phone telescope

I'm not sure how I would add that to my rotary dial wall phone that I have in the porch of my house. :B

Though kids love that thing. They struggle to make a call and then giggle when they can actually talk to someone using phone that has a cord attached to the wall.

My how things have changed.

Are there any rifle shooting hobbyists here?

There have been adapters to attach your phone to a spotting scope available for a while. As mentioned above, you need a tripod to make it useful.

Recently was at the rifle range and a guy had his phone attached to his spotting scope, zoomed in on his target out there a couple hundred yards. I was surprised at the clarity. Made it really handy to fire a round, and check POI without squinting through the spotting scope, which messes up your benchrest hold and your eye focus. He said he could record video of an entire group fired in sequence, and then edit that however he wanted. I thought it was a cool idea.

I've messed with my cell phone camera and my NexStar 4se telescope - it's gotta be very precise before you can see anything through the scope. :) But yes, it's pretty good to take some pictures. Just not on the same level as an actual camera.

I have my dad's old brass telescope from the 20s similar to photo. So I can just put it against my iphone and walla, get some long distance pics? That'd be cool :) That'd def. be old school meets new school, lol.

First question to ask...
What do you do with your pictures, how do you show them?
I have thousands of pics stored away on DVDs and hard drives, never to be looked at again.
I now use my iPod as a camera and keep the best ones for showing on my iPad.
They all show up crystal clear arranged in proper folders. Always handy.

pnichols wrote:
:h

I'm old school, so use a real camera with great built-in optical and digital zoom ranges. The camera is smaller than a smart phone but mighty - and way more flexible for the taking of great photos.

FWIW, it cost as much/more (years ago) than a lot of modern day smartphones do - so it knows what it's doing!

IMHO, the best route is to wisely pick and choose what "new stuff" to mess with versus what "old stuff" to stick with.

I used to think that way...then I realized I always have the phone on me but I never remember to grab the camera...so I wound up using the phone all the time anyway.

Built in phone cameras are so good that unless you are doing professional work...it's really not worth the trouble.

The one down side is no optical zoom lens on most phones.

:h

I'm old school, so use a real camera with great built-in optical and digital zoom ranges. The camera is smaller than a smart phone but mighty - and way more flexible for the taking of great photos.

FWIW, it cost as much/more (years ago) than a lot of modern day smartphones do - so it knows what it's doing!

IMHO, the best route is to wisely pick and choose what "new stuff" to mess with versus what "old stuff" to stick with.

MrWizard wrote:
i've seen the camera lens adapter kits before

but did not know about the telescope lens adapters

The Phoneskope fits any standard 1.25" ocular lens so as long as the spotter takes a 1.25 it fits and 1.25" is the industry standard for spotters and astronomical telescopes.

You mean a 'Phoneskope'? I use one on my spotting scope coupled with my Cell phone to take pictures all the time. They now even have a setup for a rifle scope where you can use that. I also have an electronic ATN Day-Night vision scope with wi-fi and I can view the images on my phone with the ATN Obistan app remotely.

I have a monocular and the adapter for my phone to use with it. It works pretty good, but you need a tripod, cause there's no way that you can hold it steady enough by hand. I would like to upgrade to a night-vision monocular though.