Observing spread*** planner - website announce

This is to announce a website containing my personal observing list and
planning spread*** of about 3,100 objects implemented in MS-Excel
(13.1Mb).

members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/ObSpdht/ObSpdhtProject.html

The spread*** contains an observing list of approximately 3,100 deep
sky objects and regions which can be sorted and filtered by whether
they are currently visible in the observer's local horizon system. This
deep sky object ("DSO") observing spread*** will be of interest to
instructors of introductory college astronomy courses, astronomy club
lunar party organizers, and intermediate and beginner observers. By
using the full power of Excel's drill-down data filter feature, a
variety of interesting DSO tours can be developed, e.g. - by open
cluster age, by bright star MK spectral class, by binary star
separation, by galaxy type, by Milky Way structure association, etc.
For beginners, purchasing a commercial observation planner product like
Astroplanner software by Paul Rodham (iLanga, Inc.) is a better
alternative.

To observe the efficiently is dependent on having a good catalogue of
interesting objects and the ability to determine the current location
of objects above the observer's local horizon by object type.
Typically, this may involve reviewing several books and guides for
appropriate targets applicable to a particular night, such as
Burnham's, Harrington's Touring the Universe with Binoculars,
Mullaney's Celestial Harvest, or Peterson's Field Guide to the Stars
and Planets, just to name few options. Finding the right targets is
confounded by the repetitous designations. For example, if you have
done Messier's catalogue and Caldwell's list, you have also covered
about 40% of the Herschel 400. It was felt that a single consolidated
life-time list would allow for a quick after-work selection of two or
three targets in order to maximize the amount of time spent at the
eyepiece.

Several popular guides were reviewed for showcase item lists. These
included Clark, Herschel 400, Barnard, Caldwell, Messier, Burhnam's,
and Harrington's TUBA. A consolidated non-duplicative list of
approximately 1,200 DSO objects was created from these lists.
Supplemental items were added according to the author's interest and
personal knowledge.

For double stars and multiple star systems, the 6th Orbit Catalogue and
the UNSO Selected 2006 Double Stars from the online Astronomical
Almanac were used as the base. This base list was supplemented with
non-duplicative objects from the sources source as the Belmont Society
Colorful Double Star List. A total of approximately 450 doubles are
included in the spread***.

For variable stars, The AAVSO master catalogue ("united.txt") filtered
for selected stars with a period of less than 14 days was used as the
base list. This intentionally biased catalogue variables towards
short-period variables instead of the usual focal on long-period
variables. This bias was incorporated into the catalogue on the
assumption that beginning variable star observers would like to observe
stars that will change over the course of an evening, two evenings or a
week. Inspired by short-period observing, such beginners may move onto
traditional long-period variable observing - where changes occur over
months. The variable base list was supplemented with non-duplicative
objects easy long-period variable lists.

A full description of the source catalogues and resulting distribution
of objects by type, size and magnitude can be found at the project
homepage.

Utilities are include to select an observing list and translate the
selected list into an HTML document for sharing over the internet.

Many beginner and intermediate astromath utilities are included like
computing equivalent astrophoto exposures, apparent magnitude and
distance, image scaling, the half-angle formula, and Kelper's Third
law.

A bibliography of approx. 770 items concerning observing, object
catalogues, Milky Way structure, and the history of astronomy is
included.

For a related project - this author's 2,500 lunar target planning
spread*** in MS Excel - see:

http://members.csolutions.net/fisherka/astronote/plan/MoonPlan/MoonSpdtProject.html

- Canopus56

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