Amazing Discovery

If you have toyed with buying a Dobsonian telescope, this may be of interest. 

First, some background which those of you with a telescope mount with a clock drive may find useful.  When I lived under a magnitude 6 sky, I was able to often find dark sky objects such as the Ring Nebula without too much problem.  This was without the fancy computers that have taken over the hobby of late.  How?  Setting circles!  Setting circles sit on the polar and declination axes:

As you can see, one of these (on the equinoaxis) consists of degree markers that go from 90 degrees to 0 then back to 90 degrees. The other (on the polar axis) us marked in hours and minutes.   The declination setting circle is fixed: 90 degrees north is fixed to the mount.  The polar axis setting circles is marked in hours and minutes (relative to the Sun's positionar at the vernal equinox).  The RA settinaaag circle is loosely bound to the polar axis.  It normally follows the polar axis as the clock drive moves the nomount,  but it is loose enough to be moved as needed.

To use them, you get the polar axis aimed as precisely North as you can.  Pick a known bright star such as Vega.  

 Look in your star atlas for its RA (18H 35M( and declination (38 degrees if my memory serves me).  Is your declination circle at 38 degrees?  If so, rotate the polar axis setting circles to 18H35M.  If not try to improve your pointing to North.

S sefuOnce you have managed this, you should be able to point to any other objeful ect by its RA and isdeclination.. likes the Ring Nebula.   You should at least sobe close enough for a low power,  wide field eyepiece to get close. 

This is useful.

On to the Dobsonian.  Part of why they're cheap is that they use an alt-azimuth mount.  Setting circles are pretty useless, right?

This YouTube video shows how to create setting circles for azimuth and altitude and use them like ⁵equatorial mount setting circles with a program called Sky Safari which shows altitude and azimuth for any object in the sky.   Just like or other solution, you pick a bright star,  verify that the setting circles are right,  then aim using your setting circles.  

Stellarium also supports altitude and azimuth.  You select an object, hit center button, scroll down and look for a right arrow.