Orion SteadyPix 40003 User manual
Orion®SteadyPix™ Quick Smartphone
Telescope Photo Adapter
#40003
INSTRUCTION MANUAL
Introduction
Congratulations on your purchase of the Orion SteadyPix Quick SmartphoneTelescope
Photo Adapter! It’s an improved design that is simple to use, sturdy, and is compatible
with even the biggest smartphones on the market today. The SteadyPix Quick securely
couples your smartphone to a standard 1.25" telescope eyepiece, enabling the capture
of high-magnication digital photographs through the telescope using the smartphone’s
built-in camera. Use it with telescopes, spotting scopes, binoculars, or even monoculars
– in daytime or at night. It holds your phone’s camera steady and in exactly the correct
position relative to the instrument’s eyepiece to give a perfectly framed and focused
image shot after shot – which is virtually possible when trying to hold the phone up to
the eyepiece by hand.
The SteadyPix Quick also lets you display a live view of the image projected by your
telescope on your smartphone screen, which is perfect for sharing real-time views of
the Moon or planets with friends and family. The smartphone becomes a mini display
monitor!
We hope you have fun taking pictures with your smartphone using the
SteadyPix Quick!
Compatibility
The Orion SteadyPix Quick is designed to t slate style (at) smartphones measuring
up to 3-3/4" in width (including any case or bumper), and of any length. The phone’s
camera lens should be oriented near the top of the back side for unobstructed align-
ment with a telescope eyepiece.
The SteadyPix Quick was designed with an adjustable, foam-padded bracket to allow
compatibility with most currently available smartphones, including large ones like the
iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note phones.
For best results we recommend removing any case or bumper from the phone before
installing it in the SteadyPix Quick. Even if the phone ts with the case left on, it may
prevent the phone’s camera lens from getting close enough to the telescope eyepiece,
which could result in a constricted “keyhole” eld of view on the phone screen. When
the camera is allowed to get as close as possible to the telescope’s eyepiece, the image
from the telescope or binocular will ll up much more of the phone’s screen.
The SteadyPix Quick can be used with virtually any size or type of telescope – refractor,
reector, or Cassegrain-type – that utilizes a standard 1.25"-diameter telescope eye-
piece. The included twist-tight eyepiece turret ts eyepieces with housing diameters
from 24mm to 45mm.
IN 599 08/17
Orion®Telescopes & Binoculars
Corporate Offices: 89 Hangar Way, Watsonville CA 95076 - USA
Customer Support: www.OrionTelescopes.com/contactus
Copyright © 2017 Orion Telescopes & Binoculars
All Rights Reserved. No part of this product instruction or any of its contents may be reproduced,
copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Orion Telescopes & Binoculars.
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NOTE: If the eyepiece you’re using has a rubber eyecup, it may be necessary to
remove it so that it does not interfere with proper clamping and positioning of the eye-
piece in the SteadyPix Quick.You can re-attach the eyecup once you’re nished using
the SteadyPix Quick.
It will also clamp easily onto the eyepiece of many binocular sizes and types, as well as
onto spotting scope and monocular eyepieces.
Getting Started
The SteadyPix Quick comes pre-assembled. See Figure 1 to familiarize yourself with
its parts.
Before attaching the SteadyPix Quick to your telescope or binocular, you will secure your
phone in the SteadyPix Quick itself.
1. Turn the phone clamp knob counterclockwise until the bracket’s side rails are wide
enough apart to accept your phone (Figure 1a).
2. Slide your phone into the bracket with screen facing up (Figure 2). Then clamp it in
place by turning the phone clamp knob clockwise until the side rails grip the phone
rmly. Do not overtighten or you risk damaging your
phone! Make sure the side rails do not contact the
power or volume buttons on your phone. If they do
then slide the phone up or down in the bracket until
the buttons are uncovered. The side rails are rubber
covered and angled inward to prevent the phone
from slipping out, no matter what its orientation.
3. Loosen the lock knob on the back and move the
eyepiece turret so that the phone’s camera lens is
centered under the hole in the turret, when viewed
from the back side of the SteadyPix Quick (Figure
3). Then tighten the lock knob.
You are now ready to attach the SteadyPix Quick with
phone installed to the eyepiece of your instrument.
4. With the back side of the eyepiece turret facing up,
turn the turret housing clockwise until the eyepiece
clamp pads are opened up as wide as possible
(Figure 4).
5. Then ip the SteadyPix Quick over and place the
turret over the instrument’s eyepiece (Figure 5a).
Rotate the turret’s housing clockwise again, this
time to tighten the eyepiece clamp pads snugly
against the eyepiece (Figure 5b). The turret’s
twist-tight clamping mechanism is self-centering,
so it will center the eyepiece directly under the hole
in the turret, which you already aligned with your
smartphone’s camera lens in step 3. (Shown with
iPhone 7 Plus.)
Figure 1. Parts of the
SteadyPix Quick. a) Front
side, b) Back side
a.
b.
