[ATMoB-discuss] Scope Querry

[Bern Kosicki]

>
>Frederick Montague wrote:
>
>>There is more to it than just moving the scope that is driving me to that 
>>celestron.  all my astronomical life I've used a telescope on an 
>>equatorial head and been able to find my star fields quite handily.  at 
>>my age again and with sky pollution I'm able to get the faint variables 
>>like I used to. to answer this I made the Dob, but I find navigating the 
>>fields with that telescope very difficult so I go back to the 8"

Fred,

It sounds like you know how to find your way around in the sky, but are 
starting to loose some fainter stars due to sky pollution, and that you may 
have depended on these stars in the past to locate your targets (is this 
right?)  Furthermore, you probably find the alt-az operation of a dob more 
difficult than an equatorial to manually find your objects (I'd agree with 
this)

One solution might be to add digital setting circles to your dob.  I talked 
to someone at Stellafane a few years ago who did this to his 10" dob, and 
he was very happy with the results.  He claimed that after calibrating 
against his guide stars, he was always able to access the object he was 
looking for in the center of the eyepiece (I don't believe he was a 
variable star observer, though- these were probably deep sky targets).  He 
claimed that installing the kit was very straightforward.

The unit he selected was the Sky Commander   http://www.skyeng.com/

This and others were reviewed in S&T a few years ago.

Of course, this doesn't allow the dob to track your targets, if you also 
need this.

Bernie Kosicki