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Fall 2005/Winter 2006 - Uncle Rod`s Astroland

1. Track Mode EqN Shew Hand Control Software Scope Site Apena 203 Elevatienr E F ocal Length rmn 232 Latihide 30 32 D bs action X moo Longitude CET Version d 2d Cancel iy T TE CASO Plate 1 Ba Contro Pared vd U Conmezted to Telescope r kanaal Slew Darro p Posi Bl Telescope Slide Show IJ ER Orge 0 non GDTDCseninaias S I Temco RA 15 23 3e Teac Ue Dbgct infa Mist ES NS amp e j ttu High Locator Observed Equg mere Usei Tres sparency E ECCE Asting Short Caps Log saie Fiat e ATER a Tye OAA sine BO Plate 19 Quick Urs GUT Ott d Eg Previous Heart Add ing i cmimi Shown T Please Wat unl ance A tate 2 db 18 ES Skywatch F Ml 012 Costes Entry EE CRECTIO Cardi E BEC EOD TOET PAS Flate 21 NEE rapi fee bek Chun Sae met dp Tc SHEER a Sammy 1 Lao Eip 1 tee pn Biel 0 accen ni LS Mad Kakap ome Di
2. p s x pe _ 3 50 730 25 ___ i Hd a 5y 4 5 REL ess ef sew ine 4 15 s pus es ues oes aol TT Fe e v eee neue Ciater lecie Ree sel Times ss 2000 FRA Shoe Times ew See _ irish Trang Time Exp Observed Hera cet Ca rm hie 428 Goonies Sort Hap Log ph Other Log y fy lames frg coil Lat oA a Lan Ww S B SE Shen Gay Im your blood pressure will stay down and your hairline will stay intact The What s Up Wizard is one of the best features of the program and really makes thinking in SQL unnecessary for most of us Just click on this Wizard in the Query menu see Plate 11 answer the questions it asks you and you should have no trouble filling a spreadsheet with the objects of your desire No it won t pick out the Messiers but it will pick out anything else So lets say you ve pushed the Filter button and you ve now got a spreadsheet on screen What the aitch E double L can you do with this list of lets say Scorpius NGOs The first thing you ll want to 10 TEE do is sort them to suit your preferences Maybe by object number maybe by rise ti
3. img If there s an X in this column there s a picture of this object available Clicking on the X for the object of your choice will bring up Deepsky s built in and rather full featured image processor yes this program does do almost anything and display that image If your images are on a DVD or CD be sure that disk is in the drive or nothing much will happen obviously What else Highlight an object by clicking once on its ID field Then right click You ll be presented with a large menu of choices that includes selections for creating large scale charts You ll have a choice of using the built in Williams charting module or Cartes du Ciel and also of displaying all the objects in your spreadsheet on the chart or just the selected object Remember please that the charts whether Deepsky or generated will only display the objects contained in your spreadsheet Which do prefer Williams or Both have their strengths The Williams charts see Plate 14 are pretty and give you access to the observing notes for objects the latest version of QN Image Chart Mates Close ruens El object Details Object ID NGC 6475 Other ID Scorpions Tail Catalog 2000 Type Oc 17 5354 0 Declination 34 49 00 0 Epoch 2000 Constellation Sco size arc min 60 00 Magnitude 1 3 30 Magnitude 2 Mag Type Gal Latitude Gal Longitude Herschel Position Ange 0 00
4. as in type of deep sky object via buttons and drop down menus For our example let s select Scorpius NGC 2000 and all types One slight oddity here is that if you ve used Select previously you must hit clear to enter a new constellation catalog or type For example if you ve entered Ursa Major in the constellation field in previous Skywatch session youll have to hit clear before you enter Scorpius or you ll wind up with both Scorpius AND Ursa Major in your search retrieval File Database Apps Prefs Query Report lookup It s less confusing at first however just to click spreadsheet columns to sort the objects after they re displayed sky By Steven 5 Tuma and Dean Williams Imaging solersystem Planner S Ba Me 57 2 Depi Deep 24 open Youre almost ready to hit the go button but not quite If you re using a 4 inch refractor from suburban skies you may not want ALL the NGCs that Scorpius NGC all types will deliver to your spreadsheet some will be so dim they will surely elude your little scope You need to filter magnitudes To do that select the next tab over from Select Ranges 1 The fields you mostly need to worry about are those associated with Magnitude 1 Plate 10 Lets set upper limit dimmest to 10 999 the default will retrieve all magnitudes The lower limit
5. 2005 edition of the Chiefland Star Party to give the Powerswitch a good evaluation But l m getting ahead of myself again What s this diagonal like Whats in the box As you can see from the picture its a beautifully executed thing with the diagonal portion being finished a glossy black It s got that typical Denkmeier appeal with fine machining brass compression rings and beautiful metal aperture plugs rather than smarmy plastic caps Forward of the diagonal is the Powerswitch assembly itself which is composed of two slides that can be pushed in or pulled out The slide on the right introduces a 66 reducer into the focal train while the one on the left puts a 2x Barlow in the light path With both slides out things are normal without anything between eyepiece and secondary The way it works seemed easy enough to understand but Uncle Rod s backwoods cousin Elmer asked But wut happens if you push BOTH slides in Unk Rod It was all could do to keep from slappin the boy keep tellin his mama he ain t right in the head At any rate you can t push both slides in at the same time and it wouldnt make any sense to do so if you could This is one big pretty sucker Like a Denk binoviewer its handful weight wise don t worry it didnt overload even a lightly mounted C8 WE and impressis in the dave as well as at night The diagonal s mirror is available in one of two v
6. Separation 0 00 SkY Chart 22 Uranometria aff Uranometria 2K 184 Millennium 1437 Wol Ill Current Atude 18 2 Current Azimuth 153 24 Object Rises 07 40 PH Object Transits 12 05 Object Sets 04 30 0 000000 0 000000 Deepsky includes over 8 000 notes from experienced observers in a larger easier to read format than in You can access this useful data whether in the Williams charts or CdC by clicking on the object of interest On the downside the Dean Williams charts are comparatively slow not terribly interactive and only the bright stars are clickable for information CdC is a wonderful and full featured planetarium program and goes together with Deepskylike ham and eggs love and marriage or a horse and a carriage The right click menu also includes numerous other tasks and options the most important of A which concern controlling a goto scope something we ll take up later Returning back to the main spreadsheet screen youll find a vertical row of attractive toolbar buttons arrayed down the left side Spreadsheet takes you back to the spreadsheet from other functions The Quick Chart 1 and 2 buttons display the Williams charts with the first object on the spreadsheet in view This is just what the button 13 ee 4 Clt vB IC st 12 2 M Brian Mitchell notes for the A L Binocular Messier List ister wth more conce nter formed a kind of estar Field Mode
7. There are there are still plenty of signs of Bitch Katrina s passing even four months down the line though and plenty of people in the coastal areas of the county are still hurting bad The main thing standing in the way of Skywatch Uncle Rod earns the largest part of his livelihood as an engineer at Northrop Grumman Ship systems in Pascagoula Mississippi no unfortunately astronomy writers don t get paid like Stephen Kings so most of us must hustle along doing day jobs If you saw any of the video of the aftermath of the storm you don t have to be told that Pascagoula and the shipyard were absolutely WRECKED Much of your old Uncle s time has been spent helping his colleagues get their homes back in order where possible and putting things back together at work so we can proceed with the testing of DDG 100 the Navys newest AEGIS Class Destroyer she took quite a pounding What was it like immediately following Katrina s passage The following paragraphs were written not long after the winds finally died down Dorothy and are still at home and doing well For the last two days I ve been checking my email once a day nursing the laptop along to conserve that power hungry P4 s waning battery Frankly two days after the storm we ve decided we ve had enough decided to leave Chaos Manor South and the Garden District for at least a while It s just pain miserable in this heat 90F in the shade don
8. a particular object to go into your plan before you put it there Is it suitable for you your site and your scope To get this help double click on an object s ID Let s do that to M7 for example Place your cursor on this object s ID field NGC 6475 or its Other ID field M7 Scorpion s Tail and double click In a few moments you ll be presented with a window full of data Logbook 17 whats ea 23 4 Apply Fiterz Plans hy Queries Show FI L Show lan Fiters Sect Williams chart for your object which can be zoomed in and out only the Williams charts are available here you can t show a Cartes du Ciel chart in this window apparently unfortunately Once you ve made up your mind whether M7 is an appropriate object to view on this evening close the info window and look for a spreadsheet column called pln this should normally be the leftmost spreadsheet column Click this block for M7 and it will be added to an Observing Plan The beneath Apply Filters at the bottom left of the screen When you do that the original spreadsheet will be replaced with one containing a single object M7 This is your plan which can be sorted saved and printed Once you ve looked at the plan youll probably want to go back to your original spreadsheet to choose more objects for inclusion Here we run into another of the program s minor peculiarities The Observing
