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Can this telescope show you the lines?

Moonshane

By Moonshane
in The Astro Lounge

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Moonshane

Moonshane

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I was running my space club tonight at school and one of the Dad's who I think was quite impressed by the 8" dob asked me in all seriousness if you could see the lines with it. Taking a second or two to understand what he meant (diffraction spikes? Jupiter's cloud bands?) I explained that they were just in books for illustration purposes to help people see where the shapes of constellations are in the sky. At least he was interested and hopefully his interest will grow......there's hope yet.

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nephilim

nephilim

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I was running my space club tonight at school and one of the Dad's who I think was quite impressed by the 8" dob asked me in all seriousness if you could see the lines with it. Taking a second or two to understand what he meant (diffraction spikes? Jupiter's cloud bands?) I explained that they were just in books for illustration purposes to help people see where the shapes of constellations are in the sky. At least he was interested and hopefully his interest will grow......there's hope yet.

Haha, this may seem a bit mean but I'd have been far too tempted to tell him 'yes, you can'. Years ago I was in Edinburgh when I overhead an american woman asking her friend 'is that real?' whilst pointing at the castle in the distance, I interrupted with 'No its inflatable, they take it down at 11pm each night' then walked away leaving them scratching their heads :evil:
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Ags

Ags

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On the subject of lines, I once got to view Mars through a 26.5 inch refractor at 2000m altitude, and I could see the canals on Mars quite clearly.

I know they're not there really, but I could see them anyway.

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J_M_Franklin

J_M_Franklin

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Not sure what to say to that really, apart from are you sure he wasn't taking the mick?

As for projrcting them into the eyepiece I am not so sure about that, but if you have an electronic eyepiece that would work quite well, especially for educational purposes.

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Dunkster

Dunkster

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That's an idea for a new feature on a scope - a press button on the handset that displays constellation lines in the view - your punter might have invented a million dollar gadget there Shane :)

This came up in another thread recently... we have augmented reality on our phones, how long before it's in our scopes? Might be nice to pan around the sky a bit and have the scope overlay interesting information about the object(s) in view :cool:

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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He was joking surely (I'll stop calling you shirley). But the idea to overlay the lines through the EP is a neat one, anybody got a link to the patent office?

Phil.

You'd need a might widefield EP and a mighty short FL scope to fir the constellation lines on! :huh: However, a sort of Constellation Telrad might make someone's fortune!

Olly

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John

John

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At least he wasn't trying to turn the scope to make things the right way round. Hands up who has ever shone their torch into the sky to try to get a better view whilst star hopping :icon_redface:

My wife once turned on the flash on her point and shoot camera because she wanted to take a picture of the moon. I did explain that if she had a flash that could illuminate the lunar surface, NASA would want to know about it :smiley:

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foundaplanet

foundaplanet

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A bit off thread but something that made me and a friend laugh the night before last.

I called in on her on the way home to help jump start her car. Whilst she way grappling around in her boot moving things to get to her jump leads she started trying to get hold of something which did not exist (she is a little short sighted). 'What ya doing' I said, 'Oh, I don't know, it appears I am trying to pick up some moonlight' she replied.

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Treeden

Treeden

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That's an idea for a new feature on a scope - a press button on the handset that displays constellation lines in the view...

Or maybe a new type of laser pointer that is tripod-mounted and auto-aligning, that displays the chosen constellation by moving from star to star to draw the outline in the sky? That might be pretty neat? :smiley:

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Andy McK

Andy McK

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Joke:

On a cruise liner the captain was walking the prom deck just as the ship was crossing the equator

A passenger asks the captain. "will we see the line?"

The captain, plucks a hair from his head and sticks it across one of the decks telescopes

and offers the "view" to the passenger.

The passenger exclaims "Wow, yer I can see it ! and a camel walking across it too!!"

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ItIsOnlyMe

ItIsOnlyMe

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At the opposite end of the scale I was asked to visit a brownie meeting in the week with my scopes to help them get their astronomy badge, one 8 year old started asking questions about neutron stars!! I nearly fell over with surprise.

Then at the end of the meeting they sat around naming the planets, one of the girls offered Pluto which the snowy owl accepted only to be corrected by this little girl that it was a dwarf planet with details about how it had been demoted and that some people disagreed.

I was amazed!! They were all extremely interested and I am to return with the scopes as the weather was against us and we couldn't go outside.

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HD-AP

HD-AP

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The lines on star maps annoy some and confuse beginners leslie peltiers little book has a good idea in that on one page the constellations are shown with lines on the opposite page is what the sky actually looks like sans lines a neat idea

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