Polar Finder
Use this app to quickly find the current hour angle of Polaris or Octant.
When astronomical observations or imaging is done using an equatorial telescope mount, the right-ascension (RA) axis should be parallel with the rotation axis of the Earth to avoid star-trails and errors in guiding. The method how we achieve it is called polar alignment and it starts with a rough alignment of the RA axis. The best aid for this is to use a polar finder scope with a reticle. On the reticle the Polar star (and the Octant for the Southern hemisphere) is engraved and should be positioned over the real Polaris by turning it. Because the Polaris is not exactly coincide with the Earths rotation axis but rotates around it, one should know the exact hour angle of the Polaris to adjust (rotate) the finder.This utility helps you solve this problem by graphically showing you the current position of the Polaris. The application tracks and draws the position of the Polaris (or Octant) in real-time and also displays its hour-angle, the local sideral time, current local time and the longitude of the place. The longitude can be entered manually or obtained using the built-in GPS. The view on the display can be mirrored to match the view in your polar finder scope. Key features are as follows: • Northern, southern hemispheres• Naked eye, telescopic view• Customizable marker angle• Support for: Astro-Physics, AstroTrac, Ioptron, Losmandy, Skywatcher, StarAdventure, Takahashi and Vixen eyepiece reticles• Precession• Night vision mode• Enter longitude of your place manually or via built-in GPSNote: On some new devices running Android 4.x the preferences menu can be reached via pressing and holding the Recent Apps Button - which is a ‘soft key’ (not the Home button). On Galaxy Tabs there are three buttons at the bottom. The middle one is the main, hardware button. The task manager is just on its left side. Press and hold for about two whole seconds on it, and then the menu comes up.GPS update was made shorted for quicker refresh.
When astronomical observations or imaging is done using an equatorial telescope mount, the right-ascension (RA) axis should be parallel with the rotation axis of the Earth to avoid star-trails and errors in guiding. The method how we achieve it is called polar alignment and it starts with a rough alignment of the RA axis. The best aid for this is to use a polar finder scope with a reticle. On the reticle the Polar star (and the Octant for the Southern hemisphere) is engraved and should be positioned over the real Polaris by turning it. Because the Polaris is not exactly coincide with the Earths rotation axis but rotates around it, one should know the exact hour angle of the Polaris to adjust (rotate) the finder.This utility helps you solve this problem by graphically showing you the current position of the Polaris. The application tracks and draws the position of the Polaris (or Octant) in real-time and also displays its hour-angle, the local sideral time, current local time and the longitude of the place. The longitude can be entered manually or obtained using the built-in GPS. The view on the display can be mirrored to match the view in your polar finder scope. Key features are as follows: • Northern, southern hemispheres• Naked eye, telescopic view• Customizable marker angle• Support for: Astro-Physics, AstroTrac, Ioptron, Losmandy, Skywatcher, StarAdventure, Takahashi and Vixen eyepiece reticles• Precession• Night vision mode• Enter longitude of your place manually or via built-in GPSNote: On some new devices running Android 4.x the preferences menu can be reached via pressing and holding the Recent Apps Button - which is a ‘soft key’ (not the Home button). On Galaxy Tabs there are three buttons at the bottom. The middle one is the main, hardware button. The task manager is just on its left side. Press and hold for about two whole seconds on it, and then the menu comes up.GPS update was made shorted for quicker refresh.
Read trusted reviews from application customers
Cannot get to any of the menus on current Android. No pull down no menu buttons, nothing. Instructions talk about quote newer quote Android 4, and tell you to use buttons that no longer exist.
the application has nothing to do with navigation there is no live guidance to the sky
Garbage app. Doesn't work, doesn't update the illustration on screen. Don't waste your time.
No settings, it's stuck on northern hemisphere. Complete rubbish
didn't work with ipolar
I really like that this can show you the position overlaid on lots of different brands of reticles (iOptron and Losmandy for me). I can't get it to use GPS, though. I set Longitude source to GPS, it tells me GPS is disabled on the device, I click Enable GPS, it takes me to the Location settings on my phone and Location is turned on, I go back to the app and it still shows the message that GPS is disabled. I have a Samsung Galaxy S8. Also, when entering longitude manually, regardless of whether you set it to display degrees, minutes, and seconds, or decimals, you have to enter the longitude in degrees, minutes, and seconds. Edit: I saw the comment that you have to go to Settings > Apps > Permissions and give it Location permissions and now the GPS Longitude works. Raising review to 4 stars.
Working fine now. 《OLD REVIEW Used to work fine and acquire a fix (latitude & longitude) in seconds. Now on the very same phone it takes over 4 minutes and my other apps that need GPS work in seconds. Not happy.
It could NOT find the GPS on 3 of my devices. Other "polar alignment" apps did.
Seems to work very well, though I have not tested it yet. Will edit my review once I'm able to see the results after a while. I can say the app works fine on my galaxy s21 ultra running the latest Android available.
Useless. No menu, no way to adjust any settings. I want refund.