9. functions Slide Show Well actually only in part It works well with other scope brands but it s really nicest under Meade protocol If you do have a Meade or Meade compatible scope it is really slick Not that it isn t slick with a Celestron telescope or other brand maybe should say it is super slick with the Meades What does slideshow do It allows you to goto each object in a spreadsheet with just the click of a slide advance button Enable slide show from the Scope menu and you ll get the window shown in Plate 20 When you do that your scope will also slew to the first object in your spreadsheet or Plan The window will indicate your current object show you an image of it if one is available offer logbook fields for you to fill in for the target and display basic object info including the Dreyer NGC codes which you ll recall wished for in the object info window with a press of the Additional Object Info button Now all that is all quite wonderful In my opinion almost worth the entire cost of the program But if you are Meade LX200 user Steve has taken things to a whole nother level A look at the manual this section is very clear and understandable reveals the amazing fact that Steve has figured out a way to make the LX200 hand paddle act like a slide projector remote Normally the scope can t tell a computer to do anything But with a bit of 16 programming wizardry don t ask me
10. hand however as was intent on doing all those tiny planetaries hiding in Aquila and Cygnus No as said not getting rid of the rest of my eyepieces but doubt they ll get much use anymore Oh and should also mention that Power x Switch diagonal is available in a couple of other models too which are suitable for use with refractors and binoviewers the model reviewed the 51 is intended for single eyepiece viewing mainly with SCTs Verdict If youre ready to get rid of that oynta 1 25 diagonal you ve been using for so long think carefully about the Powerswitch Even if my claims regarding how it can help your observing technique dont impress consider the fact that the images it produces good enough to make spending lots of money on large sets of expensive eyepieces unnecessary and frankly a little bit silly Yep you can easily save yourself enough bread for a week s visit to deep sky wonderland in Chiefland even if you throw in a couple o bottles of good ol Rebel Yell The Dummy s Guide to Deepsky Part Il A Deep Sky User s Guide for the Rest of Us Rod Mollise Last time in the Summer 2005 issue we installed and configured Deepsky DAS Deepsky Astronomy Software This time we ll actually start using it Dismissing the help window allows you to see what it s been covering up the main program screen a spreadsheet full of objects the Messier
11. objects to be exact No matter what you set your filters to youll always be greeted by these familiar Ms in spreadsheet number one you ll notice by the way that there are tabs for five different spreadsheets see Plate 8 Frankly really don t like this much rather the program start up with my last used spreadsheet but it only takes one button push to retrieve the previous sheet of objects so this is not a tremendous annoyance Remember this is a spreadsheet not an observing list You ll use spreadsheets to build an observing list which is called a Plan in Deepsky parlance If you understand that you ve basically got Deepsky licked and everything else is mere mechanics Before you can create the observing list for the evening you ll have to have a set of objects to choose targets from the spreadsheet is that set of objects Where does the spreadsheet come from You ll retrieve spreadsheet objects from Deepsky s massive database That is your first task in planning tonight s observing run Before you begin using spreadsheets though its a good idea to set up the columns you want to display Not showing things like galactic longitude will mean you don t have to scroll horizontally to view all the data in a spreadsheet oet this up by using the Spreadsheet submenu under the same Prefs menu we visited earlier Select the Formatting tab in the window that appears and click Select Columns to Di
12. of your logbook Need to find a particular object Highlight the object ID column and use the right click menu s Enter Filter Criteria option Enter NGC 6903 in the Filter Criteria field hit enter and only that object will be displayed This is actually a handy tool to use with any spreadsheet at any time not just the logbook spreadsheet To edit your already existing observations you Click that s right the Edit button at the bottom of the window You ll usually do initial logbook entries from the spreadsheet When you want to make a logbook entry for an object all you have to do is as above click the obs column for your object of choice Assuming youre back inside choose Standard rather than Outside to use the fullblown logbook format You ll be taken to the form in Plate 22 Youll then fill in all the B Deepsky Database Search i Select the ede and the criteria ihat you would like ia uze in VV gt d are done YOU CICK ihe DEON search bution to start or Chon Save SE to Save your settings for casy retrieval next timc Messier omber Constellation Quick Predefried Searches _FictdToSeach Operate Object ID Cantal ation ObjsctT ype Herschel Obssrved Objects Saved Searches Save Search Delete Search Plate 16 appropriate fields for your entry using the keyboard and drop down menus The info in the drop down menus si
13. the earthshine shows off all of the dark side features To give you an idea of how sharp and powerful these things are We set up at the Dam and seven miles across the lake you see a 22 restaurant called the Oasis you can distinguish people eating on the outside area At five miles we watch someone across the lake set up a barbeque This is such a good pair and for the money more than likely for the price the best bargain you can run across These binoculars are not just a tool for the large telescope but a companion that complements with wide views and enough aperture to reach many DSO s Asian Tsunami Seen from Space Patrick L Barry When JPL research scientist Michael Garay first heard the news that a tsunami had struck southern Asia he felt the same shock and sadness over the tremendous loss of human life that most people certainly felt Later though he began to wonder were these waves big enough to see from space oo he decided to check At JPL Garay analyzes data from MISR the Multi angle Imaging opectroRadiometer instrument aboard NASA s Terra satellite He scoured MISR images from the day of the tsunami looking for signs of the waves near the coasts of India ori Lanka Indonesia and Thailand eT Looking at an image of the b southern tip of Sri ae 9 Lanka taken by one of MISR s angled cameras he spotted the distinct shape of Waves made visible by t
14. the Early Years out Look for a review soon but if you can t wait contact Bob at piekielrl yahoo com for information about getting a copy of this VALUABLE resource for Celestron fanciers That s all this time But with things nearing normalcy here we at the Skywatch Editorial Offices in glorious Chaos Manor South shall and will be keeping our ears to the ground for much more delicious gossip for the Spring issue The Anonymous Astronomer The Wrap up See y all in October wrote in July Because of a THING called Katrina life here at Chaos Manor South has been shall we say disrupted over the last several months Things are basically back to normal now and after this double issue I expect to be back on our regular quarterly schedule as we define regular down here in Possum Swamp that is I ve got some great stuff lined up for y all including an IN DEPTH review of the new Meade ETX 125PE And as they Say late at night on WTBS AND MUCH MUCH MORE As always I solicit your fine articles I think you can see from this issue thaat the quality of our contributors is getting higher all the time with some of em easily puttin poor little me to shame One more note things were EXTREMELY confused down here for a while If you submitted material to me and it hasn t been printed in this issue please e mail me Some material was lost with the hard drive crashes etc that happened due t
15. was the image quality like with the reducer in the light path Very good It seemed pretty much identical to Denk s standalone VT Starsweeper reducer that is similar to Celestron s f 6 3 reducer corrector at the edges and a lot easier to use Vignetting There was a ittle with the 27 Pan but that was lm quite sure due to the baffle tube in the scope because of any failing in the Powerswitch it boasts 37mm of clear aperture At any rate this vignetting was very minor indeed and did not detract from the view one iota The 27 Pan did so well in fact that was a little sorry l d left its 35mm sister at home But heck could have gotten good image quality with the Starsweeper or a Skywatch cheap Celestron or Meade reducer corrector The real beauty of this system was not that it delivered good images but that could remove and reinsert the reducer at will in just a couple of seconds This allowed me to easily compare views determine optimum magnifications for difficult deep sky objects With a standard diagonal the fact that l d have had to remove the diagonal to switch out the reducer or at least remove the eyepiece and replace it with something else would have discouraged me from fooling around with a lot of different powers When you ve got one of Fornax s dim little ghosts of a galaxy in the eyepiece you don t want to remove your eye from the eyepiece for f
16. DOWN HOME gumbo astronomy from Chaos Manor South Fall 2005 Winter 2006 Volume 14 Issue 44 Newsletter for the Truly Outbound Number 79 New Series lt RMOLLISE AOL COM gt In this Issue Letter from the Coast Denkmeier Powerswitch DAS User s Guide Part Il In Praise of DSCs Apogee 25x100s Tsunami from Space My Back Pages Oo GG N WATERLOGGED BUT UNBOWED Skywatch 1207 Selma Street Mobile AL 36604 U S A UndeRod Mollisds Grand Post Katrina Issue A Letter from the Gulf Coast Dear Friends Howdy Y all Some of you may have been wondering what happened to Skywatch I ll confess that my little newsletter has developed a small following over the years with each issue being read by several thousand amateurs during the time it s current And have gotten some whatever happened to Skywatch emails recently Bottom line It s been a wild ride for several months starting on the morning when Hurricane Katrina came ashore on Uncle Rod s beloved Gulf Coast NEM i abes atch Luckily we here in Mobile Alabama were spared the worst experiencing anything like the devastating winds and water visited upon our brothers and sisters just to the west of us Near miss is more than bad enough when you re talking a storm as huge and deadly as Katrina but Mobile was back to something resembling normalcy in a few weeks
