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Hi Terry - I wasn't going to respond to this subject again untill they'd undone the straps on the special jacket they've got me in and let me out of solitary confinement: but I now understand the blank post Outbackmanyep sent me with the little "teleporting man " icon - it really was a cryptic message!
Ignoring the (more obvious) possibility that it was a rude response based on a poor opinion of my DX3-bred faculties: I must now conclude Outbackmanyep was secretly telling me that some other (weird?) person would soon be teleported along to enable us to expand our various perspectives.
Terry, one of the understandings I evolved as I debunked (with Gary's erudite assistance) my "nonsensical" RA circles (you got that didn't you Outbackmanyep - I called them "nonsensical") was that even if I levelled the baseboard, drew a line on the revolving (azimuth) board of the dob that was aligned with the scope's optical axis and aligned that geo North-South and marked off my RA circle from this - it would be meaningless and afford no benefit because the altitude (declination) axis of a dob is directly above and moving in a manner such that it (the declination/altitude movement) can NOT slew along any particular Hour Angle but merely bisect it at a very arbitrary (for the purpose of targetting) point in the sky. An EQ mount has a polar aligned azimuth/RA axis and an altitude/dec axis set at 90 degrees to it, allowing movement in a plane parallel to the polar axis (ie describing Hour Angles.)
I'm not in agreement re the stars presenting elliptical paths across the sky: setting the Declination on an EQ allows the Polar aligned azimuth axis to define/track any night object's circular passage from East to West via that axis' single revolving movement - but what I think is important for me to recognize in your own (ie Terry's) mental imagery is that, like mine, some points are rather abstruse to express (without modelling) and we may mangle parts of the logic but we do arrive at a somewhat intuitive appreciation of the interacting mechanics of the sky and any mounts we use to observe. Far more interesting from my perspective than just accepting rote-like what this or that represents or facilitates. (Getting into the mental gymnastics as Gary said!)
To this end I can only say to Netwolf that I suggest you obtain a model of my world (they are plentiful this time of year in Oz - there is a ritual about to start called "The Australian Open" where - from an inhabitant of DX3 point of view - disrespectfull things are done to representations of our homeland.)
Netwolf, mark a North and a South pole onto your acquired model of DX3, run, say 4 longitudinal lines from pole to pole with texta to represent the Hour Angles (mark the 0,6,12,18) and then anywhere along the Equator pin another little disk you have scissored out and marked with 4 Hour angles similarly gradated: and give it a little twirl - one of 2 things will most likely happen: (a) you will find yourself sharing a padded cell with yours truly or (b) you may have to revise your prior assertion that 6 will not "align" with 6 and etc etc.
I leave you all for the time being (they want to put this strange jacket back on me) confident that I leave all our readers that much more unenlightened/antagonistic/confused or simply downright stunned by my latest contribution to this delightfull topic.
Kokatha man
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