Re: Starhopping, star-strolling, and star-drifting?

"Steve Paul" <smarshallpaul@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"Margo Schulter" <mschulter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Hi, everyone, and recently I've been considering some
possible strategies for observing with a Dobsonian

The classical strategy, of course, is starhopping,
and maybe the other two I'm going to sketch out here
are simply variations on that; in fact, I've seen
one form of the second ("star-drifing") mentioned
as an approach for finding objects.

I could be wrong, but I believe that drifting is a practice for a polar
aligned mount. You look up the RA and Dec of the target, then set the Dec
setting circle (which is fixed to wrt the mount) and sweep (drift) east or
west. This allows you to look for the object in a single east/west motion,
without having to fuss with your RA setting circle. Coincidentally, from
my latitude, if your altazimuth mounted scope is aimed at M22 when it is
east of the meridian, M8 is just a short sweep due west in a wide field
eyepiece.

In what I might call classic starhopping, there might
typically be lots of guidestars easily visible to the
naked eye, or at any rate in a finder scope.

Not sure what you use for finding, but one of the best things you can do
for yourself in light polluted skies is to get a Telrad and a 9x50 Right
Angle Correct Image (RACI) finder. For areas of the sky that have enough
bright stars, the Telrad is all you need (and under dark skies). For areas
that are sparse in bright stars, the Telrad can be used as a simple unit
power "gunsight", and then the RACI can be used with the star atlas
without any mental or physical gymnastics.


Also, from the descriptions I've read so far and a
bit of experience (more confident with binoculars
than with my 20cm f/6 Dob), I'd take it that classic
starhopping often implies moving from one object of
interest to another over distances considerably
greater than the field of view (FOV) of the eyepiece
in use, with the destination as the main interest.

Maybe defined a little differently (for better or worse), it is the
process of using one star as a jump point to get you to the next star, and
hopefully to a non-stellar object nearest the final star in the hop. It
doesn't require an eyepiece in the main scope at all. It can be done with
just a Telrad. However, some guidebooks will take you an a widefield
eyepiece field to field journey if you are so inclinde.

IIRC, it was Sketcher who once defined his favorite method as PAL (Point
and Look). :-) That process is mode more possible with a Telrad.

Enjoy!
-Steve


I'll second that about PAL...

For many years (decades, actually), I was WELDED to optical finders. But
eventually, I bought a Rigel QuikFinder... While I thought I couldn't find
anything WITHOUT optical aid, I had learned my way around the sky decades
ago, so when I bought the Rigel to play with, I was astounded that I could
just swing the scope it was attached to around, circle the spot in the sky
where I expected a given object to be, and it was just THERE, in my low
power eyepiece field!!!

As Sketcher says, VOILA!!!

Since then, one by one, the optical finders have been in the process of
being replaced, or at least supplemented, by Rigel QuikFinders, on ALL my
scopes... Only two scopes without them, now, and both are candidates for
sale, so I really haven't made much of an effort to put QuikFinders on them
(they both have quite sufficient optical finders)...

But PAL works... Of course you DO have to learn your way around the sky.
But that's a FUN (and educational) thing to do... I spent the 1970's doing
that... And the 1980's and 1990's impressing friends with how FAST I could
find stuff all around the sky without charts... But in this new century,
the QuikFinder really brought this into it's own...

Of course, now, after all these decades of finding stuff with the good old
eyeballs and random-access memory, I'm beginning to play with GOTO (because
my random access memory is beginning to become somewhat more random with
age)... Heheheh!!!

--
Jan Owen

To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
Latitude: 33.6
Longitude: -112.3
http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21


.

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