Warning: Never look directly at the Sun through your telescope or
binoculars—even for an instant—without a professionally made solar lter
that completely covers the front of the instrument, or permanent eye damage
could result. Young children should use this telescope only with adult
supervision.
Center hole
Side rails
Turret Lock
knob
Turret
(eyepiece
clamp)
Eyepiece clamp pads
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Figure 2. The adjustable
bracket can open wide enough to
hold even large cell phones. The
phone clamps in place securely
thanks to rubber padding and
inward-angled side rails.
Figure 3. Align your
phone’s camera with the
hole in the turret.
Figure 5. Place the turret over the eyepiece of your instrument (a) and turn the turret’s
twist-tight housing until it rmly grips the eyepiece (b).
Figure 4. Turn the turret’s
housing until the clamp
pads are wide open (ush
with turret’s inside edge).
For a telescope or spotting scope eyepiece, it may be easier to remove the eyepiece
from the scope and install it in the turret rst, then re-insert the eyepiece in the scope
with SteadyPix Quick and phone attached. Binocular eyepieces are not removable.
Figure 6 shows the SteadyPix Quick attached to a binocular eyepiece.To hold the binoc-
ular steady and ensure a sharp image, you may want to mount the binocular to a tripod
using an optional binocular mounting L-bracket.
Now turn on your phone’s camera, focus your instrument, and start shooting!
We recommend starting with a fairly long focal length eyepiece (if your instrument
accepts interchangeable eyepieces), such as a 25mm focal length eyepiece. Once you
get the hang of things, you could swap it out for shorter focal length, higher-power, eye-
pieces such as a 15mm or 10mm, which usually have smaller eye lenses.
Taking Photographs with the SteadyPix Quick and Your
Smartphone
The higher the camera sensor’s resolution, i.e., the more megapixels it has, the better
your smartphone photos are likely to be. That is, an 8MP camera should produce a
sharper, more resolved image than a 2MP camera. If your phone has a ash, make
sure the ash is turned off when shooting through a telescope eyepiece!
Use exposure delay, also called a self timer. The vibration from the tapping the phone
to take an image is enough to cause blurring of the image, if the exposure occurs
immediately. Having a delay of a few seconds between the screen tap and the onset
Tighten
Lock
knob
Camera lens Clamp pads fully retracted
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of exposure eliminates the problem by allowing
any vibration to dissipate prior to image capture.
If your phone’s native camera function does not
have an exposure delay feature, there are plenty
of third-party camera apps that do.
Moon: Our closest neighbor in the solar system
is dazzling through even a very small telescope.
The SteadyPix Quick will allow you to take beau-
tiful images of the whole Moon or closeups that
showcase the craters, mountains, or maria. Single
snapshots work well and multiple shots can be
stacked later in a program such as Registax to
increase the signal-to-noise ratio and dynam-
ic range of the image. Also, you can take video
and then stack a series of the sharpest individual
video frames.
Bright Planets: The bright planets Venus, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn also make excellent targets
for afocal photography. Try using a higher power
eyepiece and maybe a Barlow lens to boost the
magnication – planets are tiny objects in the sky!
You’ll need a steady atmosphere, i.e., good “seeing,” to get sharp planetary images. The
smatphone’s display will allow you to show off your target object to friends and pass-
ers-by -- no waiting in line at the eyepiece!
Deep-sky Objects: Most deep-sky objects are difficult to photograph using a smart-
phone due to their faintness. Try working with brighter objects such as M42 (Orion
Nebula) or M13 (Hercules Cluster). You will likely need a mount that tracks the motion
of the sky so that you can take “long” exposures using a 3rd-party app that offers that
capability, and you may have to stack multiple images to get a good nal image.
Sun: If – and only if -- you have a proper solar lter to cover the front of your telescope
or binoculars, you can get terric images of sunspots on the surface of our nearest star
in the daytime with your smartphone. Sunspots are constantly changing, so shooting
them is always interesting and a lot of fun.
Nature/Terrestrial: The SteadyPix Quick can be used to take through-the-telescope
photos and videos of distant subjects in daylight.
Have fun!
One-Year Limited Warranty
This Orion product is warranted against defects in materials or workmanship for a period of one year
from the date of purchase.This warranty is for the benet of the original retail purchaser only. During this
warranty period Orion Telescopes & Binoculars will repair or replace, at Orion’s option, any warranted
instrument that proves to be defective, provided it is returned postage paid. Proof of purchase (such as a
copy of the original receipt) is required.This warranty is only valid in the country of purchase.
This warranty does not apply if, in Orion’s judgment, the instrument has been abused, mishandled, or
modied, nor does it apply to normal wear and tear. This warranty gives you specic legal rights. It is not
intended to remove or restrict your other legal rights under applicable local consumer law; your state or
national statutory consumer rights governing the sale of consumer goods remain fully applicable.
For further warranty information, please visit www.OrionTelescopes.com/warranty.
Figure 6. The SteadyPix Quick can
be used with binoculars, as shown
here, or spotting scopes or even
monoculars.
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