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"No one" = one heck of a lot of people.

This is no more true than:

"If we ran out of wood for sliderules no one would know how to figure out logarithms or cube roots..."

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I didn't start this rabbit trail but I just can't resist going down it.

First, I'll guarantee that the set of people who know how to calculate cube roots or logarithms on paper is not empty.

BUT, I don't have a whole lot of confidence that this set contains "one heck of a lot of people," at least not in the sense that it includes a majority of amateur astronomers. That's not a slam on anyone's intelligence or skills. My experience was that taking cube roots was taught for a week or so in the 7th grade and that was it. Taking logarithms without any computer aid (including slide rules) requires knowledge of Taylor's Series (or McClurin's Series which is a Taylor's series with the reference constant set to 0) and how to compute them. Also, McClurin's Series for ln(1+x) converges slowly, making the calculation of logarithms quite a job....

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming....

Edited by Mark Costello (03/22/12 05:29 PM)

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No think to it, Jon. I go to far more star parties than the average person, since I am asked to speak at quite a few (who knows why?)

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Mysterious indeed - perhaps the attendees use of go-to has something to do with it.

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I don't care if someone starhops. It's only when they tell me I have to, or look down on those who do not ("Please ask someone else to locate a pair of guide stars for them.") that my foolishness meter pegs.

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As I have OFTEN said, "The most wonderful rule about practicing amateur astronomy? There are no rules."

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Maybe they would be MORE than happy to be out of earshot from you.

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Maybe they would be MORE than happy to be out of earshot from you.

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As I have OFTEN said, "The most wonderful rule about practicing amateur astronomy? There are no rules."

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Quite so - but only if one wishes to pursue astronomy in a desultory, aimless fashion.

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Wow.

I wonder if I sounded like that decades ago when the old "c.w. versus phone" controversy threatened to split the amateur radio community. Some of us were so arrogant that we felt qualified and entitled to judge the seriousness and dedication of other hobbyists by whether their particular interests and skill sets happened to align with our own. I suppose I did sound like that. If so, I regret it and I'm not proud of it. If there's anyone here who knew me then, please accept my apology.

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As I have OFTEN said, "The most wonderful rule about practicing amateur astronomy? There are no rules."

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Quite so - but only if one wishes to pursue astronomy in a desultory, aimless fashion.

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Wow.

I wonder if I sounded like that decades ago when the old "c.w. versus phone" controversy threatened to split the amateur radio community. Some of us were so arrogant that we felt qualified and entitled to judge the seriousness and dedication of other hobbyists by whether their particular interests and skill sets happened to align with our own.

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That would seem a bit arrogant... thankfully, I am not engaging in any such behaviour. What I am attempting to communicate is that one gets out of amateur astronomy what one puts into it, and not in a dollar sense, mind you...

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I suppose I did sound like that. If so, I regret it and I'm not proud of it. If there's anyone here who knew me then, please accept my apology.

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It takes a big man to say he's sorry - you have my respect.

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Hey, we can disagree and still have fun... no hard feelings here!

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Right on.

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I wonder where the idea got started that you can't star-hop with a goto scope? I do it frequently; my scope has a finder, and what else is different except you're letting the motor move the scope instead of your hands?

I also just drift along the Milky Way sometimes. But one thing is different: if I come upon some unexpected gem, a colored double or something, I can identify it quickly by the coordinates displayed on my hand controller!

Yup, there's no downside to goto scopes in my book!

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If you have a problem with the electronics, that's where the problem is. Or if the scope has a crummy finder since you "only need it to align the scope". And they don't have slow-motion controls - for a lot of scopes that makes it very frustrating or impossible to find things.

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Well, sure. But I was only talking about the myth that somehow star-hopping can't be done with a goto telescope. Any scope can have a bad finder. Solution: get a better one. And no hand slo-mo controls are needed - you have the motors!
(However, Meade SCTs do have slo-mo controls.)

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I wonder where the idea got started that you can't star-hop with a goto scope? I do it frequently; my scope has a finder, and what else is different except you're letting the motor move the scope instead of your hands?

I also just drift along the Milky Way sometimes. But one thing is different: if I come upon some unexpected gem, a colored double or something, I can identify it quickly by the coordinates displayed on my hand controller!

Yup, there's no downside to goto scopes in my book!

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Geesh...gone for a few days and this thread has exploded. Hard to keep up.

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If they insist on owning a whirring monstrosity of a go-to telescope, which robs them of a truly intimate knowledge of the heavens, they are welcome to it...

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I don't understand how this statement can really be true. We can get a truly intimate knowledge of the heavens in a lot of different ways, not just by starhopping. Anyway, starhopping may be one of the most tedious and difficult ways to learn what's up there. I've spent my fair share of time starhopping to faint blobs, and I can tell you I didn't learn that much in the process because a good portion of the time I've come up empty handed and unable to find the object. What do we learn during that process? Uh...the object may be there, but then again it might not be? Or, maybe it's too faint to see in my telescope and sky conditions? Or maybe I just didn't look in the right place after 30 minutes of searching. Hmmm....can you say 'frustration'?

No, gimme a good old fashioned goto telescope. Ahh, that's better. Now I can find the object I'm looking for without loosing any more hair.

Patrick

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Patrick:

- I do not recommend Starhopping to anyone who doesn't enjoy Starhopping. This thing we do is a hobby and it is supposed to be fun.

