RE: (SNES) Star hopping with a Dob

["Bartolini, David E (David)" <dbartolini@lucent.com>]

Gary,

I have a big dob with DSC's and GOTO. I find that I almost always use the
GOTO when I observe at public events, while I almost never use the
electronics when I observe by myself. In fact, I haven't recharged the
batteries since I was down at FDO in the spring. 

It's nice to be able to hit GOTO when someone comes up and asks "can I see
xxx?". It is usually a Messier or a brighter NGC object, so it is obvious
when it is in the eyepiece. Also, with my GOTO setup, the motor tracks the
object, so I don't have to keep repositioning the scope. 

However, when I'm on my own, I find that starhopping (through the eyepiece
in my particular case) keeps me mentally grounded in terms of where I am in
the sky. I also tend to focus on one particular area of the sky and look for
as many faint fuzzies in the area as I can locate. I find it easier to pick
out the REALLY faint ones if I move on them while star hopping rather than
GOTO. In a few cases where I used GOTO, I had to move the object in and out
of the FOV before I could detect that it was actually there.

Good luck with your 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: gary_a_weston@us.ibm.com [mailto:gary_a_weston@us.ibm.com]
> 
> Hi Doug,
> 
> I think my desire to do more star hopping comes from the 
> sense of missing 
> something when I go out observing.  Just looking at an object 
> and moving 
> to the next automatically makes me feel like I miss 
> everything in between. 
>  Its hard to explain really.. but at times it seems like i'm 
> looking at a 
> map, in a sense, and have no idea where the heck I am.  For 
> me at least, I 
> feel getting a bit more manual may help me see more, and 
> learn more about 
> the sky.  There is also the chance to stumble across 
> something.  I always 
> have a blast when I see something and have no idea what it 
> is.. then I go 
> poking around in my charts trying to figure it out.   This 
> doesn't mean 
> i'm going to stop using goto!  It just means that i'll adjust how I 
> observe depending on my mood and the circumstances.
> 
> Best,
> Gary
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