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Date: 29 Sep 2006 04:37:17
From: Matthew Ota
Subject: early morning viewing in Gardena, CA
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I got to bed early last night, 8 PM. I woke up at 3 AM and looked
outside from my balcony and I could see Orion in all its light polluted
glory. So I dressed into my flannel shirt and pants, and rolled my rig
out of the garage and into the driveway. I practiced Polar aligment
mode with the AutoStar II handbox,,,,radically different than doing it
the old-fashioned way.
The instructions told me that after locking the RA and Dec at zero,
to manualy adjust the wedge until Polaris was centered in the eyepiece.
Well I did it the old way and placed Polaris in the "proper" position
with my Telrad centered on the NCP instead. So when I toild AutoSatr
that Polaris was "centered", it was not. Then the telescope slewed to
Canopus and after centering I said it was OK.
I spent he rest of the night slewing around with TheSky software, and
noticed that the pointing accuracy was a bit off, as the selected stars
were always at the periphery of my 40mm Ultrawide EP. I figure the goof
was centering on the NCP instead of Polaris.
So now as I sit beside my telescope in the driveway at the ungodly
hour of 4:30 a.m., I am downloading the latest AutoStar firmware from
Meade at a very slow rate, and musing about what to do this weekend
with the poor forecast for cloudy skies. Perhaps I will make a
photographic horizon file for my driveway location.
Tonight I saw:
M42
M32
Rigel
Betelgeuse
Canopus
Algol
The Pleades
Castor
Pollux
Aldebaron
Hind's Crimson Star...and it really is red!
Matthew Ota
Harvard Observatory ;-)
(On Harvard Blvd. in Gardena, CA)
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Date: 29 Sep 2006 11:03:30
From: oriel36
Subject: Re: early morning viewing in Gardena, CA
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Do yourself a favor,read through the methods which correlates clocks
with axial rotation at 15 degrees per hour and 24 hours/360 degrees in
total.
In an era before the emergence of the celestial sphere geometers,it is
lovely to see how real astronomers had a hand in timekeeping in 1669
and put it to good use -
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pe6gupqtxl728u1trg3h/contributions/w/0/m/3/w0m31406967t5702.pdf
Celestial sphere geometers butchered the subtle compromises to promote
only the Ra/Dec system as representing the axial rotation of the Earth
and the only means of time reckoning.
Matthew Ota wrote:
> I got to bed early last night, 8 PM. I woke up at 3 AM and looked
> outside from my balcony and I could see Orion in all its light polluted
> glory. So I dressed into my flannel shirt and pants, and rolled my rig
> out of the garage and into the driveway. I practiced Polar aligment
> mode with the AutoStar II handbox,,,,radically different than doing it
> the old-fashioned way.
> The instructions told me that after locking the RA and Dec at zero,
> to manualy adjust the wedge until Polaris was centered in the eyepiece.
> Well I did it the old way and placed Polaris in the "proper" position
> with my Telrad centered on the NCP instead. So when I toild AutoSatr
> that Polaris was "centered", it was not. Then the telescope slewed to
> Canopus and after centering I said it was OK.
> I spent he rest of the night slewing around with TheSky software, and
> noticed that the pointing accuracy was a bit off, as the selected stars
> were always at the periphery of my 40mm Ultrawide EP. I figure the goof
> was centering on the NCP instead of Polaris.
> So now as I sit beside my telescope in the driveway at the ungodly
> hour of 4:30 a.m., I am downloading the latest AutoStar firmware from
> Meade at a very slow rate, and musing about what to do this weekend
> with the poor forecast for cloudy skies. Perhaps I will make a
> photographic horizon file for my driveway location.
>
> Tonight I saw:
>
> M42
> M32
> Rigel
> Betelgeuse
> Canopus
> Algol
> The Pleades
> Castor
> Pollux
> Aldebaron
> Hind's Crimson Star...and it really is red!
>
> Matthew Ota
> Harvard Observatory ;-)
> (On Harvard Blvd. in Gardena, CA)
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