Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Digital Setting Circles

Yes, as I guessed a couple of days ago, I wasn't using the digital setting circles correctly.  I dragged Big Bertha out this evening, started out with the telescope at 90 degrees declination, turned it to 0 degrees, hit enter, positioning on a star east of the meridian (Mizar), then one west of the meridian (Procyon), then to improve accuracy a bit more, Sirius.  Then I told it to point me to M42, and even though the mount wasn't really very well aligned on true north, it put M42 on the edge of a low power eyepiece field.  Unfortunately, the combination of a bit of high moisture a very full Moon meant that nothing else would show up.  I am pretty sure that the digital setting circles were pointing me at the right places -- but the glare washed out anything but the very brightest objects, none of which were available.

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