I'd borrow/steal some binoculars or a telescope and get a better look. I bought this adapter awhile ago which works pretty well allowing you to get video through binoculars or telescope
One way to get useful info using your phone would be to get two or more phones to record the object at the same time from different locations. The position of object could be triangulated from the positions and orientations of the phones.
You can also get something like this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YWV7V8C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
to video through binoculars or a telescope. I've tried it with binoculars and it works fairly well. I have seen any anomalous objects in the sky yet though. Mostly just clouds.
get yourself some binoculars so you can get a better look at it next time. Also get one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Telescope-Compatible-Binoculars-Microscope-Smartphone/dp/B08YWV7V8C/
If you don't want to be frustrated while using a microscope, you're probably going to need something a little more advanced than the AM162C. To use a microscope effectively at 400x, you need one with an X-Y stage movement. The slide clips you'll find on that scope and other inexpensive scopes work okay at low magnification but even at 100x they become frustrating.
You're probably going to be over the 300 AUD mark. Take a look at the Swift SW350B. It has a binocular head, which you will come to appreciate a lot. It also makes things easier to use with your phone. You'll want to get an inexpensive phone adapter. I have this one and it works well. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YWV7V8C/
If you plan to do a lot of photos or videos, you might want to bump up to the Swift SW350T, which has a trinocular head so you can use the binocular part for your eyes and the third port for the phone/camera. That's probably going to cost an extra 50 AUD and you'll be bumping up against your 500 AUD limit.
The other things that these scopes have (that you don't find on the inexpensive beginner scopes) is the X-Y mechanical stage movement and an actual condenser that you can adjust. Having the "real" condenser also makes it relatively easy to add filters for things like darkfield and oblique microscopy.
It's relatively easy to get and install better objectives if you ever want to go that route. Changing the head from monocular to binocular or trinocular is much harder to do. With either of the scopes I mentioned, you probably will never need to worry about getting new/better objectives, though.
I have two of them. One is a phone mount. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YWV7V8C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I picked up an additional eyepiece and mounted the eyepiece into the phone mount so that I could just slip my phone into the mount and slip the eyepiece into the scope whenever I wanted to use it.
The other one is for a DSLR camera. I have that connected to a DSLR to mirrorless adapter that attaches to a mirrorless camera I bought used. The reason I did this was that my DSLR camera doesn't do video. The mirrorless camera will do pictures or video. The only issue with this particular setup is that it crops down the field of view quite a bit. When I am looking through the eyepiece, I can see a wider field than when I take a picture or a video. In practice this means that sometimes I need to switch to a lower magnification objective when I want to grab a picture or video.
If you want to capture a photo of it this mount for your phone works. I've tried it with binoculars and it works fairly well for something so cheap.
Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
---|---|---|---|
Telescope Phone Adapter, Universal Cell Phone Mou… | $8.98 | $8.98 | 3.7/5.0 |
^Item Info | Bot Info | Trigger
Item | Current | Lowest | Reviews |
---|---|---|---|
Telescope Phone Adapter, Universal Cell Phone Mou… | $8.98 | $8.98 | 3.7/5.0 |
^Item Info | Bot Info | Trigger
If this happens pretty regularly you might want to try to borrow a telescope, binoculars, etc and try out this mount
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YWV7V8C
I've tried it with binoculars and it works fairly well for something so cheap.
I got this ($9) device to take quick and dirty photos and video through our telescope and binoculars. Works pretty well.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YWV7V8C?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details