NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2016 Apr 20, 13:05 -0400
Hi Peter
You wrote
Do people report excellent success seeing Jupiter with a SkyScout, with the display helpfully blinking "Jupiter is here"
+++++
With the SkyScout, not only does Jupiter become evident, but so does everything else.
With a large catalog of objects, GPS, inclinometer and compass, the SkyScout will point you in the direction of any celestial object you may desire. You don't have to know or calculate where to look, you just look at the location indicated.
Once the location is evident, it is up to your eyes to see it however. Ask to see the sun after sunset, and it points through the ground towards the sun. Ask to see the moon with heavy clouds and it points right at the moon, though the clouds. If the object is to feint to see, you wont see it, even when looking at the right location. It's not magic.
Brad
To see stars and planets in daylight, we are fighting against the "visual saccades" --those very rapid, small-scale movements of the eyes' point of focus that we are normally not aware of. Without some fixed point to "hold onto" visually, it is nearly impossible to see Jupiter in daylight at sea level.
Would it help to suspend a collimated source in midair near the object of interest? Could use a sheet of glass, or other beamsplitter, for a head-up display. A SkyScout might be another possibility. Do people report excellent success seeing Jupiter with a SkyScout, with the display helpfully blinking "Jupiter is here" with continuous position and focus cues, and little or no success without the aid? How about a camera viewfinder in the same role?Cheers,Peter