17. Goto some gotos There are two basic ways to do that with Deepsky The easiest way to get the scope slewing From the spreadsheet Plan screen select an object and right click In the menu that appears you ll see that one of the previously grayed out options at the bottom is now clickable namely Locate Object in Telescope Click that and way she goes Like to do things the planetarium way Bring up a Dean Williams chart click on your object of choice and you ll notice that there s a goto button at the bottom of the info window that appears Pushing that will you guessed it send your scope to that particular object Once your slew is complete a yellow cross will be superimposed on your object Not too hip to this GUI graphics stuff Click the middle scope icon on the toolbar at the top of the screen which is Enable Telescope Control Panel the scope icons to the left and right of this middle one will allow you to connect the scope and slew to coordinates respectively without fooling with the Scope pull down menu This enables a control panel that allows you to slew the scope manually with a virtual hand paddle or send it to typed in coordinates This screen shown in Plate 19 does a lot more but unfortunately most of this is only of interest to Meade scope users as these other interesting functions are reserved for the Meade way of doing things Unfortunately so is one of the program s most interesting
18. Plan now occupies the Spreadsheet lc nd Mank 2200 La 30 35 45 Lon 68 10 38 Time Zone 5 82 Objects Shown 0 Observed Query Time 48sec Plate 10 including a picture if one s available as shown in Plate 12 Running along the left are the cluster s vital stats like magnitude type size etc While wish Mr Tuma had included the Dreyer NGC codes in this data what s here along with the copious observer s notes available for many objects by clicking the notes button of this window Plate 13 usually gives you more than enough information to decide whether a particular DSO is something you really want to view Clicking the charts button in this window creates an attractive Dean 11 Plan is identical to a spreadsheet but it will only contain objects you select from other spreadsheets for inclusion in this manner Actually clicking pln for M7 first delivers an informational window asking you which tab you want to add the object to This refers to the spreadsheet tabs If you click the Spreadsheet 1 button acknowledgment window will appear briefly and you ll be returned to your original spreadsheet which will appear unchanged except for an X thats been placed in M7 s pln column To see your Plan you must click Show Plan the button directly 1 tab get the original spreadsheet back you ll need to either apply your filters again with a cl
19. Query menu at the top of the screen If you re used to using databases and in particular SQL databases you ll find these query tools quite powerful and I m sure they will allow you to select out Messiers or anything else you choose from any constellation f you know how to to use them Unfortunately if you re as computer ignorant as Unk Rod you ll find this whole query business a little scary and will stick to select What s Up Messier and the more powerful but still easy What s Up Wizard That s OK You can do anything you want using Filters and the What s Up features along with Deepsky s very powerful search function You may not achieve power geek status by doing things the easy way but 9 Beepsky By Steven 5 Tuma a arid Dean Williams Fie Apps Pref Guery Report Omega Logbock Chart nien Hep S Hs i TocsNrHHE Awe Ne ec c scm Cu el Dept Deed Dens Depi lege Galen Leg images aen im 1 i ime Han i Seress penses TET x me as is me oa m se d y 18 wem 94 26 of Que Chee Bi 54 0 44 430 Soe JEI 14 eT Cs Pie er oe efine nemn et s s wirm a 88 48
20. arieties You can get it with 9796 reflectivity silver coatings or for some extra moola with 99 796 dielectric coatings reviewed the 97 version Optics Denk claims 1 10 wave which seems accurate based on my observations If you re smart you ll let your eyeballs and maybe a planet be the judge of these things l ve been using a 2 inch Intes diagonal for several years that claimed to be 1 10 wave too but when it was compared to the optically excellent Denk it became clear that the advertising claims for the Intes included a generous helping of hyperbole Chiefland time In the car went the Celestron Nexstar 11 my laptop and only two eyepieces a 12mm TeleVue Nagler Type Il and a 27mm TeleVue Panoptic Yes own a pretty good collection of TeleVue oculars but left em at home on purpose figured that the true test of the Powerswitch Diagonal would be whether missed my other focal 1 lengths Oh of course a bottle of fine Rebel Yell Bourbon went into the trunk too though vowed not to break the seal till was done testing the Powerswitch Tent Sleeping bag Are you kiddin Uncle Rod camps at Chiefland s Holiday Inn these days Arriving on the final Thursday of this weeklong star party a look at the sky revealed what looked like typical Chiefland weather scudding clouds during the day that would clear away and reveal the dark reaches of space after sunset Hate t
21. as also able to use Search to do the single thing had not been able to do with Deepsky previously and which had been bugging me was with a little fiddling able to display Messiers from the single constellation of my choice by clicking the Messier button and changing catalog to constellation and NGC 2000 to the constellation of my choice Plate 16 For many tasks Search is actually a better tool than the wizards and queries Now it s fun time If you don t own a goto scope and or a laptop computer go ahead and print your completed plan Which you have saved under a unique name right and head outside Hold on just a sec though Those of us into goto will be talking about logging in just a few minutes but since you re intent on doing things the old fashioned way youll need some paper log sheets to record your observations for input into the Deepsky logging Star Charis Dean Williams n oT ERI an J 1 zal Dee 34 POW BEd i Plate 14 14 system later If you have a pre designed sheet you use fine use that But if you don t have one or dont have one you like Deepsky has you covered Go to the Logbook menu at the top of the screen and click Print Blank Logsheet Your printer soon will spit out a nice page just right for an old fashioned hard copy logbook or for temporarily recording observation data for entry into Deepsky Want to get e
22. awn began and with the rising Sun it began to resemble what usually see on an average night from my backyard With day the friendly stars fled and depressing reality returned best description I ve heard of the condition of our Gulf Coast came from a nurse who was trying to treat patients with few resources Skywatch of ANY kind at her disposal We are now third world country Experiencing post storm conditions even in relatively lightly damaged Mobile as such things go leads me to reflect upon the INSANE hubris of the people who in the 50s 60s 70s and even the 80s proposed that the U S could survive or win a thermonuclear war Tonight with only a relatively small part of the nation devastated men women and children are dying and the survivors most of them still haven t received any aid of any kind There are bodies floating in the water and in the case of some areas we have no idea what the conditions are Mississippi s Governor Haley Barber took one look at Waveland Mississippiand declared that he now knew exactly what Hiroshima looked like Those of us who lived through Camille 1969 thought wed survived the worst that the storming Gulf could throw at us We knew nothing Where Camille left the empty and gutted shells of buildings Katrina left NOTHING know above makes for painful reading but at the time wrote it we on the Coast had plenty of pain
23. brand from the long list provided see Plate 17 and once you ve done that push the Properties button Doing so brings up the configuration dialog shown in Plate 18 which will 52 ah When M you are done you can click the Begin Search button to start or click Sive S Search Save your settings for easy retrieval next time 1 p 4 FieldToSearch Operator Messer umber Predefined Searches LI Object ID Constellation CbjectType Messier Herschell Observed Objects Saved Searches Save Search Delete Search Plate 15 15 allow you to set up the driver for your particular scope Enter your scope model position data and the other requested information click OK and you re finished If you re using a Meade scope you ll find a few more blanks to fill in including data concerning the Meade LX200 focuser which can be operated from Deepsky With scope physically connected to computer make your cable connections to both before you turn on the power to either please and ASCOM configured your next step is to do a goto alignment of your scope just like you usually do Once you ve done that and the telescope is tracking go back to the Scope menu and Click Connect Telescope If you ve got everything correctly cabled and configured you should get a message indicating that your telescope is connected to the computer What next
