Hackszine.com: Use your iPhone as a stargazing companion

Use your iPhone as a stargazing companion

NightLight wrote in with a request for a red overlay to "use your iphone in the dark but keep your night vision." I was reminded of the hacks about using red film in Astronomy Hacks: put it over your PDA or notebook computer, and you are all set. But to try it out, I needed to find an astronomy site that works well on the iPhone. Many online planetariums use Java to do their thing, but Your Sky is a great web site that does a couple of things simply and quite well: you can punch in your latitude and longitude, and you get a view of exactly what's above you at the moment. You can tap to zoom in, and you can pan around. Just what I needed. (To save a little time, figure out your latitude and longitude on your Mac, save a bookmark for your Your Sky page in Safari, and sync your bookmarks to your iPhone so you can get to the star chart quickly.)

Having found an astronomy web site that works well on the iPhone, it was time to apply the red film. I suggest using the theatrical gels that are used on stagelights: some kind of deep ruby red is perfect. You can find them at big camera shops like BH Photo, or if you have a pal who works in the theater, ask if they have any scraps you can use, because you won't need much!

This will work best if you have some kind of case for your iPhone, because you can cut the gel to fit the case, and slip it into it so it stays in place. I found that the touch screen worked just fine through the ruby gel I used. Take your iPhone out of the case, trace out the shape of your case's viewport (leave a little bit extra to slide into the case; if I was doing this again, I would cut it so there were some tabs I could wrap around the iPhone to better hold the film in place). If you use a Sharpie to mark the gel, you should either be sure it's totally dry before sliding it over your iPhone, or better yet, mark on the waste side of where you are cutting!

Resources

Medium red gel - Link
Your Sky - Link
Astronomy Hacks - Link

Posted by Brian Jepson | Oct 9, 2007 09:00 AM
Astronomy, iPhone | Permalink | Comments (2)

Comments

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Posted by: monopole on October 9, 2007 at 10:49 AM

Of course Palm/MS Mobile astronomy software packages such as astromist or planetarium have all red display modes, don't require net connections to compute star and planet locations(handy, given that the best observation sites are out of cell range), and can directly control telescopes and cameras via bluetooth or direct connection.

But of course the iPhone is much better suited for this 'cause it's what the kewl kids have!

Posted by: bjepson on October 9, 2007 at 10:58 AM

monopole,

In Astronomy Hacks, the authors suggest red film even for software that has red display modes. That's because it's very easy to accidentally switch to an application that doesn't have that mode (especially if it's a smartphone and a phone call comes in), and some gadgets leak a little bit of white light out of the edges even when you're in red display mode.

No one said that the iPhone was better suited for this; NightLight wrote in asking about how to get a red light mode on an iPhone. I've already done this for my Treo, and I knew I could help NightLight out by doing the same thing with an iPhone.