rabbithutch

Received email notifying me of an upcoming sky party this weekend being held by the astronomy society I joined. This is the group that owns the big obs in dark sky country.

This weekend is an open party. I'll take my dob and hope to get pointers on using it. I'm especially eager to learn about collimation.

Of course, the weather might not hold. Texas weather changes quickly and often.

Fingers crossed.

Howdy, Patrick!

I found a url to the folks who publish the telrad chart booklet. Admittedly the page is not very robust but it does give a phone number. If you are interested I could give them a call (no toll charges for me) and find out about their catalog of products and prices.

http://www.sky-spot.com/home.htm

iPhone app called SkySafari.

Hello Patrick!

I see you beat me to SGL by a few months and you have a much better scope. Mine is the 8" dob and I have a Telrad. I bought used kit and the fellow tossed in books and other bits and pieces, one which is an atlas of sorts that shows where to put the telrad circle for Messier objects and other bright objects in the sky. The title of the booklet is "Finder Charts of Bright Telescopic objects" by Brent Watson. For M45 it shows a chart with Orion's belt int he lower left and the telrad circles about midway between Aldeberan and Algol in Perseus.

I couldn't find the title at abebooks.com, but you might look around for it. I cannot yet attest to its usefulness because all I've looked at so far is the Moon. When (if) I ever get familiar enough with the gear to try the charts, I'll post (and probably, blog) about it.

Clear skies, podnah!

Very good read, Isabelle. Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with a scope and very sad to hear that your invited friends were disappointed with the seeing. I bet that new tabletop dob will overcome both disappointments.

Congratulations!

Bob