Mikebat
Member III
Spyglass for iPhone or iPod touch.
This is pretty close to what I am looking for, but I'd rather it ran on Android OS.
Think about it: modern smartphones have everything you need for a sextant. The electronic compass and accelerometer provide orientation and artificial horizon information. The mega-pixel camera provides sufficient resolution and sensitivity to record the bright stars. The software can perform the data reduction. It should be able to take a sighting every minute or less and provide a running fix, even a NMEA stream for your chartplotter.
There's an Android app that lets you point the camera at the night sky, and it will identify the constellation you are looking at, and overlay the position of major stars and deep space objects on the screen. I think this one cheats a bit by using the GPS sensor. But it should be able to figure it out using just accelerometer data and the relative positions of stars.
Another gizmo I'd like to have is a binocular with a digital compass, that can take and record bearings. Go topside, take your bearings, take the binocular below and read the bearings and times off the small display. Plot your position on a paper chart.
This is pretty close to what I am looking for, but I'd rather it ran on Android OS.
Think about it: modern smartphones have everything you need for a sextant. The electronic compass and accelerometer provide orientation and artificial horizon information. The mega-pixel camera provides sufficient resolution and sensitivity to record the bright stars. The software can perform the data reduction. It should be able to take a sighting every minute or less and provide a running fix, even a NMEA stream for your chartplotter.
There's an Android app that lets you point the camera at the night sky, and it will identify the constellation you are looking at, and overlay the position of major stars and deep space objects on the screen. I think this one cheats a bit by using the GPS sensor. But it should be able to figure it out using just accelerometer data and the relative positions of stars.
Another gizmo I'd like to have is a binocular with a digital compass, that can take and record bearings. Go topside, take your bearings, take the binocular below and read the bearings and times off the small display. Plot your position on a paper chart.