Once you start.....
Yes, once you start designing brackets and other widgets it is hard to stop. A few people pointed out they preferred to use Apps such as Sky Safari to polar align and this requires the phone to be at 90 deg to the orientation I had in the previous design. It occurred to me that setting up for this would make it easier to create a more generic phone holder and escape the need for the Arca Swiss adaptor from MSM. So back to the drawing board (well CAD package really).
Nothing that will win design awards here, but it works really well as I was getting 3 minute exposures with a 40 mm lens in my backyard tests. More than good enough for epic astro landscapes.
This version grips the body of the Nomad itself and is secured with the back screw on the Nomad just to be safe.
It leaves the on switch and charging port free.
If you would like to get the print file red on.
If you do print it yourself, I used 20% infil and 4 walls in PLA just to add a bit more stiffness. You could possibly get away with less if you are using a stronger filament. Word of warning, not all phones are created equal and some have very average implementations of compass and inclinometers, so you may not get quite as good tracking result (you may even get better), but no matter what it should be fine for astro landscapes where we rarely need to shoot for more than a minute or so (unless you are using Ha filters, but that is a future blog).
A few things to note before you print this out.
1. The phone holder has been sized to fit the normal sized iPhone 16pro in a standard apple case. I cannot comment if any other phone will fit (as I don’t have any other phones sorry), however the holder is 80mm wide internally and should hold most medium sized phones.
2. Unfortunately I have had some feedback that some phones have better compasses and inclinometers than others and so this may effect polar alignment so I cannot guarantee you will get as good results as I have been, but in most cases you should get a good enough result to do typical astro landscape work.
3. The orientation of this holder is for use with apps like Sky Safari Pro, the previous version was suitable for PS Align pro which needs to have the phone at 90 degrees compared to this. For information on using these kinds of apps have a look at Richard Tatti’s videos (if you haven’t watched them and subscribed you really should, he is a great guy).
4. I am not after any payment for this design, just sharing it with like minded people in case it is useful. Happy if you give me a follow on instagram in return (https://www.instagram.com/eric_wilkes_photography/ ). But I do ask that you do not pass it on or upload the design to any sites for further distribution. If you know anyone interested just point them at me.
5. I will be updating the design as things occur to me so check on this blog occasionally..
6. When printing, make sure you use supports, including on the small recess at the back for the Nomad red screw.
7. Finally, get out, look at the universe, take some photos and have fun. It really is worth it.
