Radio-Sky Free Sidereal Clock

[glenc]

I tried this out and it works ok for me.
Hope it does not contain a virus.

http://www.radiosky.com/sidclockdownload.html

The sidereal clock calculates the local mean sidereal time (LMST) based upon the computers local clock, the user's time zone, and the user's longitude.

To configure the clock RIGHT click the digit display and select Configure from the drop down menu.. A small configuration screen appears.

Manual Time Zone Configuration - Deselect Detect TZ Automatically if necessary. Enter your time zone in hours variance from GMT (UT) . For example if your local time runs 6 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, you would enter -6. If your time preceded GMT by two hours you would enter 2. If Daylight Savings Time is in effect for your location you must take this into account.
Longitude - Your longitude may be entered as a decimal value or as a sexagesimal value (HH:MM:SS format). West longitude values increase as you travel west from Greenwich England. Press the W-E button next to the longitude box to display/enter the longitude in East longitude values.
Colors - Click on the colored boxes to change the digit or background color of the clock.
Font - Click the Font button to change the style and size of the font used for the clock digits. The size of the clock should automatically adjust to the Font after you update. Implemented in version 1.6.0 and above.

[glenc]

A Crazy Idea? or a Cheap GoTo Scope?

If you set your telescope up so that it can only point to the meridian and so that you can only move it from due north to due south through the zenith you can find objects using this sidereal clock and a large circle on your telescope that gives declination.

The objects RA would be given by the sideral clock and its declination by the circle on your telescope.

You could then take a list of objects with their RA and dec and look at them one by one as they transit.

The telescope must be set up to follow the meridian exactly.
The declination circle must be accurate and you only get a short time to view each object, but you do get to see it at its highest point.

[sheeny]

Glen,

Here's another one I wrote a little while ago...

http://alsworld.topcities.com/astro/AlsClock.htm

Al.

[glenc]

Lacaille (1751-2), James Dunlop (1826) and John Herschel (1834-8) discovered most of the NGC clusters, nebulae and galaxies in the far southern sky. Their telescopes (0.5", 9" and 18.5" respectively) were set up to sweep along the meridian. Each north-south sweep was about 3 degrees long in declination. When they found an object they recorded the time when it transited and its declination using a graduated circle. To improve their accuracy they included stars with known RA in their sweeps. When Dunlop made the first maps of the LMC and SMC he stopped sweeping and just let the cloud drift by while he recorded the time and the distance north or south from the centre of his eyepiece field for each new object as it drifted by.

[iceman]

Don't forget there's the "Your Zones" clock on the left hand side.. click "Customise" and you can add "astronomical" timezones such as local sidereal, GMT, etc.

[glenc]

Thanks Mike