Starmap, DSO map dewshield

[Miaplacidus]

What to do when the weather turns bad? Turn your ETX into a mini-Questar by making a starmap dewshield for it. No longer do I have to worry about forgetting my starcharts. The little GOTO has everything I need right there, wrapped around the OTA. Extend the dewshield and I have a map of over 500 double stars listed by their SAO number (Ving take note), extend it further and I have every DSO listed in Hartung that is observable from my latitude.

Jealous?

[janoskiss]

Sure looks the part. Try it out under the stars yet?

[iceman]

That's a fantastic idea, well done! Looks great.

[ving]

:lol:
I love it when my name pops up, i get such a big head!!! :P

very interesting idea :) do they come in 8" ;)

[Miaplacidus]

Ving, Ving, Ving, Ving, Ving, Ving..... :cool3:

I'm working on it, David, something similar for my dob. Mainly useful only if you've got something like an Argo Navis preloaded with SAOs, I would have thought. (Picture me polishing my fingernails on my lapel.) I've got a similar A3 chart of double stars though, if you want to try that.

[Miaplacidus]

I tried it out night before last, Steve. No problems at all. (And no dew, either!)

I've had the charts for a while, they make it easy to hop from one object to the next closest. Much more detail than a planisphere, and it has the advantage of not having to look at it with your neck craned backwards. I usually start with the furthest north and work my way southwards, SYNCing on each one as I go. I never lose alignment that way, and GOTOs remain very accurate all the way across the sky. The main problem is perhaps psychological, in that I sometimes neglect to spend enough time simply looking at some objects. Also, 5-10 % of SAO stars on my list aren't in the Autostar's database. (A good argument for Meade to add flash memory to it.)

Cheers,

Brian.