the_leo•18d agoTop Commenter

Hot take: I thought those 'phone telescope' adapters were total junk until I saw Jupiter's moons

My buddy brought one over last Friday, a cheap Celestron NexYZ, and I was ready to clown on it. We hooked it to my old 8 inch Dobsonian, pointed at Jupiter, and I'll be honest, my jaw dropped. The photo on my phone screen clearly showed the Galilean moons as tiny dots. It's not Hubble quality, but for $60? Wild. Anyone else have a surprisingly good result with budget astro gear?

4 comments

4 Comments

aaron_adams18d ago

My old tablet got Saturn's rings with a similar adapter.

gray_morgan18d ago

Saturn's rings, but was it really that clear?

troy_price17d ago

Honestly, that reminds me of trying to get a shot of the moon with my phone through binoculars. It was a huge mess of blur and shaky hands, nothing like a clean ring shot. Gray_morgan's question about clarity hits home, because even when you get the shape, the detail is another fight. I spent an hour and got a bright blob that my friends said looked like a streetlight. Makes a clean Saturn image, even with an adapter, seem pretty impressive.

nguyen.blake3d ago

But have you tried a cheap phone mount? I had the same blurry mess until I got one for like ten bucks. It clips onto the eyepiece and holds your phone still. My moon shots went from shaky blobs to something where you can actually see craters. It's still not telescope quality, but it makes a huge difference for Saturn's shape.