Star Hoppers vs PushToCam for Telescope

Star Hoppers won the “Smart Mobility (Smart Tourism) Certificate of Merit” in the “Hong Kong ICT Awards 2019”. Star Hoppers integrates the Chinese and Western star charts with information of astronomical events and related activities while telling the stories of constellations to you with its audio recordings. With its digital star chart, you will find that people from the ancient Chinese and Western cultures created different constellation and asterism system due to their different associations with the stars. The star chart has three different operation modes: the Virtual Reality (VR) mode simulates the star field according to the location and orientation data obtained from the device to help you identify celestial objects and constellations; the Augmented Reality (AR) mode marks the celestial objects, constellations and asterisms on your camera image in real-time by employing the augmented reality technology; the Manual (M) mode allows you to navigate the star chart at will. Tapping on any constellations, planets, the Sun, Moon or Three Enclosures and Twenty-eight Mansions, you can listen to the recorded stories of the constellations or celestial objects. Star Hoppers also introduces the basics of stargazing to promote the proper manner of stargazing as well as to help the novice to identify the constellations. You may also select the Calendar function to receive the latest information of various astronomical events and activities provided by the Hong Kong Space Museum. You may use the Share function with third party apps to invite your friends to join the activities and share the fun of stargazing with you! Features of the app: * Help users to learn and identify celestial objects and constellations with the realtime generated digital star chart at any locations in the world. * Display unique ancient Chinese star chart with the complete ancient Chinese asterism system including the Three Enclosures, twenty-eight lunar mansions and more. * Playback more than 200 bilingual audio recordings of basic information of celestial objects and asterisms in the Western and ancient Chinese cultures. * Employ augmented reality technology to label celestial objects and constellations on your screen instantaneously when you point the camera of your mobile device to the sky. * Provide the latest news on the coming Hong Kong Space Museum events such as astronomical films, lectures, stargazing activities etc. * Share astronomical events and activities information to your friends easily and invite them to join with you.

This is an easy app that guides your telescope to target. Distinctively, this app offers a simple and unique way. 1. The app does not need phone camera to work. 2. The phone does not need to point to the sky. The phone can be in any orientation. It saves your back and neck. 3. The phone does need to be attached to your telescope using eg. Bluetac, tieback. How it works? 1. Point your telescope to a bright star in the sky. Make sure the object is in the eyepiece view. 2. Select the same bright star in the app from a list. 3. Tap Align button. Now the app is accurate in that part of the sky (within 10 degrees) and present you a list of nearby object of interest. Who is it for? It is designed for amateur astronomer who 1. wants a quick and short observation of the sky e.g 10 minutes. 2. does not want to setup phone camera and telescope alignment. 3. does not want to bend over awkwardly to use the phone. The can be attached along the tube of the telescope. The app does not use phone camera to guide user to target. It requires a bright star alignment with telescope to accurately bring user to target. User needs to have some knowledge of the bright stars. It has catalogs for Messier objects, Caldwell objects and best NGC objects. You can use it to quickly point to planets, nebulae or galaxies by using manual alignment to a nearby bright star. The app uses your location to determine the sky model. It also aligns with your telescope so that accurate pointing is possible. Quick subsequent alignment is required for different part of the sky.  Please find video tutorials in the app to align the phone and telescope, to attach phone to telescope and usage manual. If you need contact me, write to ustransit74@gmail.com. Have fun!