On May 13, 9:12*am, Bob Dobbs wrote:
bpnjensen wrote:
On May 13, 8:05*am, "D. Peter Maus" wrote:
On 5/12/10 09:51 , bpnjensen wrote:

In amateur astronomy, we have two kinds of observers -

Those who use a PC "go-to" to find and locate every faint galaxy
to look at - and then sometimes they can see it and sometimes
not, because they do not train themselves to hunt and then locate
and observe; and

Those who do it the old fashioned way by using star charts and
the Mark I eyeball method - and then usually they see it. *It
takes longer, but we usually bag our quarry, and the reward
tastes just a bit sweeter...

I am not sure if this applies to what you're doing or not - but
I surely enjoy the hunt and identification.

Bruce

* *Funny you should mention this....The NexStar by Celestron all have
computerized motor drives that locate from a database with a couple
of button presses. *I was looking at the new scopes with my g/f (who
is also a stargazer), recently, and she said, "doesn't this depend
on whether the mount is set up correctly?"

* *Why, yes. Yes, it does.

* *Further, it takes exactly the same skills, and knowledge to set up
the mount as it does to hunt the sky using charts and a timepiece.

* *When I set up my C8 (Starbright) in the deep weeds, away from
urban light pollution, there is, indeed, a sense of discovery, and
capture, when I find a deep sky object using simple math, and basic
charts. More importantly, and this applies to a lot of technology
driven activities, today, when the technology fails, no matter the
reason, I can still soldier on, having fun getting it done, with no
more difficulty than simply opening a chart.- Hide quoted text -

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In observing my friends' experiences, setting up the mount with a go-
to is not too difficult. *With a computerized go-to, the actual
mechanical orientation of the mount and scope is no longer so
critical. *Once the scope is set up more or less level, you just aim
it at a couple of bright stars with known coordinates, ID them to the
PC, and the PC takes it from there. *After that, you just punch in
your object or choose from a menu, and the scope slews to the
appropriate coordinates.

With my 18" Newt Dob it's even easier to set up (just plop the thing
on the ground, align the optics and go), although searching for
objects, and keeping them in the field at high power, contains the
challenge. *I could have gotten a nifty go-to drive for it, but opted
instead for an equatorial platform, which now requires a bit more set-
up (using 16th century technology - a compass, Polaris and good, old-
fashioned experience ;-) but it saves tremendous trouble down the road
- I still have to find the objects manually (a task which I love, a
great feeling of accomplishment) but the drive keeps them dead center
for several minutes running, a real joy. *It is nice to gaze at that 8-
billion-LY distant quasar at 600x without having to repeatedly nudge
the behemoth along... :-)

We used to go to star parties in the local mountains and it was always
interesting to play around with someone's Dob, like wrestling a water heater,
because there was so much to see even if you didn't want to bother to convert
RA-Dec to Alt-Az and use the inclinometer to find something in particular..

--

Operator Bob
Echo Charlie 42- Hide quoted text -

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That's what I love about 'em :-) Running across something just for
the heck of it!