Stellarium Mobile PLUS

Quick Start Guide

Setting time and location

At first start, the app uses the current time and location obtained from the device sensors. If the app is run during daytime, the time is automatically set to the upcoming evening. This behavior can be changed in Advanced Setting menu.

To manually change the time, open the time panel by pressing on the time label in the bottom-right corner of the screen. From there you can set both the time and the time speed. Press the reset button (looking like a small clock) to return to real time.

Use the Location menu to pick a city or set a custom position. By default, the app uses the time zone associated to the current location but it is possible to manually set the UTC offset.

Setting viewing options

Viewing options can be set in the view settings panel, opened by pressing the ‘layer’ button in the bottom-left corner of the screen. From there you can access different viewing options: grids, constellations, landscape, etc. Tap the buttons to toggle each items on and off, or make a long press to access advanced controls:

Grids & Lines:
Allow to show different grids or lines in the sky. Set by default to azimuthal, long press to select other options.
Constellations:
Toggle constellation rendering. Long press for advanced options.
Landscape:
Show/hide the landscape. Long press on this button allow to change the default landscape.
Atmosphere:
Toggle the simulation of atmosphere on and off. Use this option to see the stars during the day or to desactivate the atmospheric refraction. With a long press you can adjust the light pollution settings to simulate the sky view of an urban sky.
Labels:
Show/hide in sky labels. The amount of labels shown for different type of object can be configured with a long press.
Night mode:
Add a red tint to the screen to avoid losing eye adaption to darkness. Useful during observing sessions.

Some extra rendering options can be found in the application main menu, in the advanced settings.

To reset the sky view to the original settings, open the main menu (top left hamburger button), and select Settings -> Reset settings.

Searching for sky objects

Searching by name

To search an object by name, open the search bar by either pressing the bottom left Layers button, or tap once in an empty place in the sky. The search bar appears at the top of the screen. Tap once on it to input the name of the object you want to locate.

Searching by coordinates

It is possible to move the view to a given position by directly inputting RA/Dec coordinates in the search bar, for example: “6h45m7s 16d43m29s”.

Browsing by object type

After tapping the search bar, you also get the option to browse through several lists of sky objects, categorized by type.

Sensor mode

When pointing your device up toward the sky, the app will automatically follow the direction it’s pointing at using the sensors. Move the view with the finger to return to manual movement. To disable this feature, make a long press on the Sensors button on the right side of the screen and set to disabled.

While in sensor mode, the currently tracked object direction will be indicated by an arrow.

Object Selection

Select sky objects either by selecting them in the sky, or by searching for them.

Once an object is selected, an information panel will be visible at the bottom of the screen. You can extend the panel by sliding it up. Depending on the type of the object, different information will be shown here.

Plan observations

Access both the ‘tonight’ and ‘events’ pages from the Menu -> Calendar item.

‘Tonight’ page

This page shows a preview of what is going to be visible during upcoming night. Information includes the visible planets and satellite passes. Press an item to preview the event: the app will automatically point to it and adjust the time. To return to the previous time, press the close button in the upper right corner of the screen.

‘Events’ page

This pages shows a list of major astronomical events of interest occurring during the following days. Press on an event to preview it.

Sky Cultures

You can see the sky with constellations and names of a different sky culture. To change the current sky culture, select one in Menu -> Sky Cultures. You can return to the default ‘Western’ culture by selecting it in the list or by doing a full setting reset of the app (Menu -> Settings).

Field of View Simulator

The Field of View Simulator allows you to display the field of view of various observing equipments by overlaying a footprint above the sky view. The following equipments are currently available: telescope (visual observation through eyepiece or imaging mode), binoculars, custom shapes and finders.

Use the (Menu -> Observing Tools -> Field of View Simulator) switch button to activate the Field of View Simulator button in the lower left corner of the main view. This button opens the “Fields of View” panel.

Use the “Fields of View” panel to select which Field of View to display in the sky. It also allows you to edit, add or remove equipments from your collection. You can also flip the sky view horizontally or vertically to simulate the view you would get with a telescope.

Telescope Control

Stellarium Mobile PLUS allows to control a GOTO telescope directly from the phone, by using NexStar/SynScan or LX200 serial protocols. Most (but not all) of the current GOTO telescopes are compatible with one of these protocols.