24. brightest setting is 1 and you can leave that as it is Also be sure to leave the Include Blank boxes in the Magnitude 2 and Size fields checked You should uncheck this same box for Magnitude 1 Doing these things will ensure that objects for which size and or magnitude is uncertain many nebulae will be included in the spreadsheet normally a good thing The tab to the right Ranges 2 lets you set separations and position angles for double stars as well as search parameters for object type You can leave this alone unless you re going after doubles on your first Deepsky run The next tab Sort can also be bypassed at the moment This as youd guess sorts object during Deep 3 Lcgbook Charts Scope Deep Iy lineage Galen X Deep 4 Now you re ready to light the fuse know it seems as if we ve had to do a lot of work to get here but normally the only tab in this area you ll come back to again and again is Select when you want to specify different constellations and object types and catalogs OK Click the Apply Filters button to the left of the tabs we ve been working with the button showing the current Moon phase cool huh When you do the program will think for a while a progress bar will appear at the bottom of the screen and your spreadsheet display will eventually change and should show all the NGC objects in Scorpius brighter than magnitude 10 and
25. cal for good images as having an excellent secondary mirror is for a Newtonian telescope The truth thirty years of SCT using tells me probably lies somewhere between these two extremes The SCT s diagonal may not be quite as critical to the quality of the final image as the diagonal secondary mirror of a Newtonian sure thats what optical experts tell me anyway but there s no doubt that an optically excellent diagonal can improve any SCT s performance If you re still using the star diagonal that shipped with your Celestron or Meade you may be amazed at just how much better Mars or M13 looks in your scope after you dig into your pockets and pony up for a super premium 2 inch star diagonal Not only is the wave front error on these diagonals better the mechanical alignment of their mirrors is also usually superior meaning that rotating the diagonal for a comfortable viewing angle doesn t shoot your collimation all to hell How about high reflectivity coatings Thats another selling point of the high priced jobs Only you can decide whether it s worth it to part with the 300 or more George Washingtons the high reflectivity coating equipped 2 inch diagonals cost The fact of the matter is this however stock diagonals shipped with telescopes or the el cheapos you can buy in the 75 150 dollar range have coatings that at best reflect about 80 maybe 85 with 4 tailwind of the light that strikes th
26. don t it will go bye bye into Never Neverland when you exit the program To save it or bring it back go to the Plan menu in the top of the screen menu bar and choose save or open existing plan Normally you ll save into the Deepsky Astronomy Software directory on your hard drive In here by the way are MANY wonderful ready made observing plans for your use Use open 12 existing plan to load these useful Plans Once you ve got a Plan ready the next step is guess what Get out and observe A look out the window on this summer afternoon though shows there are still a few hours to go before astronomical twilight arrives While waiting let s explore a few of Deepsky s other useful El Object Details Object ID NGC 6475 Other ID Scorpions Tail Catalog 2000 Type Oc 17 33 54 0 Declination 34 49 00 0 Epoch 2000 Constellation Sco Size arc min 20 00 Magnitude 1 3 30 Magnitude 2 Mag Type Gal Latitude 0 000000 Gal Longitude 0 000000 Position Ange 0 00 Separation 0 00 Sky Chart 22 Uranometria 2 Uranometria 2 184 2 Millennium 1437 Vol Ill Current Altitude 18 2 Current Azimuth 153 24 Object Rises 07 40 PH Object Transits 12 05 AM Object Sets 04 20 Print Plate 12 aS x i FOV 60 x60 Size pixels 800 x 800 features Just to the right of the pln column on your spreadsheet you ll find one titled
27. e Mansfield dam s public park 21 to educate the public on astronomy This is where have done most of the observations with these binoculars First rule for this beast is If you buy them you must mount them have tried several ways but resorted to cheat somewhat used the Orion Paragon Plus binocular mount and tripod Part number 5347 Replaced the 4 Lb Weight with a 16 Lb Manufactured in a local machine shop Also replace the bracket that secures the binocular with ScopeStuffs cradle mount http www scopestuff com ss_ binm htm had to notch part of the cradle mount to secure it to the Orion mount This was to prevent unwanted movement Seen above my hand The finished product looks like the following picture Properly balanced it can be guided by a child and have done so many times It brakes apart in no time at all for right transport second picture down The mount is surprisingly stable with this weight The only penalty is the tripod will not raise the head but it seems needless to have this feature while using the binoculars anyway The 3 5 field of view is better than most 25 X 100 s This pair supposes to have a 13mm eye relief but believe it is closer to 11mm Eyeglass wearers may have somewhat of a problem but several who have used this pair had not complained This pair chased down comets better than the Orion 80ED and 100ED don t know what the exit pupil is but if your
28. ear of losing that elusive DSO And that was the thing didnt have to remove my eye to switch the reducer in and out just slide the smooth slide back and forth The Barlow amplifier the Powerswitch Worked just as well don t know what the design of the Barlow system is but it must be a good one Running the 27 Pan up to 200x didn t stress it out at all OK then bring on the 12 Nagler Sure the sky was dark and steady and that helped but a poor Barlow would not have delivered the crisp 466x images that was seeing with the Denk Barlow switched in Small crisp stars and good contrast were the rule Yes my TV Big Barlow will do that too But don t use it often as it s a hassle to pull the eyepiece out put the Barlow in replace the eyepiece and wonder if I ve bumped the scope off target as focus That last brings us to a curious reaction a few people have had to the Denkmeier Powerswitch They are surprised that you have to refocus when you switch the Barlow and reducer in and out Don t ask me why they are surprised It s clear from the instructions that come with the diagonal they are provided on a CD by the way that what you re doing with the Switch is inserting a Barlow or reducer into the light path of your scope Nothing more nothing less Sure you have to refocus But it ain t that hard troops Especially when you realize that all you have to do is remember to turn the SCT s focu
29. em The Fancy Dans on the other hand feature coatings that can pass as much as 99 of the light that enters them on to the eyepiece That means that contrary to what some old timers may have told you you Will notice a difference in image brightness It won t necessarily blow your socks off but it will be there You ve probably noticed that l ve been talking 2 inch diagonals mostly That s because other than a little additional weight on the scope rear end there s no downside to a 2 incher A 2 inch opens up the entire world of wide field eyepieces to your Cat Do be aware however that a 2 inch diagonal won t produce images that are any better than a 1 25 inch of equal optical quality Since I m mainly addressing the SCT ranks can speak freely about a couple of our dirty little secrets Hey wait Is that a dobsonian owner lurking in the back row of the audience Hall monitors throw him out OK anyway you and know that as much as we love our telescopes they do have a couple of liabilities First compared to the bigdobs sprouting on star party observing fields our aperture is limited Heck even if you own a C14 that person set up next to you with a 30 inch truss tube job will be constantly referring to your little scope Yes were aperture challenged and that means every photon we can squeeze out of our telescopes is vital Also because of the SCT design what light our little mirrors can co
30. ess to that particular wizard Does your spreadsheet or plan contain every single object you want to observe tonight Anything left out If you ve got an object or two you need to add to the Plan but which you didn t retrieve by using What s Up or Filters or Queries you ll find the Deepsky search function Plate 15 to be a life saver as it allows you to retrieve single objects from that humongous database Clicking on the cute binoculars icon in the toolbar brings up this slightly daunting dialog Don t be afraid though its easy to use once you get it figgered out The Predefined Searches buttons at the bottom of the window are your friends boys and girls Want to show all Messiers Just click the Messier pre defined search button and the Begin Search button Curiously unlike a spreadsheet sort they are arrayed in correct numerical order with M11 coming after M10 and so forth Want to look for a particular Messier Change the operator from gt to and from 0 to the M number of your choice on the first line of the criteria field Need an NGC Click the NGC predefined search and type an NGC number in the criteria field you ll have to type NGC lt space gt number Changing catalog numbers and clicking on the other predefined searches should make it easy to find the objects of your desire The search function can be frustrating at first but is an incredibly powerful tool After a little practice w
31. every commercial scope stil uses good old clunky RS 232 Unless you have invested in one of Meades new USB equipped RCX 400s you ll have to figure out a way to make your computer talk serial if you want to use Deepskyto send it to objects A solution if not a perfect one to this serial problem is a USB to serial converter cable This is a relatively inexpensive little device that takes the USB your computer spits out and translates it to the serial your scope understands and vice versa This is not a perfect solution since not all combinations of USB serial converters scopes and computers work well together What has worked for me is a Belkin USB to L3 Deepsky Database Search Select the fields and the criteria that you would like ta use in your 56 serial cable It s worked reliably with my Toshiba Satellite and my Nexstar 11 and AS GT scopes that is but cannot swear it will work as well for you depending on your type and vintage of gear A little asking around on your particular goto telescopes Yahoo group should get you some answers about what works best with your equipment when it comes to serial interfacing Once you ve got a working link between scope computer everything else is easy Oh you do have to configure 5 but this is simple Just choose Scope and Scope Setup from the menu bar at the top of the Deepsky screen You l be presented with ASCOM s Scope Chooser Select your
