Orion STEADYPIX 5303 User Manual

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You can check the alignment by turning
on the camera app in your iPhone to view
through the camera lens and the attached
telescope eyepiece. You should see a
distinct, round (but possibly clipped) “field
of view” centered on the iPhone’s display
(Figure 9). If needed, you can adjust the
position of the L-bracket and eyepiece
clamp until the field of view appears cen-
tered in the display. (Any objects in the field
of view will not be in focus.)
7. Now you’re ready to install the

eyepiece and iPhone assembly into
the telescope’s focuser. Carefully
insert the eyepiece into the focuser or
star diagonal and secure it firmly with
the locking setscews(s)

(Figure 10).

CAUTION! The SteadyPix and iPhone
combination adds additional weight to your
telescope and eyepiece. Make sure that the
eyepiece and any diagonal and Barlow lens
are firmly secured in place! Failure to do so
could result in a dropped iPhone!
8. With the telescope aimed at a fairly

bright object and with the camera app
turned on, use the telescope’s focuser
to bring the object into focus.

9. If you have trouble achieving focus,

you may have to adjust the spacing
between the iPhone’s camera lens
and the eyepiece lens. This is done by
adjusting the eyepiece clamp position
on the slotted L-bracket arm, using the
lens height thumbscrew. If the slot on
the L-bracket does not provide enough
travel, the height of the eyepiece
can be adjusted further by sliding it
forward or back in eyepiece clamp,
and tightening with the clamp bolt.

If the image is not centered in the eyepiece
or the image does not appear clearly, try
re-adjusting the telescope focus and the

SteadyPix adjustment points. It’s takes a
little time initially to get everything adjusted
just right, so be patient. After a couple of
sessions, you’ll get the hang of it.

Taking Photographs with the

SteadyPix Afocal Adapter and

Your iPhone

Moon: Our closest neighbor in the solar
system is dazzling through even a very
small telescope. The SteadyPix will allow
you to take beautiful images of the whole
Moon or closeups that showcase the
craters, mountains, or maria (

Figure 11).

Single snapshots work well and multiple
shots can be stacked later in a program
such as Registax to increase the signal-to-
noise ratio and dynamic range of the image.
Also, you can take video and then stack a
series of individual video frames.
Bright Planets: The bright planets Venus,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn also make excel-
lent targets for afocal photography. Try
using a higher power eyepiece and maybe
a Barlow lens to boost the magnifica-
tion – planets are tiny objects in the sky!
You’ll need a steady atmosphere, i.e., good “seeing,” to get sharp planetary images. The
iPhone’s display will allow you to show off your target object to friends and passers-by – no
waiting in line at the eyepiece!
No need to stop at Saturn, though. At least one amateur astronomer has captured the dis-
tant planet Neptune with his iPhone and an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope!
Deep-sky Objects: Most deep-sky objects are extremely difficult to photograph using afo-
cal photography. Try working with brighter objects such as M42 (Orion Nebula) or M13
(Hercules Cluster). You will likely need a mount that tracks the motion of the sky so that
you can take “long” exposures using a 3rd-party app that offers that capability (try Slow
Shutter by Tomoki Kobayashi), and you will have to stack multiple images to get a good
final image.
Sun: If you have a proper solar filter to cover the front of your telescope, you can get ter-
rific images of sunspots on the surface of our nearest star in the daytime with your iPhone.
Sunspots are constantly changing, so shooting them is always interesting and a lot of fun.
Nature/Terrestrial: The SteadyPix can be used to take through-the-telescope photos and
videos of distant subjects in daylight.

Figure 9. Position the telescope eyepiece
so that its field of view is centered on the
iPhone’s display.

Figure 10. Inserting the eyepiece with
iPhone attached into the star diagonal.
Before doing this be sure that the diagonal
is tightly secured in the telescope!

Figure 11. An iPhone afocal close-up
image of the lunar surface captured with an
Orion StarMax 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain
at 62x magnification.

Eyepiece

field of view in

camera app