11 replies to this topic

[rmorein]

Back in the day, I stood outside with my Edmund Scientific planisphere and penlight, hoping to the Orion nebula with ease. In a new approach, I have been assembling a real telescope, with a high end goto mount and a bunch of high quality filters, to do  EAA. Last night, I went into the back yard to sniff around with my ancient night vision device. There was no moon. In the old days, the light have would have limited magnitude, but not prevented orientation. Last night, it resulted in a blank, luminous sky. And I live in a suburb!

 

I used my ancient NV monocular to verify that the rest of the universe had not vanished. Even without filters, it showed me some stars and even one extended object. But I can't navigate the sky with the narrow view of a NV device.

 

This is disappointing, because I hoped to use my goto mount in an informal fashion. The techno-solution involves use of a laptop, mini-pc, or Asiair type of device to automate finding objects. I find listening to the whine of servo motors less engaging than the old way of star-hopping, with a paper atlas, using relative RA and dec for final approach. "Goto" is more productive and less fun. And I have a classic scope that lacks goto.

 

I'm wondering if there is an intermediate approach. An atlas for a tablet, with a library that can provide RA and dec for manual entry by the hand controller?

Edited by rmorein, 22 September 2024 - 11:34 PM.

[matt_astro_tx]

I'm wondering if there is an intermediate approach. An atlas for a tablet, with a library that can provide RA and dec for manual entry by the hand controller?

Absolutely there is.  I have two apps on my iPhone: Night Sky, which is ok, and Stellarium, which is much more powerful but has less slick of an interface.  If I'm surfing around for a target to shoot I will generally use Night Sky to see what's up to the East.  Then by clicking on an object it will give me the RA/DEC as long as that object is in the free catalog.  If it's not then I just google the target and get the coordinates that way.

 

Now for actually navigating to the coordinates I have an ASIAir which helps tremendously, but as long as you're properly aligned the hand controller should work just fine!

[Dobs O Fun]

I have Stellarium.  I live in a heavily LP area.  What I like is that I can set brightness and magnitude to match (as much as possible) my sky.  It took some time but now I have a reference that can match, plus or minus.  So what I see on my screen is close to what I see in the sky.

[44maurer]

Check out SkySafari

 

https://skysafariastronomy.com/ 

[rmorein]

I installed Stellarium and the upgrade. It works smoothly.  However, it has some lacks for my particular problem:

 

Inability to mark more than one object at a time.

 

Marked lists, like "all Messier" would be a great help.

 

Choice of a fixed perspective, with fixed rotation around Polaris.

 

"Plan ahead" view, anticipating a fixed time in the future..

 

Star colors depicted.

 

Popup images of DSOs.for recognition.

 

???

[UnityLover]

Strange, even In bortle 8 skies like my house you can still see the brighter stars, and even 3rd-4th magnitude stars.
Could've been horrible transparency.

[UnityLover]

I installed Stellarium and the upgrade. It works smoothly.  However, it has some lacks for my particular problem:

 

Inability to mark more than one object at a time.

 

Marked lists, like "all Messier" would be a great help.

 

Choice of a fixed perspective, with fixed rotation around Polaris.

 

"Plan ahead" view, anticipating a fixed time in the future..

 

Star colors depicted.

 

Popup images of DSOs.for recognition.

 

???

Stellarium desktop (if that's what you're using)
Has most of these. 
You can change lists, by going into sky and viewing options and unmarking all but messier, or ngc, or whatever. 
You can center on an object and even if you change the time it wont move.
You can change time, if that's what you mean by the plan ahead view, Ive looked days in the future, even months.

Star colors are shown, but not to the best degree.
Popup images aren't there though.

If you mean a mobile app, sky safari has them all except the multi-select. I use celestron sky portal, which is powered by sky safari.

I normally use it in inverse monochrome mode, since its like my star charts that way.

[rmorein]

Strange, even In bortle 8 skies like my house you can still see the brighter stars, and even 3rd-4th magnitude stars.
Could've been horrible transparency.

That's what it is, moisture induced haze, which reflects light sources. Togetfher, they increase the effective Bortle.

[UnityLover]

That's what it is, moisture induced haze, which reflects light sources. Togetfher, they increase the effective Bortle.

Aight, its just transparency. Ive seen it before, so if that happens you just dont observe. It isnt very common for me, only 10 nights per year MAX, excluding cloudy nights.

[Tony Flanders]

Last night, ((the light)) resulted in a blank, luminous sky. And I live in a suburb!

I'm curious about this statement. The only times I've ever seen a blank sky at night were when the sky was overcast or heavily obscured by smoke or other pollution. In which case I'm not eager to do astronomy at all.

Even when I'm standing under the lights of a major avenue in midtown Manhattan, I can still see planets and first-magnitude stars quite easily.

Do you think your problem is caused by failing vision, light pollution, or abysmal transparency?

[rmorein]

I'm curious about this statement. The only times I've ever seen a blank sky at night were when the sky was overcast or heavily obscured by smoke or other pollution. In which case I'm not eager to do astronomy at all.

Even when I'm standing under the lights of a major avenue in midtown Manhattan, I can still see planets and first-magnitude stars quite easily.

Do you think your problem is caused by failing vision, light pollution, or abysmal transparency?

Since I can see everything around me sort of like it's Times Square, vision is not an issue. The sky is BRIGHT. It appears to be a the synergistic effect of a layer of haze, characteristic of the Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania, which reflects light from a neighboring urban area. One respondent suggested simply skipping such nights. Unfortunately, a hazeless sky is a rare exception. The Delaware Valley is a notably low wind area,  except for the occasional tornado.

 

I was comforted by the fact that I accidentally pointed my NV monocular at something which appears to be M31, and it was quite prominent.The haze is so uniform, it did not completely disrupt observation of this DSO. So filters with NV offer some  hope for a surrogate experience.

 

I'll be  in midtown Manhattan soon. I'll look up.

Edited by rmorein, 25 September 2024 - 03:14 PM.

[Sebastian_Sajaroff]

Strange, even In bortle 8 skies like my house you can still see the brighter stars, and even 3rd-4th magnitude stars.
Could've been horrible transparency.

That’s right. Fog, cirrus, smog, ashes, haze can kill the view