32. eye is not centered in the eyepieces you get some color on bright objects A small yellow highlight on the moon s rim When the eye is centered you would be pressed to find any problems and the images appear to be from a much more expensive pair Most scopes have their strong points and weak ones also The major weak spot on these is the Its not that they are bad it s the fact the objective optics are very good and interchangeable eyepieces would greatly extent the ability of the binoculars Well can wish cant The strong attributes are many observing there are objects which telescopes can not touch the view these give The Double Cluster M13 is very surprising M31 shown a dust lane aside was M32 and M110 One night M51 shown better in these than an 11 SCT M42 generated a lot of Response from those who view it NGC 2244 looked nice Weak but M57 can be viewed M27 real nice M7 and M44 better seen through these than any scope have seen through Tr24 is unreal M8 shows some structure and M17 shoes the neck of the swine M36 37 38 and so on A lot of double stars are accessible and looks impressive also Planets limited to Jupiter and Saturn Of course Jupiter shows off its four moons with the NEB SEB clearly seen Saturn shows off its rings can t split them some surface features are also Seen The Moon Full moons are great and just after a new moon
33. f very brief moment of sadness as a lonely Mayo Jar kept on Funk and Wagnall s porch for a fortnight came floating down the muddy river that was once Selma Street and hove itself up in the front yard of the unbowed edifice of Chaos Manor South naturally a quick glance revealed that it contained some Rumours Two down how many to go After several years of being very hot items Russian telescopes seem to have fallen on hard times maybe those dirt cheap good quality Chinese scopes are just too well dirt cheap to compete with Intes beloved for their MCTs MNTs stopped production some time back Now LOMO is out of the amateur scope biz LOMO has not produced telescopes non military that 1s for a few months now If you want one you d better get it now I did not know just how highly the LOMO line was regarded LOMO is still in business but produces 24 military sights military optics and night vision only I always wondered why the heck Meade or Celestron didn t produce a well made inexpensive truss tube dob Well now they ve done it or at least Meade has with the new Lightbridge series These are 8 10 and 12 inch scopes that look something like a cross between one of Meade s old StarFinder jobs particle board rocker box and all and something a wee bit more sophisticated Time will tell how good they are Maybe quite some time Uncle Rod ordered one of the first 12 inch StarFinders back in Ma
34. g As said at the beginning this little guide s purpose is to get you started using this complex program easily doing things in an easy but not necessarily optimum way Once youve got the hang of Deepsky which shouldn t take long you can begin to explore the many rich features this software offers You can learn about them by exploring the User Manual and even better by hanging out on the Deepsky User s Group at http www deepsky2000 net What s left to say How about P KORUNCVORIUNETOIIRISOT Thank you Steve Tuma for giving Select ile tor of telescope you have Ihen be sae To click the amateurs a wonderful program one Piopeslies button to cendigure Ihe droves For pour belescooe which I m sure has helped many of us see far more than we ever dreamed possible Is Deepsky perfect Uh uh As l ve said in every Click the lage te leami more review l ve written no program is about ASCOM a set of But some are better than others Handed lo interoperstion E nr astranamy sor aires What separates the good from the bad in software The author s aei commitment to users Believe me Mssr Tuma who s been steadily improving this program for 10 years has demonstrated this commitment It shows both in the loyalty of his Celestron Driver Setup Scopa Advanced C8 5GT users and in the usefulness of his Has GPS Port
35. he glint of reflected sunlight They look a bit like normal Waves except for their scale These waves were more than a kilometer wide Most satellites have cameras that point straight down From that angle waves are hard to see But MISR is unique in having nine cameras each viewing Earth at a different angle We could see the waves because MISR s forward looking camera caught the reflected sunlight just right Garay explains In another set of images MISR s cameras caught the white foam of tsunami waves breaking off the coast of India By looking at various angles as the Terra satellite passed over the area MISH s cameras snapped seven shots of the Skywatch breaking waves each about a minute apart This gave scientists a unique time lapse view the motion of the waves providing valuable data such as the location speed and direction of the breaking waves Realizing the importance of the find Garay contacted Vasily Titov at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle Washington Titov is a tsunami expert who had made a computer simulation of the Asian tsunami Because the Indian Ocean doesn t have a tsunami warning system hardly any scientific measurements of the tsunami s propagation exist making it hard for Dr Titov to check his simulations against reality Garay explains Our images provide some important data points t
36. higher than 30 degrees in altitude for the time you ve specified Purty simple But what if you want to narrow things down a little That s fairly easy to do by altering your Ranges and Select choices Unless you want to include only the Messiers in Scorpius or any other constellation This is one of the few areas where Deepsky offers no immediately obvious solutions not using Filters Ranges anyway Oddly there s no Messier choice in Select or in any of the program s catalogs menus You can easily display visible Messiers by clicking Whats Up Messier from the Query menu to the right of Prefs in the top of screen menu bar Unfortunately doing that returns all the visible Messiers from all constellations and there s no way to modify What s Up Messier Internet Hep All Laglmages 7 At first was stymied and unhappy over this seeming limitation wanted just the Scorpius Messiers dangit cooled off for a minute did some looking around and manual reading horrors and found that there is an easy way to show single constellation s Messier objects but it involves using the Search function which we ll talk about in a minute rather than filters or wizards or queries And what about the Query function mentioned above You can access this tool either by clicking on the tab next to Sort at the bottom of the spreadsheet or by choosing Query Builder from the
37. ick of the button or if you re working with the Messier list click What s Up Messier again You can avoid this need to estore your spreadsheet by placing your Plan on one of the other tabs 2 3 or 4 if you ve got your working spreadsheet in tab 1 as you normally will have If you place the plan in one of the other tabs you ll be able to toggle back and forth between it and tab 1 without clicking filters or anything else to restore the MB what s Up Wizard 1 Iha ded labons dos inline spes ior Consist ort und doomed a Ard Ar ba lea dm Ng rer ra Dr Bon Ba atas Loi Da dur Fre prat ene Ca Cana Dee D pea Een Le Cep Ce peus Ca Cai nn eed pi wais ho eec Plate 11 spreadsheet Oddly though if you do things this way the program does not place an X in the pln column on your spreadsheet even though it places selected objects in the Plan Keep in mnd that every time you add a new object to your Plan you ll have to click Show Plan again to make the new object appear no matter which tab you ve placed the Plan in Once you ve got a Plan going you can continue to add objects to it either from your original spreadsheet or from new spreadsheets you generate with the What s Up Wizard Filters or queries Once your Plan is complete be SURE to save it If you
38. l at Fishers island brighter and more scattered than Very fine says a quick chart While you can move around and zoom in and out you cant click on objects or perform other interactive operations These buttons are occasionally useful but never operated intuitive manner it seemed to me Yes as above they seemed to sometimes center the chart on the first object in a spreadsheet But several new spreadsheets later they still took me to this initial spot Never did get these buttons quite figured out When wanted a quick chart found it more efficacious just to go to the chart in the object information window by double clicking on one of the DSOs in my spreadsheet Course you re probably a lot smarter than Old Uncle Rod and may be able to figure out what the program does with these buttons couldn t though Interactive Charts is a lot more useful It will display either clickable Williams charts or if you change the default chart type in Prefs to Cartes du Ciel it will bring up that fine program Like the Quick Chart buttons it will center you on the first object in your spreadsheet Unlike Quick Chart was always placed at the first object of spreadsheet my current The next leftside toolbar button is Logbook which as you might expect brings up your logbook which we ll get to after we get in some telescope time The last button What s Up gives you quick acc
39. lds between a 1 4 degree field is appropriate Very simple but quite accurate too About the only change like to see would be adding direct entry for objects catalogs options For example the hand paddles for most current GOTO Scopes have numeric keypads If you want to locate the Orion Nebula you press M 0 4 2 and ENTER or GOTO On the other hand DSCs only have a few buttons and or a dial so you re required to scroll through various items to choose a Mode a Catalog each digit for the object etc etc While it s not as bad as it sounds in actual use l ve had both GOTO and Push To systems and the direct entry method is easier Ironically though because the GOTO scopes slew the telescope slower than you typically move it you wont actually find objects faster with an automated system than you will with a manual system My only real regret is that waited this long to get Digital Setting Circles Skywatch ONE YEAR REVI EW APOGEE 25 x 100 S Joe Rome Well its almost a year and have viewed both sides of the Milky Way now using the Apogee s mammoth 25 X 100 s This pair of binoculars can be used for terrestrial but have only used them for astronomy am part of a group in Austin called the Austin Dam Astronomers They even have a web site where we can plan our weekly gatherings http groups yahoo com group Austi ndamastronomers we congregate at th
