NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Brad Morris
Date: 2010 Mar 19, 10:56 -0400
Hi Kermit
On the contrary, I am not disappointed with my Skyscout. It is a terrific instrument for the purpose designed. What is that purpose? (1) To identify the object you point it at and (2) knowing
the name of the object, where is it in the sky? For this purpose, the device is SPECTACULAR. Forget the very small (less than 3 arc-minute for now) errors in the scientific data. The object you point at will be appropriately named (I use a three trial method
for surety). It will also help you to find the star you want.
I used it last night for two stars who shall remain nameless. The apparent magnitude for either star is 2.1 or less. These are dim stars. There was some haze in the sky. The Skyscout had
no difficulty in locating them, as it does not depend on imagery. Using my three trial method, the Skyscout had no difficulty in confirming that they in fact were the stars desired. You can always do this with your sextant of course. Preplan the altitude
for a specific time, set your sextant to it and then point generally in the direction the object is in, until the star pops into view. Having used both methods, I can assure you that the Skyscout is FAR, FAR superior!!!!!
Secondly, using the Right Ascension, Declination and Magnitude provided by the Skyscout, I can directly enter the Bright Stars table and find the star I want, usually within 1 minute. It really
isn’t hard at all. The Bright Stars table has very precise (for my purposes anyway) data for Right Ascension and Declination, all corrected for precession, the largest component. Correcting for aberration is just a few electrons away. I simply ignore proper
motion, it is below my threshold of notice.
So my complaint that the scientific data (RA and Dec) are about 20 years old now is a small price to pay for such convenience. It bothered me that it didn’t match the Nautical Almanac, for those
57 stars. It bothered me that it didn’t match the Astronomical Almanac, for the Bright Stars list. I do believe that Celestron has blundered. It would have been trivial to permit it to download the latest Bright Stars list from the USNO, as the Bright Stars
list is available for free download. It is indeed a pity.
Consider this to be a product recommendation. It works, just not to the precision required for my very special purpose!
Best Regards
Brad
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