Telescope Tomfoolery - Crumby's Multiple Star Espyizations Methodology
Working backwards, a bunch of clouds rolled in from the south at 3 AM before Cepheus could get high enough, fer me. But early on it was when I invaded the stygian darkness of the east pasture that was so intense (the stygian darkness) that verily all was lit up due mostly to the moonlight, maybe. Skipping to the start, it was in the neighborhood of 11:20 PM with the wind blowing gustily from the south when Bootes the Herdsman was traipsing along just south of the CB zenith so that the scopery must want to point verily almost straight up.
These are the ones espied, east to west; Pi, Xi, Epsilon, Sigma, Iota and Kappa. Then after those I went over to espy three in Cygnus before the clouds rolled in. Those three espied in Cygnus are 16, 52 and 61.
Er! The above are all demarcated by Greek letters or integers. There's lots more kinds of ways they are demarcated, but those are lots harder to locate on the star chartery currently available, to me. So methodolgy wise the ones demarcated with Greek letters or integers on the available chartery which is Pocket Sky Atlas, Sky Atlas 2000, 2nd ed. and Cartes du Ciel, a free computer chart, are fairly easy to locate on those charts with some effort. The rest of em aint so easy.
Here's what I do preparatory, method-wise. I locate the ones I want to espy on the chartery. Then I orient and magnify the Cartes du Ciel computer chart like it would look from the east pasture. Then I print that chart. Then, using all three reference charts I try to figure out which star is which, fer sure, but the charts don't always agree on everything so I have to be careful. Once I have been careful, I mark the ones I want to espy on the printed out chart with a pink marks-a-lot magic marker, newly acquried from the Target store. Then out I go with that chart to the east pasture. But this methodology only works, fer sure, on the ones with Greek letters or intergers. The Struve ones, for example, are generally littler stars, and lots harder to find on my chartery and some may not be on the chartery at all, which makes for too aggravating a situation, fer Tomfoolery.
Why a pink marks-a-lot magic marker, some may wonder? Easy that, the color pink, unlike blue, yellow, and green is absent from the paper and computer star charts noted above. So if I want to mark something on them, the charts, I use pink. Orange works too. And to be consistent, I use that same color, pink, on the homemade charts. I can use orange, too, theoretically.
Yesterday, when I was working this methodology out, I realized that I needed to go to the Target store. My idea was that I would just purchase pink magic markers. But lo the only marks-a-lot magic markers vended came in groups that included unnecessary colors. So I had to purchase a group of them that included one pink, one orange and one useless yellow. Hence the orange, theoretical usage. All the rest of the groups that I didn't purchase had even worse colors, some in multiples of the worse colors, blue and green in addition to yellow.
Once I actually find one of these stars in the telescope, and evidence accrues that its the same star as is indicated on my home made chart in pink, the fun begins. I get to employ eyepieces on it. Generally, to start I have a 40mm plossl of improbable eye relief, about an inch, that I use to help me find stuff. This in addition to the binoculars, the Rigel and the finder scope. Remember, hardly any of these are visible to the naked eye from the CB. Then if the star does not appear as two stars once I get it centered in the ep, I generally pop in a 2x barlow. That does the trick on the wide doubles. But sometimes I have to get down to split the star so I can see two or maybe three where there was formerly just one. Yikes!, I need the 7mm Ortho plus the barlow sometimes for ones as close as two arc seconds or less with the moon out and the wind blowing 20 mph.
After I espy it good, I draw a little picture of the stars and note their relative sizes and colors next to the picture. Usually, I have to go hunt down a bunch of papers that have blown off before I do this, or find the dang light which has disappeared or something else has disappeared annoyingly, like the Bic mechanical pencil. (I need to get one of those orange field books to put these notes in, like the ones I keep my floristic observations in).
Look out Crumby! The wayward telescopery apparati is attackin' ye.
These are the ones espied, east to west; Pi, Xi, Epsilon, Sigma, Iota and Kappa. Then after those I went over to espy three in Cygnus before the clouds rolled in. Those three espied in Cygnus are 16, 52 and 61.
Er! The above are all demarcated by Greek letters or integers. There's lots more kinds of ways they are demarcated, but those are lots harder to locate on the star chartery currently available, to me. So methodolgy wise the ones demarcated with Greek letters or integers on the available chartery which is Pocket Sky Atlas, Sky Atlas 2000, 2nd ed. and Cartes du Ciel, a free computer chart, are fairly easy to locate on those charts with some effort. The rest of em aint so easy.
Here's what I do preparatory, method-wise. I locate the ones I want to espy on the chartery. Then I orient and magnify the Cartes du Ciel computer chart like it would look from the east pasture. Then I print that chart. Then, using all three reference charts I try to figure out which star is which, fer sure, but the charts don't always agree on everything so I have to be careful. Once I have been careful, I mark the ones I want to espy on the printed out chart with a pink marks-a-lot magic marker, newly acquried from the Target store. Then out I go with that chart to the east pasture. But this methodology only works, fer sure, on the ones with Greek letters or intergers. The Struve ones, for example, are generally littler stars, and lots harder to find on my chartery and some may not be on the chartery at all, which makes for too aggravating a situation, fer Tomfoolery.
Why a pink marks-a-lot magic marker, some may wonder? Easy that, the color pink, unlike blue, yellow, and green is absent from the paper and computer star charts noted above. So if I want to mark something on them, the charts, I use pink. Orange works too. And to be consistent, I use that same color, pink, on the homemade charts. I can use orange, too, theoretically.
Yesterday, when I was working this methodology out, I realized that I needed to go to the Target store. My idea was that I would just purchase pink magic markers. But lo the only marks-a-lot magic markers vended came in groups that included unnecessary colors. So I had to purchase a group of them that included one pink, one orange and one useless yellow. Hence the orange, theoretical usage. All the rest of the groups that I didn't purchase had even worse colors, some in multiples of the worse colors, blue and green in addition to yellow.
Once I actually find one of these stars in the telescope, and evidence accrues that its the same star as is indicated on my home made chart in pink, the fun begins. I get to employ eyepieces on it. Generally, to start I have a 40mm plossl of improbable eye relief, about an inch, that I use to help me find stuff. This in addition to the binoculars, the Rigel and the finder scope. Remember, hardly any of these are visible to the naked eye from the CB. Then if the star does not appear as two stars once I get it centered in the ep, I generally pop in a 2x barlow. That does the trick on the wide doubles. But sometimes I have to get down to split the star so I can see two or maybe three where there was formerly just one. Yikes!, I need the 7mm Ortho plus the barlow sometimes for ones as close as two arc seconds or less with the moon out and the wind blowing 20 mph.
After I espy it good, I draw a little picture of the stars and note their relative sizes and colors next to the picture. Usually, I have to go hunt down a bunch of papers that have blown off before I do this, or find the dang light which has disappeared or something else has disappeared annoyingly, like the Bic mechanical pencil. (I need to get one of those orange field books to put these notes in, like the ones I keep my floristic observations in).
Look out Crumby! The wayward telescopery apparati is attackin' ye.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, June 11, 2006
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