40. le longed to try the reducer and Barlow multiplier switches restrained myself wanted to check the optical quality of the diagonal first Out with the Powerswitch In with the Intes 2 incher Back with Powerswitch Vice versa One more time Verdict The Denk was noticeably superior to my enhanced Intes The image was brighter and felt slightly sharper and snappier Yes this hardly quantifies the Powerswitch s optical quality but I ve looked through enough eyepieces over the last 40 years to be able tell when one setup is better than another even if can t quantify squat The Denk was better than the Intes OK back in went the Powerswitch Now have some fun Pushed in the reducer slide Some folks have asked me whether using these slides gives the scope the shimmies It doesnt Not with the NS11 or even with my C8 mounted on its light CG5 mount The action of the Powerswitch slides is not overly easy It can t be you don t want things rattling around and going out of alignment But the action is far from too tight either was somewhat concerned about the action of the switches introducing vibration and checked carefully leaving the Nexstar 11 s vibration suppression pads in the scope case Any shaking caused by sliding the switches in and out was minor and was less than that which would be incurred by inserting or removing a big honkin 2 inch eyepiece What
41. llect is reduced by having to pass through the corrector and be reflected by the surfaces of three mirrors primary secondary and diagonal What this all means is that for us anything that can help our scopes deliver more light is vital sometimes the boost from a high reflectivity diagonal is enough to make the difference between seeing a little sprite of an NGC galaxy and not seeing it Have convinced you to spend the 300 dollar fare required to get a good diagonal If have let me urge you to go just one wee step further Consider spending less than 100 dollars more than that for a diagonal thats so revolutionary it may not only improve your images but also change your eyepiece buying habits and bolster your deep sky observing skills l m talking about the Denkmeier Power x owitch diagonal that s a distinctive name but hope the Denk crew will pardon me if refer to it more simply as the Powerswitch for the rest of this article that rolls off my lazy Southern tongue a little easier What s a Powerswitch The story began quite some time back with a phone call from Russ at Denkmeier He wanted my opinion on the appeal of a diagonal that would alow SCT owners to switch in a reducer or Barlow without removing the eyepiece Mindful of similar gadgets that have come and gone over the years told Russ that thought the idea would fly if the quality were there Now really didnt think l d have anything to wo
42. me maybe by magnitude It s up to you To sort the chart by a particular column value just click on the column heading you re interested in Rise time for example By clicking a second time you can reverse the order ascending descending One annoyance here is that when you sort by M number M100 comes after M10 and you don t get M11 until after M109 M2 After M19 Ah well You ve got bunches of objects displayed and you ve sorted them into some of order that s meaningful to you If you re happy with what s onscreen you could just click the li l printer icon at the screen Plate 9 top left it s a member of a horizontal row of mostly useful and identifiable toolbar icons print the spreadsheet you ve got in front of you If that s what you want that s fine Deepsky does a fine job of printing allowing you to specify just how you want the finished hardcopy to look But I think you ll find that the spreadsheet isn t quite right It either shows too many objects the whole NGC bunch from Scorpius for example some of which are not overly interesting visually or not enough maybe J you re interested in viewing objects Sagittarius What you really want is not a spreadsheet but the aforementioned Plan an Observing Plan Skywatch How do you move choice objects from the spreadsheet and into this hypothetical Plan Not so fast not so fast You may need help deciding if you really want
43. o bring you Yanks down but we hit 85F during the daytime during this first week of November Cool enough at 5 night though Perfect deep sky weather if you ask me he Nexstar and the laptop were booted and ready Where to first The initial entry in the observing list the planning program running on the computer had generated was M13 Why not Bit low but hail how can you pass up Hercules any time he s above the horizon In went the Powerswitch and the 27 Pan didn t use the nicely machined SCT rear port adapter 2 inch visual back that s included with the Powerswitch as use one of the big Eyeopener visual backs on the C11 All had to do was slide the Powerswitch into the Since do mostly visual observing with the NS11 with it set up in alt az mode was a little concerned that the Powerswitch s reducer switch would get in the way of the focus knob and prove irritating see image Not only did it not impede the focus knob it wasn t a bit irritating In fact it actually helped When it s late late late and Old Rod gets a case of the stupids he often has to fumble around to find the focus knob When the reducer switch was extended it helped me easily locate that that elusive control OK click on M13 Telescope slewing says Skytools Slew complete Eye goes to eyepiece Beautiful as always Little teeny stars spilling out of the Pan s field But how beautiful Whi
44. o help make his simulations more accurate By predicting where a tsunami will hit hardest those simulations may someday help authorities issue more effective warnings next time a tsunami strikes Find out more about MISR and see the latest images at www misr jpl nasa gov Kids can read their own version of the MISR tsunami story at http spaceplace nasa gov en kids misr tsunami This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 23 4 LT L P m SN F 1 Jl OEC 3255 9 cu E d Ripple pattern in shallower water near shore My Back Pages Crimson flames tied through my ears Rollin high and mighty traps Pounced with fire on flaming roads Using ideas as my maps We ll meet on edges soon said I Proud neath heated brow Ah but I was so much older then I m younger than that now Comeback Comeback I hope they NEVER come back Word on the street was that those two scoundrels Beavis and Butthead had deserted the Coast in the wake of Katrina Good thing We don t exactly need their bumbling help with reconstruction Seems as their movie career such as it ever was is back on for the moment I wonder though how do you follow up on a title like Beavis and Butthead Do America Be that as it may I felt a brie
45. o the storm and the funky AC after Rod Mollise t xU m pur Tus T BLOODY BUT UNBOWED CHAOS MANOR SOUTH THE DAY AFTER KATRINA SEE http skywatch brainiac com katrina katrina htm FOR MORE PIX
46. of as a third star The accuracy needed for this position is basically equal to what s required for the alignment stars The second critical consideration is that the computer assumes the mount is orthogonal the mechanical and optical axes are perfectly square and or parallel to each other If your mount meets this criterion and you center the alignment stars properly extremely easy using a cross hair you are almost guaranteed excellent results On the other hand if you or your mount dont meet these criteria the phrase vastness of space will take on a brand new meaning for you Once the system has been aligned you choose a Catalog and then select the particular object you want to observe from that catalog You then enter a Guide mode in which the display wil show a set of numbers and arrows The numbers represent how many degrees the telescope is pointing from the object you ve chosen The arrows indicate the direction toward the object For example you might see something like M 057 lt 25 11 This means you would move the telescope 25 degrees left and 11 degrees up to find the Ring Nebula As you move the telescope toward the object the numbers decrease When you get closer than 10 degrees the display changes to read tenths of a degree When both sets of numbers read 0 0 the object should be in the field of a moderate power eyepiece JMI says any eyepiece that yie
47. on the coast where summer nights are rarely cooler than 80F Yes we ve got plenty of air conditioning two massive heat pumps serve Chaos Manor South but grew up mostly without it and can still tolerate the occasional Mobile summer night without it To a certain point Toleration involves an electric fan or at least open windows Unfortunately neither of those things is currently an option l m not going to waste the waning batteries that power the PC and the radio for a few hours of an inverter run fan Open windows We ve installed storm windows to keep the power bills down and apparently something has swollen in the incredible humidity found there was ONE upstairs window that could be opened without doing major damage The night after Katrina tried to sleep Tossed and turned turned and tossed Just too gull derned consarned hot to doze off even with the aid of a shot or three of Rebel Yell Whiskey Decided might as well get up What to do Listen to the same reports on the radio listed to all day the media didn t know much more than we did anyway for the most part we and they were cut off from what the wider world was seeing of the devastation And really couldn t bear to hear another word about how bad things were Well let s see What happens after a major hurricane The power goes out And the cloudy skies usually clear dramatically Well what the hell grabbed a pair of B