I think for someone who does not truly enjoy starhopping, it is difficult to understand that some of us just really enjoy it. It's a different paradigm, a different mind set. If your goal is to look at specific objects from a list, GOTO is probably faster, at least in the beginning, and can allow you to spend more time looking at specific objects on that list.

For me, I just truly enjoy starhopping... I like the simplicity and freedom. I enjoy scanning the sky and "discovering" objects and identifying them rather than working only from a list. I enjoy digging back into my mind and finding an object once again by remembering exactly how to find it...

Starhopping, one learns the sky on a different scale, a different level, than one does using DSCs or GOTO. It maybe in bits and pieces, especially at first, but those bits and pieces slowly come together one develops an intimate knowledge of many parts of the sky, it is just a natural result of the process...

Last night I was able to zero in on the faint nebulosity in NGC 2467 in Puppis from my light polluted backyard. It's 30 degrees above the horizon at best and in the muck of light pollution. It is an object I had first "discovered" just wandering around from a dark site with a larger scope, but last night, with an O-III filter and my NP-101 I put it right in the eyepiece just because I knew exactly how to find it.

Rod likes to think that starhopping is unpopular and I imagine he is right for those who frequent this forum. In general "Cats and Casses" are poorly suited for starhopping because their long focal lengths and slow focal ratios make for narrow fields of view that typically are quite dim. The maximum well illuminated TFoVs associated with a C-8 are narrower than those of a 16 inch F/4.4 Newtonian...

Starhoppers typically choose fast scopes because they provide bright widefield views, an advantage both in locating a target but also well suited for just scanning the sky and looking around. The refractor forum and the reflector forum is where starhoppers are more likely to hang out. Starhopping ain't that big a deal with fast 4 inch refractor with a 4+ degree TFoV.

One of my favorite things to do is to just put in a ~30mm 2 inch widefield eyepiece in a fast Newtonian and just work my way in broad strokes through the summer Milky Way, the myriad of small objects, the valleys and mountains of nebulosity, it is just pure visual pleasure. It's like wandering around with a pair of binoculars, but those big bright views that are detailed on a fine scale.

So, if Starhopping is only a means to an end and not part of the joy of the observing, forget it, if it's not fun, it's not worth doing.

On the other hand, there are many who enjoy it. And it's not just us old geezers. My observing buddy, he's no luddite. If you have a CDMA phone, it is most likely he developed the lowest level software that talks to the actual silicon chips. He has a XT-10i, never used the Intelliscope.. My other buddy, he had a Nexstar 11. It's gone in favor of a big dob and some smaller Newts and refractors...

There are many ways to enjoy this hobby. Discovering what I enjoyed about amateur astronomy was really the key that transformed an enjoyable experience into a passion. Hopefully each of has been able to do that, whatever it might be.

Jon

P.S.: One doesn't spend 30 minutes looking for an object with GOTO, if you don't see it in a few minutes of looking, you know it is not there to be seen. The same is true of Starhopping.

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Jon,

I was responding to the notion that using a goto scope would somehow create an obstacle to 'gaining a true knowledge of the universe'. In the first place, any dedicated amateur astronomer worth his salt is not just going to use a goto scope and not LOOK UP. The first telescope(s) we're going to use are OUR EYES. We can see where the scope is pointed and get an idea of where the object we're looking at is located relative to other objects. It's a fun pursuit to try to get perspective on the night sky that way.

Secondly, a good pair of binoculars is a great complement to ANY telescope. If I'm going to cruise the Milky Way looking for objects, 9 times out of 10 it'll be with a pair of giant binocs, not a telescope. For such scanning, even a Newt can be way too restricting for me. If I find something interesting, I'll take a look at it with the scope.

I agree with you that there are many ways to enjoy this hobby. Find what works and go with that.

Patrick

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I wonder where the idea got started that you can't star-hop with a goto scope? I do it frequently; my scope has a finder, and what else is different except you're letting the motor move the scope instead of your hands?

I also just drift along the Milky Way sometimes. But one thing is different: if I come upon some unexpected gem, a colored double or something, I can identify it quickly by the coordinates displayed on my hand controller!

Yup, there's no downside to goto scopes in my book!

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I guess you can starhop with a GOTO scope but when I have tried it, I have found it much more difficult and much slower than just doing it manually. It is lacking the simplicity and freedom, for example, very few GOTO scopes can be used effectively without power.

So I would say that while you can starhop with a GOTO to scope, if your goal is to star hop, simpler scopes are more effective. And too, part of the joy of starhopping is the lack of baggage.

As far as identifying an object by pushing the button, personally part of the joy of discovering a new object is going through the process of figuring out what it was I just saw, inverse starhopping, the other side of the coil.

But whatever works for you...

Jon

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Jon,
I can't argue with a single thing you said! I enjoy all those things about star hopping as well, and agree that it's easier to do with a manual scope.
We should all have both types, so we can enjoy the pleasures of each whenever we want.

There's no right or wrong here, no reason at all for anyone to disagree. It's all just glass pointed at the sky. All the rest is technique, and that's a personal thing for each of us. Personally, I like it all.

But completely undriven mounts tend to be the least fun for me. I think clock drives are key.

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So I see GOTO scopes as a wonderful option and aid.

Refusal to use available tools to make the task easy and more productive is no way to advance in any field.

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But completely undriven mounts tend to be the least fun for me. I think clock drives are key.

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....just point the scope randomly at the sky and hit identify and the scope surprises you with the nearest object....

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Reeeeeeally. That's an interest little fact.

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