Telescope.Touch planetarium

Marco Cipriani

About this app

Telescope.Touch

Telescope.Touch is a mobile planetarium with full telescope control features. It was born as an attempt of merging the IPARCOS app with Google Sky Map. It offers all the features of Sky Map, plus a mount and focuser controller and a database of objects to point the telescope. The remote control requires a running INDI server in the local network.

This is an open-source project available on GitHub: github.com/marcocipriani01/Telescope.Touch

What is INDI?

The INDI Library (see indilib.org) is an open-source software to control astronomical equipment. This app can connect to an INDI server to control your equipment from the palm of your hand. It cannot control standalone telescope mounts, wireless focusers or ASCOM devices. Please refer to the INDI documentation on how to set up the server.

Features

★ Mobile planetarium derived from Google Sky Map
★ Mount and focuser controller with directional pads and speed controls
★ Can receive CCD images in real time, and stretch FITS files
★ Database with 1300 objects to which you can point the telescope directly from the app
★ INDI control panel compatible with all devices
★ Sky maps translated in almost every language
★ Aladin Sky Atlas previews of objects
★ Altitude graphs in object details
★ Ultra-dark mode

Telescope control

1. Prerequisite
★ An INDI server must be running on the remote computer.
★ You must have network access to the server. To achieve this, the device and the remote computer must be on the same network.

2. Connection:
★ Choose the server address in the list or press on "Add server" to add a new server in the list
★ Optionally, you can change the port number if you do not use the default value for the INDI protocol (7624)
★ Network Service Discovery is supported: the app can detect compatible Avahi/Bonjour services
★ Click on "Connect"

3. INDI control panel:
★ Click on the gear icon in the menu to display the control panel
★ Use the tabs to switch between the devices
★ The properties of the device are displayed in a list. Click on a property to edit it or show the details

4. Telescope motion:
★ Open the telescope screen to display the motion control panel
★ The buttons will be enabled or disabled depending on the devices features
★ If the device is not connected, the properties may not appear and the buttons will be disabled
★ You can also access the go-to database to point the telescope to planets, common stars and NGC objects!
★ Use the lock icon on the toolbar to start or stop tracking

5. Focuser control:
★ Focus in/out and absolute position
★ Speed control

6. CCD images:
★ Receive FITS (only black and white) and JPG images from your camera
★ Stretch FITS to see DSO objects and dim stars

Sky Map feature

You can access the sky map by pressing on the map icon in the navigation menu. There, you'll find all the usual Sky Map features
with a renewed user interface and high-definition planet thumbnails. You can also sync or point the telescope from the map!

Permissions

This app requires network access to connect to the INDI server. Location is used to calculate the position of the stars for your location. The storage permission allows you to save CCD images and Aladin previews.

Ratings and reviews

Updated review: The developer is an absolute star! He responds to queries very quickly on the INDI forum. If I could rate higher than 5 for this app, I would. The Goto/Sync issue in the previous versions has now been fixed and new useful features have been added including polar finder, telescope position in the sky map and true dark mode. I've heard a more complete object catalog is on its way in the next version. This is shaping up to be the best free mobile telescope control/planetarium app.

Really nice app, the currently most powerfull app for open source astrophoto setup. However, too bad there is no "polar alignment" tool as we can find on the "syncscan app" for example... And no platesolving feature. I can't use it if not able to have a polar alignment helping tool. Hope it will be implemented in future.

The app finds and connects to the indigo server running on the minipc attached to the mount. I can manually slew the mount and set the slew rate. In sky map the goto feature doesn't work, it says "telescope not found" even if it is connected to the mount. Update: the app can slew the mount and acquire images from the cameras connected to the minipc attached to the mount and running the indigo server. Indi and indigo drivers are equivalent in this respect

What's new

- Fixed a bug that prevented photo capture on tablets
- Android 12L and 13 support