Getting started

Your first night with Zenigo, from installing the app to the first object in the eyepiece. Plan about 15 minutes for the setup. The first three steps are best done at home, while you still have signal.

1. Install the app

   Open the app on your phone and add it to the home screen. Installed, it starts full screen and keeps working at a dark site without any connection.

   • iPhone: open the app in Safari, tap the share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
   • Android: open the app in Chrome, tap the menu, then “Install app” or “Add to Home screen”.

   Start it once from the home screen while you are online. The message “Ready for offline use” confirms that everything is stored on the phone.

2. Set your location

   Zenigo needs to know roughly where you are to turn star positions into directions for your telescope. Tap Quick settings (the top round button on the right) and then GPS. Allow the location request, or type in latitude and longitude yourself. A precision of a few kilometres is plenty.

   Observing somewhere else? Update the location before you start, otherwise every direction is off.

3. Mount the phone on the tube

   Use any phone holder that clamps firmly to the tube, for example a bike or tripod clamp. The camera on the back of the phone has to look in the same direction as the telescope, roughly parallel to the tube. It doesn’t have to be exact, step 6 takes care of the rest.

   • The holder must not move when you push the telescope. If it does, the eyepiece point no longer fits.
   • Turn on your phone’s rotation lock. Pointing high up, the phone lies flat and would otherwise flip the screen between portrait and landscape.
   • Lower the screen brightness, or switch on Red light in Quick settings, to keep your eyes dark-adapted.

4. Tap Locate

   Outside, point the telescope at a part of the sky with several bright stars, away from trees, houses and the Moon. Tap the large orange Locate button. The camera starts, takes a few frames and matches the stars it finds against the catalogue.

   The very first time, Zenigo also measures your camera’s field of view. That can take up to ten seconds; afterwards a solve usually takes about a second. When it worked, the status at the bottom left says “Solved” with the number of stars, and green circles mark the stars it recognised.

   “Only a few stars detected”? Wait until it is properly dark, aim at a brighter area or raise Frames to stack and Sensitivity in Settings. More in Troubleshooting.

5. Set the eyepiece point

   The phone never sits exactly parallel to the tube, so the camera looks a little past where the telescope points. You teach Zenigo this offset once:

   1. Put a low-power eyepiece in and centre a bright star in it by hand.
   2. Tap Locate.
   3. Tap Eyepiece point, then tap the same star on the screen.

   From now on the orange crosshair marks where the telescope points. The offset is saved and stays valid as long as the holder doesn’t move.

6. Choose a target

   Tap Find target (magnifying glass). The list shows what is well placed right now; the chips at the top are quick picks like the Moon, Jupiter or the Andromeda Galaxy. You can also search by name or number, for example “M13” or “Vega”, or tap an object on the map and choose Set as target.

   Good first targets: the Moon, Jupiter or Saturn, the Pleiades (M45), the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and the Hercules cluster (M13).

7. Push to the target

   The two boxes at the top tell you what to do: how many degrees to turn left or right (azimuth) and to tilt up or down (altitude). The red arrow on the map points the same way.

   • Turn on Align (compass button). The numbers then follow the telescope live while you push, using the phone’s motion sensor.
   • Close to the target, tap Locate again for an exact position, or turn on Continuous so it re-solves by itself.
   • When both numbers are below about half a degree, the top line says the target should be in the eyepiece. Look through a low-power eyepiece first.
   • Enter your telescope and eyepieces in Settings to see the eyepiece field and Telrad rings on the map, and an eyepiece view of what you should see.