Introduction: How to Turn Your IPhone Into a Microscope or Spotting Scope Eyepiece

By www.skylightscope.com
About: Andy is an engineer & designer. He works as a medical device design engineer in San Francisco, and looks at notcot and ffffound at least 100 times a day.

We've designed an adapter that converts smartphones, Android phones, and iPhones into digital eyepieces for microscopes or spotting scopes — we're calling the device the SkyLight.

We want to show you how we made the device and how you can make your own and start enjoying microscope or spotting scope images on your iPhone (and of course be able to email, Facebook, or even Face Time those images to your friends and family).


If you get a kick out of this device, check out our Kickstarter campaign and our website for more images, video, and our story. 


Steps for turning your iPhone into a digital eyepiece for your microscope or spotting scope: 

1. Find a c-clamp or hose clamp that is the approximate size of the eyepiece of your optical equipment
2. Make a flat stage that attaches to the c-clamp
3. Attach your smartphone to the flat stage so that the camera is centered over the eyepiece

The SkyLight accomplishes those three steps and it slides in the x, y, and z axes allowing one to correctly position different sized smartphones. The focal plane from the eyepiece will be some distance off of the eyepiece. This distance is called the eye relief distance, and it will be different for different types of eyepieces. The SkyLight can slide up and down along the axis of the eyepiece (by loosening the C-clamp) to accomodate for different eye relief distances. *The SkyLight accommodates eyepieces with at least 1.3" of  the eyepiece exposed and with outside diameter less than or equal to 1.75".