OnStep Controller vs AstroVitals

OnStep Controller Take full control of your OnStep telescope mount from your iPhone. OnStep Controller is a clean, dark-mode companion app for amateur astronomers — connecting over WiFi (OnStep or OnStepX) or Bluetooth Low Energy (OnStepX with the BLE plugin required) to give you everything you need from setup to the final star. Connect and Configure Connect to your mount over your local WiFi network or via Bluetooth Low Energy. Send your GPS coordinates and current time directly to the mount for accurate alignment, and verify that the mount's site data matches your device before you start observing. Interactive Sky Chart Browse a live star chart showing hundreds of named stars and Messier deep-sky objects projected for your exact location and time. Pan and zoom freely, then tap any object to see its details and issue a GoTo command. Horizon, overhead, and meridian flip limits are drawn directly on the chart so you always know what your mount can reach. Visual Star Alignment Begin a 1- to 9-star alignment from the Setup tab and get guided through the process on the sky chart. Pick your alignment stars visually, slew to each one, then fine-tune with the on-screen directional pad and accept. Full Mount Control Move the mount in any direction at four slew rates — Guide, Center, Find, and Slew. Toggle tracking on and off, switch between Sidereal, Lunar, and Solar tracking rates, park and unpark, and find home — all from a single screen with live RA, Dec, Alt, and Az readouts. GoTo from a Catalog Search a built-in catalog of stars, open clusters, globular clusters, nebulae, galaxies, and planetary nebulae. Filter to objects currently above the horizon and slew to any target with a single tap. Or enter coordinates manually for objects not in the catalog. Designed for the Dark The entire app runs in forced dark mode with a deep red accent color chosen to protect your night vision at the eyepiece. Requires an OnStep or OnStepX telescope mount controller. WiFi works with both; Bluetooth requires OnStepX with the BLE plugin installed. iOS does not support Classic Bluetooth.

Your telescope is imaging all night. AstroVitals puts its vital signs on your iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch — so you can check on the session from the couch, the tent, or your wrist at 3 AM. AstroVitals connects to N.I.N.A. (Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy) over your local network through the Advanced API plugin, and turns the numbers into a dark, glanceable night-vision dashboard. GUIDING AT A GLANCE • Flowing RA/Dec guide graph, just like your guiding software • Live total RMS plus session best, worst and stability score • Peak-error and pixel-scale readouts, adjustable time window FOCUS & IMAGE QUALITY • Watch autofocus V-curves build point by point, live • Best-focus position and HFR marked when the run completes • HFR and star-count trends across every sub of the session YOUR WHOLE SEQUENCE • The full Advanced Sequencer tree — instructions, triggers, loop conditions • The running step highlighted with live progress (87/250 exposures…) • Values shown inline: exposure length, filter, wait-until times and more THE STATS DASHBOARD • A live 3D model of your mount showing exactly where it points, with meridian-flip warning colors and flat-panel cover state • Target altitude path with transit time and astronomical darkness • Camera cooling, ambient temperature, power draw and input voltage • Rearrangeable tiles — drag them into your preferred layout ON YOUR WRIST • The full dashboard as a native Apple Watch app • Watch-face complications: meridian-flip countdown and subs done • iPhone home-screen and lock-screen widgets with a live flip timer SIMPLE SETUP • Auto-discovers your NINA machine on the local network • Demo mode simulates a full session — try every screen without a telescope SMART ALERTS & CONFIRMED CONTROL • Optional alerts for worsening or recovering image quality, lost guiding and meridian-flip progress while AstroVitals is active • Start, pause and stop the running sequence when Allow Control is enabled • A configurable panic plan can stop activity, park or home the mount, close a detected flat-panel cover and disable selected power outputs • Siri opens the review-and-slide confirmation screen; it never sends a command by itself Requires N.I.N.A. with the free Advanced API plugin (v2) on the same network. AstroVitals starts in Read-only mode. Control requires explicit opt-in and confirmation, and remains on the user's local network. No accounts, no analytics, no data leaves your network.