Polar Mount Align

Steel around the phone

Steel around the phone

A phone clamped in a steel saddle sits inside the mount’s own magnetic field: a tester measured 66.5 µT where about 47 µT was expected, and his compass was several degrees out. Three things work against it. Take a north reference from a known direction or from the shadow of the Sun: the azimuth then comes from the gyroscope and the compass is not used at all, but the reference is lost when the app goes to the background, so take it again when you come back. Measure the compass correction with the phone where it will actually work, and save it inside the mount profile: loading that profile puts it back. And put distance between the phone and the iron: an arm that moves it a few centimetres off the saddle changes what it reads.

3D model of the arm

A parametric arm for a Vixen dovetail, free to download and print, made for this app. It carries the phone away from the saddle and can be adapted to other phone sizes.

https://www.printables.com/model/1835704-parametric-vixen-phone-holder-pixel-7a-and-other-p