientation.

PS. I made these apps.

I got a copy of sky and telescope pocket sky atlas. It's about A5 (half American letter size). It might be out of print because after a brief search I couldn't find any new copies being sold and used copies are silly expensive. Orion is a good guide book with a selection of highlights, but it's mostly limited to that. An atlas has everything including size and magnitude for anything you could possibly see in a 10 inch dob, so I can pick a page and see everything that's in view at certain days and times, I have a fairly limited field of view at home, so planning to find what is available is better for me personally.

I use the SkEye app for Android. Stellarium is the other popular one I think. I assume all allow you to change the date and time view, and list objects ordered by ease of viewing from your location, but SkEye definitely does.

Have you tried the SkEye (free) app ? It's a planetarium app that has a function to transform your telescope into a push to scope. It does require calibration but apparently it's mostly accurate. It's free therefore worth a shot.

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

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeye&hl=en\_US&gl=US

Are you using Android/Skeye? You can mount a tablet anywhere you want at any angle with that app because you sync it with your eyepiece view. No adjusting the tablet position needed.

theres a nifty app called Skeye if you're on android or try Star Chart on iphone.

you will want to look North East and it is up all night. you wont see anything special with your eyes, but take a really long shot 10-20 seconds at a high iso 3200+ and look at it afterwords, you should be able to faintly see details..

now there are a lot of other things to consider when doing this but for starters it'll get you going.

Or better yet, try this as it is still being actively developed.

Sky Map hasn't been updated since 2011.

Hi there!

Firstly, as it's been mentioned, check out the info in the sticky over on the /r/telescopes subreddit. Lot of good information there, so I highly suggest you read that to get an idea for some of the scopes you may want to consider.

Now, I'll try my best to answer your questions:

1. The main thing you'll want to know about when comparing telescopes is that aperture is essentially the key specification to worry about (aperture is the diameter of the objective lens in refractors or the primary mirror in reflectors). If you think of telescopes as being a "light bucket," whose sole purpose is to collect as many photons as possible, then you'll understand why aperture is so important. The wider aperture you have, the more light you telescope can take in, and therefore dim objects will appear brighter. Also, aperture will allow you to see more detail in objects like the planets (due to the properties of diffraction). So, you'll typically want to get a telescope with as much aperture as possible that you can afford and reasonably transport (keep in mind that some of these scopes can get huge, so be aware of that if you intend to transport a scope a lot). Furthermore, due to the fact that mirrors are so much easier to manufacture than lenses, you'll often find that reflecting telescopes will give you more aperture for your money (I won't go into the pros/cons of reflectors vs refractors here, as just a quick Google search will give you plenty of reading). So, if you want the biggest bang for your buck, I highly suggest you check out dobsonian reflectors (such as the Orion SkyQuest XT8 or Zhumell Z8), as they are pretty much the kings in terms of aperture per dollar.
2. Depends on how much aperture the scope you get has. If the scope has more than 6" of aperture, though, you can expect to see a lot of stuff in the night sky. For the most part, you can expect to see most if not all of the Messier objects, some of the brighter NGC objects, all the planets (not counting Pluto), the Galilean moons, a few of Saturn's large moons (most notably Titan), comets that come by (such as C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy that we had this winter), and many features on the lunar surface (you'll want some sort of a Moon filter, though - the Moon is very bright in a telescope). Of course, keep in mind that you'll never be getting Hubble-type views in a telescope, but they'll be pretty cool nonetheless.
3. I'd first strongly recommend downloading the planetarium program Stellarium. Stellarium will allow you to see how the night sky looks, and see where objects that you'd like to look at are located. There's also apps that you can get on a smartphone (such as SkEye for Android devices) that do the same thing, but probably don't have nearly as big of a database as Stellarium does on a desktop (with an exception being the upper versions of SkySafari).

Anyway, hopefully that helps, and be sure to ask any other questions you might have about telescopes! :)

Not the same app, but I use this one:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeye

SkEye is much better than Google sky if for no other reason than Google sky hasn't been updated in almost 5 years.