Setup

In order to have your phone work with the telescope controller, you first need to connect it to your mount or hand controller. The currently supported modes are:

In many cases, the telescope mount hand controller exposes a Serial RS232 port which needs to be plugged into a Serial-to-WIFI or Serial-to-Bluetooth converter so that the phone can access to it. Tested controllers for many type of mounts can be for example found on Astro Gadget.

On Android, for many phones models, it is also possible to connect to the mount using a USB Host adapter cable, and a third party app creating a local TCP socket redirecting to the USB port. For example the app “BT/USB/TCP Bridge Pro” (1,49€ on Play Store) was reported to work.

Once you define the type of link between the scope and phone, this is basically it! Stellarium Mobile Plus will try hard to automatically recognize the protocol, the type of mount, and mount status and all other available information about the hardware whenever possible.

Using the SynScan app as a bridge between Stellarium Mobile PLUS and the telescope

SynScan-based Wifi mounts such as the SkyWatcher Az-GTi can be controller without hand controller. For this, you need to install the official SynScan android or SynScan iOS apps and use it to connect to the telescope, configure and align it.

Warning 1: On iOS, it is not possible to have the SynScan app running in the background. The only way to drive your telescope on iOS using the SynScan app is currently to have it running on another device (either iOS or android).

Warning 2: on some android phones, the OS decides to kill SynScan app when it’s running in the background, presumably because it’s using too much resources or battery. This causes the connection to be lost between Stellarium and the telescope. To solve this issue, it is necessary to change the android settings for SynScan app to avoid it being killed too quickly. These settings are OS dependent, but usually it helps to disable the battery saving, set Synscan app to “do not optimise”, or “ignore optimizations”. This is how to change these settings on Huawei.

Controllers compatibility list

In general, all controllers compatible with some forms of the LX200 protocol, or with NexStar protocol should be auto-detected, even if not specified in the table below.

The following controllers are known to work fine with Stellarium Mobile PLUS:

Brand Controller Status Notes
Meade LX200 Classic Tested Note 1
Meade Autostar #497, Autostar #497EP, Audiostar Tested Note 1
Meade Autostar II Should work Note 1
10micron All Should work Note 1
Starmate All Should work Note 1
Celestron Nexstar Hand Controllers (Nexstar GPS, etc.) Tested Note 1
On-Step On-Step controller Tested Note 2
SkyWatcher SynScan Hand Controllers Tested Note 1
SkyWatcher SynScan Wifi Mounts (Az-GTi, etc.) Tested Note 3
AstroDevices Nexus DSC (likely work on other Nexus) Tested Note 4
GOTOTELESCOPE INC. MX-HD Tested Note 1

Note 1: Require Serial-to-Wifi/Bluetooth/USB Host converter. Note 2: Work both on WiFi (port 9999) and Bluetooth. Note 3: Using the SynScan App as a bridge (see above). Note 4: Require the last firmware and Stellarium+ >=1.7.3.

The following controllers are currently not supported:

Brand Controller Status Notes
iOptron SmartEq, etc. Not working Note 1
Explore Scientific PMC-Eight Not working Note 1
Omegon Push+ Go Not working Note 1

Note 1: Currently unimplemented serial protocol

Other resources

One of our users wrote a guide on How to control your USB enabled scope with Stellarium Mobile PLUS.

FAQ

Q: The sensor mode doesn’t seem to work, I point my phone to the North but the application shows a different direction

First make sure that the application time is set to the current time (tap the time on the bottom right and press the reset button), and that the location is correctly set.

Then ensure that your phone’s compass is properly calibrated. A simple way to do that is to open the official map application of your phone and check that the compass direction works properly there.

If you have difficulties calibrating your compass, make sure that you stay away from magnets such as phone covers with magnetic knob, or metallic objects.

Then start the sensor mode by pointing your phone up. Note that depending on your hardware the precision of the direction might be off by a few degrees.

Q: A message appears on the screen which states ‘cannot detect a compass. Sensor mode disabled’?

Your phone probably does not have an integrated compass. The sensor mode cannot work without.

Q: How do I limit the objects visible magnitude to given value?

Go into the Menu -> Settings -> Advanced. From there adjust the limit magnitude.

Q: Some galaxies don’t look the same as in my telescope

You can try to get a more realistic looking result by adjusting the overall brightness of the sky in Menu -> Settings -> Advanced.. You can also flip the sky horizontally and vertically in the Field of View Simulator panel.

Q: How do I quit the application?

On some phones, you have to swipe from the bottom of the phone to show the navigation bar. From there you can press the back button.