APEXEL 3-Axis Telescope Phone Mount

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https://youtu.be/DnoUDkI5XNE

Phones have changed how we take photos and videos in our personal lives. Phones have also become ubiquitous in the world of telephotography, birding, and astronomy. Many entry level spotting scopes and telescopes come with plastic and metal phone mounts.

As anybody who has used these free or inexpensive mounts has discovered, getting them aligned properly and keeping them in place can be challenging. And if you need to remove the phone momentarily to adjust the eyepiece or make an optical adjustment, you have to re-align the phone from scratch every time you remove the phone.

APEXEL sent me a 3-axis phone mount for telescopes and binoculars. The mount is made of aluminum alloy for rigidity and stability. It has geared controls knobs that slides your phone along 3-axis of motion: vertical, horizontal, and toward and away from the eyepiece. In my testing I was easily able to align my phone.

It does have 2 shortcomings well 3. The third can’t be helped as it’s a rather large device. The other issues are eye relief and the phone clamp. You will not be able to use this mount on most rifle scopes; which have ≥3″ of eye relief. The APEXEL doesn’t have enough range of adjustment; toping out at about 1″. The other disappointment is the phone mount itself, which is a pinch style claw mount. Your phone is simply held in place by spring tension. APEX should have added a ratcheting mechanism instead.

While this mount isn’t perfect, it’s nearly so. At less than $60 currently, it is a good value compared to specialized other telescope mounting systems of the past. I hope APEXEL comes up with a solution for using it with long eye relief optics like rifle scopes.

This is available on Amazon through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Pr3NGi

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Tom "Moondog" DelMundo is a former NYC Creative Director.

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