2022-06-23, 11:26 PM
Hi Greg,
I appreciate your effort to help me out, thank you. I like ST and want to keep liking it!
When I took the screen shot I was not connected to the scope. But the next opportunity I have, I will take a better screen shot. I set the seeing at excellent only to see if that had any effect on the Real Time sort. I do control the scope using SkyTools; I bring up my project lists in Real Time depending on time of year and conditions, pick the object, slew to it using the button on the Real Time screen, sync every once in a while using the button on the Real Time screen, observe, make a log entry, then on to the next. I don't have the horizons set, I will do that before my next session, and re-read the Real Time help file. The next opportunity I'll report what I find and take some screen shots while at the scope.
I use this scope 90% on double stars, a little on the moon and planets. Over the years I've become very familiar with my ability to detect and split different types (separation, delta mag) pairs under different seeing conditions--which is why I don't use the best eyepiece or other aids in Real Time--I pretty much already know what I need to do to make the observation--and why my columns are so few, because only the object name, coordinates, and magnitudes and separation are important to me, and fewer columns unclutters the screen and makes it easier to read. When seeing is poor I mask down to 7-inches and focus on my Struve project (to observe all the Struves and similar "easy" pairs). When seeing is good I go after pairs >0.5", and when it's really good >0.15" at full aperture. I have pre-made lists by RA for these projects (known orbits, Aitkens, Burnhams, etc.). Once I start observing for the night, I know from just looking what the seeing is like, which constellation is best to view (or which one I need to catch up with observations even if the constellation is not ideally placed), so I bring up the list in that RA slice and observe. Sorting columns in Real Time helped isolate constellations within the lists (though ST4 has a filter for that, I noticed). What has frustrated me is not being able to sort in RA, as described in the previous post, to avoid having to scan the list for the closest RA when the Real Time list is not sorting it that way.
Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to make the horizon updates and observe from the scope again
Thanks
Mark
I appreciate your effort to help me out, thank you. I like ST and want to keep liking it!
When I took the screen shot I was not connected to the scope. But the next opportunity I have, I will take a better screen shot. I set the seeing at excellent only to see if that had any effect on the Real Time sort. I do control the scope using SkyTools; I bring up my project lists in Real Time depending on time of year and conditions, pick the object, slew to it using the button on the Real Time screen, sync every once in a while using the button on the Real Time screen, observe, make a log entry, then on to the next. I don't have the horizons set, I will do that before my next session, and re-read the Real Time help file. The next opportunity I'll report what I find and take some screen shots while at the scope.
I use this scope 90% on double stars, a little on the moon and planets. Over the years I've become very familiar with my ability to detect and split different types (separation, delta mag) pairs under different seeing conditions--which is why I don't use the best eyepiece or other aids in Real Time--I pretty much already know what I need to do to make the observation--and why my columns are so few, because only the object name, coordinates, and magnitudes and separation are important to me, and fewer columns unclutters the screen and makes it easier to read. When seeing is poor I mask down to 7-inches and focus on my Struve project (to observe all the Struves and similar "easy" pairs). When seeing is good I go after pairs >0.5", and when it's really good >0.15" at full aperture. I have pre-made lists by RA for these projects (known orbits, Aitkens, Burnhams, etc.). Once I start observing for the night, I know from just looking what the seeing is like, which constellation is best to view (or which one I need to catch up with observations even if the constellation is not ideally placed), so I bring up the list in that RA slice and observe. Sorting columns in Real Time helped isolate constellations within the lists (though ST4 has a filter for that, I noticed). What has frustrated me is not being able to sort in RA, as described in the previous post, to avoid having to scan the list for the closest RA when the Real Time list is not sorting it that way.
Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to make the horizon updates and observe from the scope again
Thanks
Mark