Bad Phone Camera Mounts

Bad Phone Camera Mounts
Beware of numerous cheap phone camera mounts that fail because they grip the side of the camera exactly where the side function buttons are located.

The key is knowing the position of the phone's side buttons and the finite distance to the eyepiece center relative to where the mount grips the phone.

Another shortcoming is the grip tension is far too much and not adjustable. One way or another, this firmly depresses the side button(s) and the camera fails to operate correctly. Maybe these work with mobile phones other than Apple brand - the key is knowing the position of the phone's side buttons and the finite distance to the eyepiece center relative to where the mount grips the phone.

Units tested are seen in the photos - one that tightens around the top of the eyepiece by turning it and other that uses a screw to tighten the tension around the eyepiece (bottom photo). Both mounts pinch the side buttons on the Apple cell phones with too much force, thus activating the buttons and their respective functions.

The next mobile phone mount to be examined and tested is the Celestron Nexyz. This has adjustments along all three geometrical axes and according to the photos, the gripper is at the lower section of the phone, away from the live buttons.

Celestron Genius Gone

Celestron: Genius Gone
Companies are often founded by genius, men who have great visions and make their dreams come true, often changing the world for the better in the process. Tom Johnson was one of those great genius men who changed the world.

Tom Johnson was a genius who founded Celestron with his pioneering spirit and vision, and with a brilliant creative framework put into forward motion a revolutionary new method of mass producing an affordable Schmidt Cassegrain telescope design, allowing millions of amateur astronomers to pursue their passion for astronomy. 

But what happened along the way? What happened on March 13th, 2012 when Mr. Johnson died? Often times the common workers cannot come close to the genius capacity of the founder and the vision is lost to the winds and drifting sand of empty eternity. Such is the case with Celestron that designed one of the most spectacular telescope mounts in the world, making telescopes as large as the 14-inch edge HD rock steady in performance. But wait. Exactly what happened along the way in the effort to make an almighty buck, save a penny, and cheapen a fantastic design? What happened when Celestron sold out manufacturing to a country who could care less about quality or the telescope vision?

I'll tell you what happened. The new CGX/L mount has a design that calls for aluminum. Pure aluminum. To save a penny, the manufacturer secretly pitched in cheap ferrous slag, to pad the pure aluminum making it impure, and magnetic, and no longer conforming to the original design. Fake Celestron had become something else, cutting corners, and cheapening the vision and dream that master Tom Johnson had worked so hard on achieving. Like a fool, I purchased the CGX/L telescope mount, a 14-inch EdgeHD OTA, and ALL the accessories. I was totally unaware of the lurking nightmare hiding inside the telescope mount - the monster of pure non-magnetic aluminum that was ferrous slag filled like a garbage dump, causing the telescope mount to become a silent war of irradiating EMI/RFI, a  jamming device of your worst nightmare.

The pure non-magnetic aluminum in the Celestron CGX/L telescope mount
design was contaminated with ferrus magnetic slag gunk that wrecks havoc
with Celestron's accessories including GPS, WIFI, remote, and a pool of
other expensive accessories. Celestron ported manufacturing to another
country that cut corners to save a penny at full disregard to astronomers
buying the ill-fated accessories.

So what? Who cares you say? Consider this. The mount is worse than the Bermuda Triangle, spewing forth powerful random magnetic lines of force, driving compasses and sensitive electronic devices wild and crazy. It stops wifi signals, blocks wireless internet, causes erroneous GPS, makes compasses have faulty readings, inclinometers fail, blocks radio signals, interrupts cell phone communications, makes planetarium software go awry, and results in telescope remote control software becoming dangerously random with the massive mount and counterweights swinging in unpredictable directions. It kills the sensitive results of electronic pointing devices. In a nutshell, it makes all those accessories useless.

A common malpractice of adding impure ferrous junk to
pure aluminum cast to save money and cheapen the product
introduces unwanted effects like magnetism.

After spending over $20,000.00 with Celestron, I have a heap of useless trash, a GPS module that does not work, a WiFi box that fails, a planetarium program with a telescope mount control program that fails, a magnetic north finder that fails, a phone with failed internet, failed apps, and the list goes on and on. While numerous people have complained about the same problem, Celestron tells each person, this is the first we heard of that and then offers no solution. Is there a solution? Unless you have one of the world's largest degaussing machines to strip the massive mount of all its deadly strong magnetism, the remaining electronic technology devices sold to make the telescope easier to use will be useless and functionally dead.

Evscope Problems Outdoors

This is the dreaded and infamous "you are not connected" screen. Turning on the Evscope and checking the wifi connection did nothing to fix the problem.

Troubleshooting Begins
The Evscope was received on Monday afternoon and problems were noted that evening when taking the Evscope outdoors Monday night.

On Tuesday afternoon, the scope started to connect and it seemed it was working. However, Tuesday night led to problems again. At one point, it seemed to find Neptune with a lot of noise across the FOV, then immediately crashed and the image was lost forever. Thereafter, the telescope stopped booting, stopped connecting to the app, and was completely unstable and unusable. Both OPT and Unisteller were contacted on Tuesday. A telescope tech from OPT with Evscope experience immediately responded with email on Wednesday and we are setting up a time for an international phone connection for troubleshooting the telescope.

APP CONFUSION The app, during setup, it seemed to have this moment of confusion on the iPad (which does not have internet). First it asked to input the location manually and next it appeared to get location from "Location Services" and it asked for permission to share the location during app use. The latter is what transpired. Until a place in the menu is found to confirm the latitude and longitude, it won't be known if the values are correct. Later, the iPad app failed when the screens turned all white and the iPhone was used thereafter.

The telescope is extremely high tech and there's often no way of knowing what it's doing, calculating, or thinking during the required pauses of setup and/or operations. Without error reporting, other than a light color, the nonfunctional situation is clueless. The technical manual does not mention the points of boot time and other important operating aspects. Plus, there is no icon guide to the app. You need to ferret out the functions by trial and error and this is next to impossible when the app is locked up or not connected. Plus, when briefly connected, the actions are agonizingly slow, thus negating any surfing of functions. It's hoped there is a solution for this and there probably is.