13 replies to this topic

[wopacker]

Got a new Sky Watcher 10 and took it out for the 1st time last night and broke out the old Edmonds Sky Chart to help me remember the star names. They haven't changed since 1970! Ordered this not long after Christmas 1969 when I got my Sears 6333, the best Christmas gift I ever got.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[Chris MN]

Looks alot like my old "Star Explorer" from the early 70's!

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 

[wopacker]

Looks alot like my old "Star Explorer" from the early 70's!

I had one of those too! Maybe it'll show up one day, I moved after 31 yrs at the same place and some stuff got 'misplaced'.

[deSitter]

I made my own using the stereographic projection, which maps all circles of any size on the sky into circles on a plane (conformal map of sphere to plane) - including the horizon, so mine was tailor-made to my latitude. Because circles are still circles, they can be easily drawn with a compass. I highly recommend this project as a fun way to get really in touch with how the sky works.

 

-drl

[starfinder123123]

I made my own using the stereographic projection, which maps all circles of any size on the sky into circles on a plane (conformal map of sphere to plane) - including the horizon, so mine was tailor-made to my latitude. Because circles are still circles, they can be easily drawn with a compass. I highly recommend this project as a fun way to get really in touch with how the sky works.

 

-drl

This is amazing! We are so spoiled by the tech nowadays.

[deSitter]

This is amazing! We are so spoiled by the tech nowadays.

 

I might be inspired to write the various equations needed to determine the radius of the circles needed and where to put the centers. They are not at all complicated. Just some trig function evaluation.

 

-drl

[brian dewelles]

I made my own using the stereographic projection, which maps all circles of any size on the sky into circles on a plane (conformal map of sphere to plane) - including the horizon, so mine was tailor-made to my latitude. Because circles are still circles, they can be easily drawn with a compass. I highly recommend this project as a fun way to get really in touch with how the sky works.

 

-drl

I made a plainisphere when I was 11, it was from the boy scout, astronomy merit badge guide. It was pretty much my first official act in the hobby.

[Terra Nova]

Looks alot like my old "Star Explorer" from the early 70's!

I still have an Edmund one just like that! I also still have the Edmund Sidereal Time slide rule.

Edited by Terra Nova, 29 April 2025 - 05:00 PM.

[B 26354]

I still have the green-and-black cardboard one that I bought at Pittsburgh's Buhl Planetarium in the early 1950s. Tried to find it this morning... but it's in a box, "somewhere" in my house.  

Edited by B 26354, 29 April 2025 - 02:38 PM.

[deSitter]

I still have the green-and-black cardboard one that I bought at Pittsburgh's Buhl Planetarium in the early 1950's. Tried to find it this morning... but it's in a box, "somewhere" in my house.  

 

Wow I think that is the earliest date I've yet heard mentioned for a starting point.

 

-drl

[B 26354]

Wow I think that is the earliest date I've yet heard mentioned for a starting point.

 

-drl

Yeah... my dad started taking me to the Sunday afternoon "sky shows" at the planetarium when I was about eight years old (1952), and that's what sparked my life-long obsession with astronomy and telescopes.

 

[LukaszLu]

An interesting example from the other side of the globe.

 

At the end of the 70s, a chart made of plastic was published in the GDR. Elements with a diameter of 30 cm (~12 inches) had a quite durable screen print, which survived for several decades despite quite intensive abrasion. It was my favorite rotary chart, which outclassed typical charts with a paper envelope because it also shows the area that would appear in the sky in some time. This definitely improves orientation in the sky.

 

The same, no longer operating publisher (Johann Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig) also offered a classic sky atlas visible in the photo under the rotary chart. Interestingly, its cards also had transparent plastic dividers, on which you could make handwritten markings and notes. The publications were prepared by Dr. Siegfried Marx and Dr. Werner Pfau from Karl Schwarzschild Observatorium Tautenberg (Jena).

 

The chart was developed in Jena in 1979:

 

Edited by LukaszLu, 03 May 2025 - 06:46 PM.

[luxo II]

The chart was developed in Jena in 1979:

LOL... he copied the Phillips Planisphere, these appeared in 1910...

https://collection.s...ips-planisphere

 

The "planisphere" is much, much older than that however - it dates back to at least 200 BC as the "planispheric astrolabe", invented by either Eudoxus of Cnidus (a Greek mathematician), Hypatia (a Greek astronomer) or Vitruvius (a Roman architect and engineer)

 

In the bronze-age these were an essential tool for night-time navigation at sea across the Mediterranean.

 

Claudius Ptolemy also used this projection for maps around 200AD.

 

And I had a couple of Phillips (plastic) Planispheres as a kid in the 1960s,

Edited by luxo II, 03 May 2025 - 07:31 PM.

[LukaszLu]

oh those Germans... :-)