48. ork and wonder whether its really worth the trouble to transcribe them into the computer later I ll say it is The main thing that keeps amateur logs from being useful is the fact that its just too hard to find a particular entry for a particular object in the average observer s logbook Sure you can cross index entries on cards like did for years hut that means you must add a note to an index card in addition to making an entry in your log Every time Will you do it every time No didn t anyway Deepsky on the other hand allows you to easily find a log entry using its advanced search tools Paranoid about letting your treasured entries exist on a hard drive Don t be If you re super paranoid like me you can print out each observation Most of you will be OK with just backing up the logbook file occasionally via the Backup Logbook option n the top menus Logbook selection if you re forgetful like am you can set the program to automatically backup your logbook And so we come to the end of a beautiful evening s observing run and our tour of Deepsky Did tell you all there is to know about the program Not hardly didn t even mention the program s online Internet functions Barely touched on the image processing features Skipped over the many logbook options that are available did you know you can keep an unlimited number of different logs on your hard drive But it was not my goal to cover everythin
49. rch of 1994 Said scope arrived on 3 September of that year the day before Uncle Rod and Miss Dorothy got married As you can imagine I at least insisted on opening the box and assembling the scope the evenin before those weddin bells rang Good thing for Rod it was CLOUDY THE FOLLOWING NIGHT One curious thing is why an 8 An 8 inch really isn t much of a candidate for truss tube dom Now a 16 would be a different matter Meade s old 16 inch warhorse cried out for a truss body Well somebody HAS already thought of that Word is that the Chinese are preparing to send 16 inch dobbies truss tube dobbies our way Who in China I ve heard Guan Sheng Skywatch Are Meade s RCX problems over After an exciting introduction Meade s new line of super sophisticated SCTs hit a few snags Main one was trouble with the focus collimation motors that move the secondary to well focus and collimate There have been some problems reported with motor runaway and some folks also reported that focusing changed collimation Last I heard the RC Xes are shipping again so apparently Meade thinks they ve exterminated the bugs Stay tuned The Orion Starshoot camera is finally shipping Those of you who ve been itchin to get your hands on the cooled DSI killer some say from Orion SAC Cyanogen now have your chance Celestron guru Bob Piekiel has a new and greatly expanded edition of his fantastic e book Celestron
50. roversies surrounding these seemingly simple accessories How important is optical quality in diagonals Do you need those new fangled enhanced coatings Why would anybody in her right mind pay 400 bucks for a diagonal to stick in the back of a 1500 dollar Meade or Celestron Cat Before attempt to answer the above questions in my typical feeble and wrongheaded fashion should say that this article is aimed mainly at SCT owners While diagonals are an issue for refractor and MCT users too dont have too much interest in those scopes or an abundance of knowledge about them l m just a simple minded country boy havin a ball with the inexpensive but effective Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope And there are certainly a lot of folks who love SCTs as much as do A quick trot across a club or star party observin field shows that It reveals something else too there are many of us who seem content to stick with the cheap plastic Chinese diagonals Meade and Celestron now throw in the boxes with heir telescopes mm 1 4 a If you ve been working with SCTs for a while you ve probably heard two diametrically opposed opinions when it comes to star diagonals A good diagonal is almost as critical to SCT performance as a good eyepiece and on the other side Look a really lousy diagonal might make a ittle difference in image quality but having an optically perfect star diagonal is not nearly as criti
51. rry about in that regard As most of y all know I m mightily impressed by the quality of the Denkmeier binoviewers I ve gotten in Dutch with the folks moderating at least one online venue for saying that the Denks beat anything else there but thats how I honestly feel Still as said gadgets come and go in amateur astronomy and it s hard to tell what will be genuinely useful and what will be just a gimmick until you get the thing out into the field Sometimes what sounds like a good idea ain t one after all You don t for example see anybody bringing back the Unitron Unihex diagonal do you young sprouts ask an old timer what I m talking about Skywatch Some time and several hurricanes intervened after my conversation with Russ Then one day one of those white Denkmeier boxes arrived at the doorstep of Chaos Manor South You can bet didn t waste any time tearin it open to see what lurked inside which was the beautiful Powerswitch diagonal shown below Man oh man couldn t wait to give it a try Which didn t happen for a long time A little storm called Katrina blew through town you see Gulf Coast folk are hardy souls though and we amateurs down here were not about to let a little thing like a hurricane spoil the fall star party season That being the case took a few days wish it could have been more and headed for the dark skies of the Chiefland Florida Astronomy Village and the
52. s knob R ight when you R aise the magnification with the Barlow and L eft when you L ower it with the reducer What really makes the Denkmeier a worthy addition to your setup Well the optical quality is a factor So is the convenience and novelty of being able to slide a reducer or Barlow into the path of your eyepiece at wil But thats not what makes this such a revolutionary tool for the SCT user What makes this a groundbreaker is the way it changes your observing routine for the better Yes love my eyepieces but not having to hunt for them or go thorough the motions of trading them in and out of the diagonal has improved my visual deep sky results a lot even with just a couple of Powerswitch observing runs under my belt With the Powerswitch my eye stays on the object in the field except for a brief interlude for focusing and am much more inclined to experiment with higher and lower powers on difficult deep sky objects that would otherwise be Yes have been enjoying the deep sky for 40 plus years but have no doubt that this thing has the power to make me better observer it seems as if you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks Did say could have gotten away with bringing just one eyepiece In truth could have The 27mm Panoptic provided roughly 50x 7 100x and 200x a reasonable range for general deep sky observing It was nice having the added top end of the 12mm at
53. splay to arrange things to your liking You ve got a spreadsheet full of Messier objects but these likely don t contain the objects or all the objects youre interested in observing How do get candidate DSOs out of Deepsky s databases and onto the spreadsheet so you can work with them You can do this the easy way with Preferences and Filters or the hard way for some of us computerphobes anyway with queries To use Preferences and Filters to retrieve objects begin by selecting the Filters tab at bottom of spreadsheet The first time you use Deepsky you might want to set minimum altitude here See Plate 9 Entering a figure of 30 for example will exclude all objects that are not at 30 degrees of altitude at the current time Remember of course to reset the program to the time youll be making your observations in the Prefs date time menu if you ve previously told Deepsky to use your PC s system date and time There are several other entries you can make in this window but Altitude is the most important normally also check include altitude azimuth and include rise set times You can leave everything else alone for now Next you ll begin selecting the range of objects that will go into your spreadsheet and onto the screen Click the Select tab which is just to the right of Filters and youll be allowed to choose constellation catalog of objects NGC for example and type
54. t even ask about the humidity Theres no power No gasoline to be had save what s in the tanks of our vehicles Grub The food is whatever s still good as the refrigerator assumes room temperature and those cans of Vienna sausage pronounced vye enna and Chef Boyardee Rod laid in as Katrina approached Our minor discomfort is really nothing of course lt PALES in comparison to what our neighbors in Pascagoula Ocean Springs Biloxi and of course New Orleans are suffering We have the opportunity to setup temporary housekeeping at Dorothy s office at the University of South Alabama however so guilty as we might feel doing so it s hard to resist the lure of the air conditioning hot food and Internet connectivity that we re told awaits us there What have the nights been like Long Quiet Very quiet indeed Except for the passing of an occasional police or National Guard vehicle the streets are silent and deserted a curfew is in effect from dusk until dawn Very dark out 2 there too There are no lights here in the Garden District and don t believe that anybody s got lights across most of the Mobile metro area save those folks prescient enough to buy generators before the storm Perhaps you ll forgive me then if in the midst of all this trouble and suffering started thinking about the night sky Heat is not something that bothers me too much l ve lived the balance of my life down here
55. t lir eer oo rm Ini i x neg am macte am roues fame ere 17 RES etum Time 7 NI 5 ee meme lt I E e Berber Mists edi mi T ree off renal com D eS FG vm Tra ner e wl T suchen entero nio 00 P adu LAST oy oe oe Ai p ETT han bh hay esie LAOS 12 0 Ear EET Den SBS EK ger Cit oe rm SE Plate 22 E M omm Bien pasa See gem Con cur Uem a HA LL E i o sm og Lex es Te eee ses Shwe lames A mam m CR ee Te cw X DNUS T NE n c A Plate 23 In Praise of Digital Setting Circles Don Gallian Recently was forced to spend an entire observing session using my Celestron 11 the Stray CAT without an optical finder OK so did have a red dot and digital setting circles Locating faint fuzzies with a 9foot focal length telescope can be interesting to say the least even using mechanical setting circles and or a finder But digital set
