WHAT’S NEW v6.5: – Added decimal degrees as an option for coordinate entry in the Location Manager. – Improved DSO DB searching help, added button above the keyboard to access it. – Bubble level / compass tool shows both True/Geographic and Magnetic north heading, at 0.5° resolution. 5° tick marks added to the compass. Xasteria […]
Polar Scope Align Pro v6.5 released for iOS!
July 3, 2023 // by ecuador
Xasteria & Xasteria Plus 4.5 Astro Weather released!
June 29, 2023 // by ecuador
What’s New v4.5 – Better contrast on main weather view text and icons. – Location Manager option for coordinate entry in decimal degrees. – Improved display of Sat24. – Fahrenheit to Celsius switch does not require restart. – Cloud Free Nights link for users in Australia/NZ. – Show last good weather forecast on update failure. […]
Polar Scope Align v4.0: new Watch extension
June 18, 2018 // by ecuador
Major release, especially for Apple Watch users, featuring a new Watch extension taking advantage of . A quick preview: New Watch Features: – Moon Phase view added to the first screen, moon/sun rise/set times on second screen. – New (third) screen with the Xasteria weather report. – Reticle zoom slider. – Ability to switch mode […]
Best astronomy apps for iOS (iPhone & iPad)
June 2, 2018 // by ecuador
I will try to list a few of my favorite astronomy apps for iOS. Caveat: I will have to start with a couple of my own apps, since by definition (being designed by myself, exactly as I wanted them), as far as I am concerned they are the best at what they do, so I […]
Daytime polar alignment (for the 2017 Solar Eclipse of course!)
August 14, 2017 // by ecuador
If you are going to try and capture the solar eclipse with an equatorial mount, you are probably concerned about how you are going to do the polar alignment (unless you are lucky enough to be able to set up the previous night). Sky & Telescope seems to have popularized a method which uses a […]
Processing a (noisy) DSLR image stack with StarTools
November 20, 2016 // by ecuador
Using a DSLR camera for astrophotography has you dealing with quite noisy data, and the issue is compounded if you are shooting from the city under light-polluted skies. Noisy data gives you a hard time when processing, so it would initially take me quite some time and effort to get to pleasing results, even with dedicated […]
EOS Camera Movie Record Tablet Tweak
May 8, 2015 // by ecuador
Update July 6 2015: Canon SDK update with support for EOS 5DS/760D/750D. There is a nice little free program called EOS Camera Movie Record that allows you to capture 5x live-view video from your camera, which is the best way to do planetary photography for most Canon DSLRs (with the exception of 550D and 60D which have the […]
Polar Scope Align 1.0 for iPhone and iPad released.
March 3, 2015 // by ecuador
Originally made for myself to compensate my ZEQ25’s polar scope reticle centering error, I made it available through the Apple app store in a free ad-supported version and a paid Pro version with a few extra features (such as manually setting the date, time, location if you don’t want to use the current time/gps location […]