NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: G Becker
Date: 2015 Jan 20, 07:55 -0700
--------- Original Message ---------Subject: [NavList] Any tips for using a transit for celestial shots on land?
From: "Marty Lyons" <NoReply_MartyLyons@fer3.com>
Date: 1/17/15 12:51 pm
To: george@gwbeckerpls.com
Somehow I wound up with three engineer's transits, that I have been taking celestial shots with, night and day. So far I have been unable to see any stars or planets during the day. Any tips would help.
A few things I have found.
I use two adjustable neutral density camera filters adapted to the front of the transit scope for sun shots. It works great since you can fine tune the amount of shading from 2x to 400x. They can be had very cheaply on eBay.
Since you can't see the black crosshairs at night, I find that a keychain LED light shown in the front of the scope, illuminates the hairs and the star is still visible.
It's tough to get the stars into the field of view of the 26x scope, so I fashioned some crude rifle sights on the scope and that helps greatly.