56. t to learn the program s more fleshed out logging features Its a beautiful night One of those rare Summer evenings when the Sky is dark clear and relatively transparent You guide your faithful scope from deep sky wonder to deep sky wonder effortlessly logging marvel after marvel Ah yes logging If you choose to enter your log data as you go along rather than recording it on a piece of paper for later entry and are not using the slideshow logging feature you ll probably want to use Deepsky s outdoor logging system This form shown in Plate 21 is a little less comprehensive than the normal log pages but it has one big advantage mouse use is eliminated and keyboard use is minimized This can be a real help in a dark cramped observatory You can make all the entries on this form with the exception of notes by using the tab arrow and enter keys Tab from entry field to entry field selecting menus with Enter and items to enter with the up and down arrows and the enter key To enter logbook data for an object in your plan just click the obs column and choose the Outside option Once you re back inside you can edit or add to these brief entries using the normal log format which is available from the logbook menu by clicking View Edit Logbook or by clicking the Log button on the leftmost toolbar The logbook entry screen is a form with four tabs The first displays a spreadsheet type display
57. tes telescopes that which you entered into the program during its set up in the Prefs menu When you ve completed all the fields you want to fill in be sure to click the Add or Update button at the window bottom when youre done Luckily if you forget to save a new entry add the program nags you to do so What if youre a CCDer or a confirmed astro sketcher Deepsky makes it easy to append image files to your log entries Hit the View Images tab at the top of the logbook window and you ll be taken to the window shown in Plate 23 To attach an image to an entry just click the little folder icon and browse to its location You ll also find buttons that will let you detach an image from an entry and perform simple image processing functions What kinds of images Most popular 17 file formats are supported though fits is unfortunately not among them If your files are in this format you ll need to convert them before placing them in your log Naturally if you ve done a sketch you ll have to get it onto your hard drive via a scanner before you can add it to the logbook Once it s scanned you ll be able to attach your drawing to an entry like any other image That s really all there is to logging Open your plan click on the obs column for the objects youve observed and enter your notes What s that you say Cool Breeze You don t want to record your observations on a computer outside as you w
58. ting circles make it really easy Every object looked for appeared in the degree field of the 24mm TeleVue Wide Field was using happen to have a JMI NGC MAX setup but most contemporary DSCs are similar in features and accuracy Prices vary depending on the particular installation the components included the size of the database the feature set and the retailer manufacturer JMI s complete installation costs 628 including shipping so it s not exactly cheap But as the name implies everything is included plus i s simple to install The C11 kit consists of all required hardware encoders cables a manual a short video and the MAX computer all neatly packed in a foam lined box Purchasing additional hardware would also allow the same computer to be used on multiple telescopes if one desired It is not necessary to polar align or even level the tripod to get accurate results know because did neither And of course DSCs work with either equatorial or alt azimuth telescopes 20 There are two critical considerations that apply to all DSCs however first is the initial position of the mount You must be able to precisely set the declination altitude axis either to 0 or 90 depending on your setup If this position is more than 1 2 off you wont be able to find much of anything While only one or two stars are used to align a DSC computer the initial 0 90 point might be thought
59. to spare and precious little hope Even now as Christmas approaches while things are incalculably better there are still plenty of people suffering all across the Coast What do we want y all to do Above all just lend us a kindly ear or two We know our hurricane stories are depressing and after four months are beginning to bore But please just isten to us That helps almost as much as a FEMA trailer In fact that helps more than almost anything you can do for us Uncle Rod How Uncle Rod Survived the Chiefland Star Party with Only Two Eyepieces Multiply Your Observing Pleasure with Denkmeier Power X Switch Rod Mollise And could probably have done it with one No you can t have the rest of my collection of Naglers and Panoptics but I ll admit that thanks to the Denk Power x Switch diagonal could probably live without most of them now I m getting way ahead of the story though something seem to do when I m excited about a new astro product Before talking about this new creation from the Denkmeier gang we need to discuss a subject that s caused plenty of arguments among amateur astronomers in the virtual astronomy hangouts Yahoo and sci astro amateur and down at non virtual local astronomy clubs diagonals You know the little devices that bend the light coming out the back of your scope in a 90 degree angle so you can view in comfort There are plenty of questions and cont
60. to explain it Steve has figured a way to make the paddle send instructions to the PC anyway Set up the slide show as per the instructions and with a couple of button presses on the hand control you can make the LX200 slew to each succeeding object in your spreadsheet plan Not only that you can set it to automatically fill in log data If that ain t the cats meow don t know what is Obviously Deepsky has a lot of goto functionality and at first blush It all Seems somewhat overwhelming Luckily the ASCOM program provides a telescope simulator so you can figure out how the computer end of everything works inside in the daytime Just select Simulator from the ASCOM menu of scope choices There are a couple of gotchas here You must unpark the scope by clicking on the Park button on the simulator control panel and you must also check the Track box on this same simulated hand controller If you don t nothing much will happen other than the appearance of error windows when you try to slew the scope What now What like to do is just slew from object to object via Slideshow filling in the simplified log fields what Steve calls generic log fields as go Thats more than good enough for simple little me But if you yearn for a more formal type of log or if you re one of those folks who eschews goto and wants to initially record observations on paper for transfer to Deepsky s logs later youll wan
61. urgess 15x70s and the Orion otarBlast richfield Newtonian scope and headed for the backyard Very carefully As you can see from the picture out back was mostly mud and downed tree limbs Once found a relatively clear spot looked up What did see The Cygnus Cepheus stretch of Milky Way just bout put my pore peepers out mean blazing folks preternaturally bright TSP bright Maybe it was just my fevered brain s imagination kickin into four wheel drive or maybe the powerful winds of Katrina did bore a hole in our area s usually hazy late summer skies Whatever spent the next several hours traveling up and down the Milky Way in style could have wrestled a C8 into the yard but there was really no need to Hell the litle 4 inch StarBlast returned views that reminded me of what a 12 inch can do from Prude Ranch on a good evenin For example The North America Nebula was as prominent as l ve ever seen it in a four inch scope Were those wisps the Pelican Folks this was without an OIII filter The scope view was nice and the 15x70s delivered a 3D panorama of the celestial Swan but almost more impressive was the view with my unaided eyes What was that to the northeast The Double Cluster looking as good without any optical aid as it does from any dark site and no lie seeming to easily compete with the 10x50 binoc views usually have from the suburbs stayed with the magic sky until d
62. ven fancier Instead of clicking Print Blank Logsheet click Print Logsheet for All Objects Spreadsheet When you do that Deepsky produces log pages for all the objects in your Plan with pertinent information like object names and positions already filled in If you re like me though you ve had enough of paper log pages analog setting circles TELRADs and dim finder scopes You ve decided to go x E pa ams mE n nmm oe whole hog with computerized amateur astronomy In that case get the scope outside grab your laptop and lets click our way to deep sky nirvana Since Deepsky uses the stable and well designed ASCOM interface to talk to goto scopes much of the pain of getting a goto instrument working with Deepsky has been eliminated In fact the main problem is not configuring your scope or configuring your computer Its hooking the two together What s the problem there Take a look at your laptop At the rear panel of the computer What do you see USB ports Yep A parallel port Maybe A serial RS 232 port Probably not Not if your computer is less than a year or two old PC makers have recently chosen to eliminate serial ports especially those on laptops and for good reason The serial interface is slow Skywatch and very few peripherals use it anymore Except telescopes Unfortunately scope makers are way behind the computer makers when it comes to i o issues With one exception

Fall 2005/Winter 2006 - Uncle Rod`s Astroland

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