SkEye

You know, I've downloaded a ton of these apps and the one I keep coming back to night after night is SkEye. It works well on my phone, but I also like to use it on my tablet-- I'll focus on whatever part of the sky I'm looking at and go into "manual" mode, which basically freezes the screen and allows you to pan and zoom. Once I have my constellation framed nicely on the screen, I'll set the tablet up on my eyepiece tray and use it like a road map. I'll often have an app called Night Sky Tools running on my phone for all sorts of reference material.

While we're throwing apps out, Twilight automatically dims your screen and tints it varying degrees of red, supposedly to rest your eyes to help you get to sleep but it's awesome for preserving your night vision while stargazing and switching between your nineteen astronomy apps. It's very customizeable and easy to use.

All of the main stargazing apps will do more or less the same thing, and a lot of them will perform pretty similarly since they're all using the same hardware (your phone). Some will have constellation artwork you like better, or some might have a more intuitive pan-and-zoom method. Download a few and see what works for you.

Lastly, a quick hint-- apps that rely on your phone's accelerometer and compass to show you what stars you're looking at are prone to magnetic interference. Some will display little popups that say "strange magnetic field detected" or something--SkEye does every time I open it. Hold your phone out in front of you, screen facing you, and move it in a sideways figure 8 (∞) motion. This will recalibrate your phone's sensors. I don't know how or why. It's basically magic.

Have fun and clear skies!

With smaller telescopes the eyepieces they ship with are generally too powerful (so they can advertise "600 POWER!!!"). Telescopes have a max magnification based on diameter meaning yours probably can't push past 150x most nights, you are better off running them at a fairly low power. People who start out in telescopes have the "power bug" but you soon find out there are allot of objects requiring low power (wide field of view), such as deep sky objects. Also if you want to see the whole moon floating in space or all of Jupiter's moons at once you need low power. Lower power eyepieces are also generally more comfortable to look through. Its ok to buy higher power eyepieces, you will find out fast on a given night if the seeing can handle them.

There are sites like EarthSky that will keep you up to date. Stellarium is a free program you can run on a computer. Apps like SkEye will show you exactly what you are pointing at - you can actually mount you cell phone to your scope with that app and it will give you computerized "push-to" guidance. I found it works, sort of... cell phones work with 3 plane magnetic compasses so you have to avoid metal and remove your cell phone cover if it uses magnetic clasps.

Hmm...that's interesting. You have the mount head, but no tripod.

Not sure what would be the best way to get the scope in usable condition. As has already been mentioned, photographic tripods aren't really suitable for astronomy, as they aren't stable enough to keep the telescope from shaking at even lower magnifications. :(

Replacement tripods are typically really hard to find, as they usually only come bundled with their mount head. Furthermore, it's rare for one mount head to be compatible with another mount's tripod, so you can't just go and get any tripod. However, there's always a small chance you might find one on the Cloudy Nights Classifieds or Astromart (just keep in mind that there's also been a few different lines of "NexStar" telescopes over the years, so a "NexStar" tripod might not necessarily be compatible with your mount).

Depending on how much you want to spend, you're best bet might be to get a new mount (and tripod). The Astro-Tech Voyager 2 mount that /u/FDlor linked to (as well as any of its clones) would be a very good mount, and they sell at around $200 (new). If you do this, it looks like you'll also need tube rings and a dovetail bar. I think these tube rings would work, and this dovetail bar might be compatible with those rings - I would check with Agena to make sure they work with each other.

If you're worried about losing the computer system, I wouldn't let that bother you too much - it's actually more enjoyable to find things in the night sky on your own (it's a fun challenge to find some objects), all you need is a star chart (which you can download for free and print off or download an app like Stellarium for desktop or SkEye for Android).

Hopefully that helps! :)

SkEye is a good android app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lavadip.skeye&hl=en

I would check out the free program called Stellarium first - it's a really good piece of software to find objects in the night sky. If you're wanting a smartphone app, I'd recommend SkEye, Stellarium Mobile, or Night Sky Tools (all for Android - don't know what's out there for iOS).

I just recently got a telescope and have been using SkyEye to locate objects or identify what I'm looking at.