6 replies to this topic

[mdblesi]

This may be a dumb question, but it's one I haven't been able to find an answer to from my research so far. Is it possible to get a live view from a guide camera without using some sort of software package (ASIair, NINA, etc)? Instead, can I just plug it into a phone or table and get an image preview like a standard DSLR camera would have?

 

I'm slowly building a deep sky imaging setup one item at a time to hopefully avoid getting to bogged down with learning new equipment. As you can guess, a guide scope and camera is my next step. In the future, I'll get to autoguiding and go-to capabilities, but for right now, I would just like to see what it's looking at. This would really help when I'm trying to find some deep sky objects without having to search around with a full telescope.

 

Thanks in advance!

[kg7]

If you're running a windows laptop, you should be able to just open the camera app and select the guide cam.

[mdblesi]

If you're running a windows laptop, you should be able to just open the camera app and select the guide cam.

Any hope for an Amazon Fire or some other Android based device?

[vidrazor]

If you want a separate program to do that with (and honestly I don't know why) then you want AstroDMx.

[PhilHoyle]

If you want to keep the learning curve down and "eventually" get into guiding, then the ZWO package is the way to go.

[rj144]

No you can't just plug it in to a phone or tablet directly.  You need some type of computer.

[Cliff Hipsher]

It not a dumb question.  Air will do all of the work including Polar Alignment, GoTo Auto-Center which uses plate solving to automatically center your target in the imaging scopes field of view. (AKA FOV)

 

Once the target is centered you can use Preview to take one or multiple images of the target and Air will display it/them on the screen of your control device.

 

To find targets you can use either the SkyAtlas (a built in planetarium app) and tap on a target, or you can use the search function and choose any target from planets to galaxies, nebulae and star clusters.