Smartphone Telescope Adapter Camera Mount, Universal Phone Mount, Work with Telescope Spotting Scope Microscope Monocular Binocular - Fits iPhone, Samsung, HTC, LG and Smartphone

Top tip: Use the SkySafari Plus app for this. As far as I know it is the only smartphone app that provides a reticle, which makes using this setup MUCH more precise and effective. Tip: A zoom eyepiece that goes down to a relatively low magnification and has a good wide angle view should also work very well with this device, and save you from constantly switching eyepieces. In my opinion this is one of the most exciting recent developments for budget amateur astronomy! This is an absolutely ingenious idea that allows you to use your smartphone with astronomy app as a guide scope. I live in one of the worst light pollution zones on the entire planet and have always had great difficulty navigating to celestial objects manually. It doesn’t help that my neighbors have their house lit up like a prison yard. I just can’t see enough stars to navigate my telescope by. I had actually made a DIY smartphone bracket years ago with the same exact idea that was not as adjustable and did not work as expected. I was absolutely amazed when I saw this product and immediately had to try it! Despite the innovative idea, however, this product is not perfect and it took me a little effort to get it working — but hopefully I can save you some of that trouble for this simple but remarkable device. First and foremost, the fit is very exact and your telescope tube must be PRECISELY between 72mm-74mm (2.8” - 2.9”) for this bracket to fit. Possibly a strap design with a lot more flexibility would have been much better and more widely compatible. However, I was able to fit this onto my slightly oversize telescope by removing a plastic screw cap (see photo) and then using a nylon tie wrap (see photo); the foam padding on the rings is nonslip enough to keep this in place. Second, the ball-and-socket connector for the phone bracket could be sturdier and smoother. However, once I had this all set up and working I was hopping from star to star with incredible ease. It simply blew me away. I could even move my telescope around the yard for better views of specific objects with no need to “recalibrate” this setup as I relocated repeatedly — something other auto guiding systems can’t do. This is an astounding idea for anyone who cannot find enough bright stars for navigating their telescope manually, or just wants to do so as easily as possible. But before listing my instructions below I will tell you right up front that there is definitely a “fudge factor” to using this setup. You will need to use a low power eyepiece for the widest field of view (I used a 38mm wide angle eyepiece). This device (actually, your smartphone app) is not precise enough to put a 5mm eyepiece on target! Even while using this, I could watch the celestial object displayed on the app wandering around the screen a little as the app struggled to maintain an accurate location. A couple times I couldn’t see the target in my eyepiece, but then just a little exploring of the immediate area by panning my telescope around would find it. Also, I found the biggest “off target” effect when switching entirely from one side of the sky to the other (east to west for example). And lastly, the navigation of the app would “wander” sometimes and I had to readjust my “zero” slightly. However, what this setup did for me with very good consistency was put the targeted object within my low power eyepiece field of view, and I could then center it and swap in a higher power eyepiece or a Barlow. I simply could not believe how easily I was spotting stars and planets at will as I swiveled my telescope across the sky. Simple Instructions: Note: This list may seem detailed and cumbersome, but once you’ve actually done this just a couple times you will be able to repeat it very quickly and easily. I hope my experience helps make this easier for you! 1. Launch your astronomy app and place your smartphone in the bracket. You might need to do this after Step 2 if the smartphone blocks your telescope’s regular finder scope. 2. Using a low power eyepiece (I used 38mm) navigate your telescope to an easy-to-spot celestial object like Jupiter or Vega and center it in the eyepiece. Tighten your tripod panhead snugly in place so the telescope won’t move. 3. This is the most important step! Now adjust the smartphone in the bracket until the astronomy object your telescope is focused on is centered in the app (or the app reticle if you are using SkySafari Plus which I recommend — see screenshot). Be very careful not to move the telescope as you adjust the phone position! Also don’t take too long or the rotation of the earth will move the celestial object out of alignment. You might “Search” for your test object in the app before you start this process so that you can quickly align the phone using the app pointer or arrow. 4. You are now ready to use your app to search for your next celestial object and use its pointer to physically move your telescope in alignment with the object. This will work best with a low power eyepiece until you have actually spotted the new target object in your eyepiece, then it’s business as usual for swapping in a higher magnification eyepiece or Barlow lens. Unfortunately you will probably need to repeat this process each time you place your smartphone in the bracket, but it’s definitely faster after you’ve done it a few times. Hope this helps! Bottom Line: This device, while it could use some improvements, makes astronomical navigation amazingly easy once you’ve got this set up. Absolutely nothing I’ve purchased in the last five years has made stargazing so easy and convenient.

This is a little hard to use and not all phones are made the same. If you have a rather large phone, it might be hard to put on. My phone is standard size (not the large versions) so it works alright. It’s hard to get the perfect angle but somewhat achievable. I can see the inside of the microscope but I can’t seem to align the image to the center of my screen on my phone. It’s just impossible with the way the phone is mounted. Overall, you can still take pictures, just don’t expect the field of view to be completely centered with your phone screen.

This inexpensive little adapter did manage to hold my iPhone 8 Plus against the eyepiece of a monocular mounted on a tripod for a few birdwatching photos. It fit the monocular only once I removed one of the "V" braces. It's very finicky to set up, requiring fine adjustments to get to the exact center of the monocular's eyepiece, and the adapter has no provision for fine adjustment, just a wingnut to tighten onc everything's lined up. The location of the iPhone's camera lens also allowed some light to bleed through even once it was adjusted to best view. The spring-loaded clamp to hold the phone is very secure, very strong, but makes repositioning the phone in the clamp a two-handed job. Certainly a good value and an inexpensive accessory, but one that requires patience to set up and use. It did clamp to my tripod easily enough, and produced some reasonably good pictures.

I took this out and tried it today. Spent about 30 minutes trying to get it to work. I just could not get it to perform. It was just too busy for me trying to get it to focus in on the end of my spotting scope. I like the fact they do have a adapter built inside that will come out for bigger ends in your eyepiece. When I started using it, I didn't realize that came out and I was trying to get it over top and I was complaining the whole time. I finally figured it out that it was just an adapter for smaller ones. The one that came with my spotting scope work better than this one to get everything lined up. It is built very well and it may be exactly what you're looking for but for me it did not work very well.

It does not fit on binoculars with soft eye pieces. It also has a strong chemical smell and the knobs do not feel steady.

i needed to find the right adaptor and it fit! and i found it! The build quality isn’t amazing but it works for sure! It functions as needed and for the price id consider it a steal great value !! Very easy to use. Optics are pretty average but for the price it’s perfect!

Very flemsy plastic. Not stable at all and won't hold onto larger phones. Also won't open wide enough for a spotting scope.

excellent

Worked better than expected for the price and allowed me to capture some great footage under my microscope. I took a gamble on buying this instead of paying for a proper (much more expensive) microscope camera and am glad I did. There is a bit of a knack finding the sweet spot getting the camera lens in the correct place but when it’s there results are great and I was able to combine microscope settings with the zoom feature on the phone camera to get a picture that looked better than viewing directly through the eyepiece.

Muy frágil, pobre diseño. Se rompió inmediatamente. Evitar este producto.

A simple basic unit that attaches to a Spotting or Refractor Telescope to add any phone as the way to find, locate, or identify objects being viewed. There are numerous star tracker apps for phones, tablets, etc... This unit fits on body of scope easily and is sturdy and stable to have best performance in identifying objects in orbit to several light years distance... if objects are within the viewing range of your scope.

I found this very difficult to use to the point where I didn’t bother.

Says in description 100mm I measure it at 70 Also it comes with no phone adapter holder clamp Ended up returning