user defined horizon in skymap pro 10

[2Dragons8Buddhas]

Hi there every body, a short while ago I decided to try and plot my real physical horizon from my observatory into skymap pro 10 on my computer so that I could start working out when things are rising above near by houses or setting etc. so after chatting with a close friend how to do this he told me to go out in the day time and move my scope around to many various key points like edges of roofs and trees and to record the azimuth and declination that my hand controller was reading out, which was then programmed into skymap and hey presto I had my user defined horizon. But then a few nights later I noticed something a bit not quite right. skymap was showing mars as traversing most of the southern horizon below and behind the ridge line of the houses to my south by about 5 degrees ! which I new was totally wrong because I had been observing it most clear nights and videoing it about 5 degrees above the said ridge line ? So after some thought I new the heavens were in the correct position and I new skymap was correct so my friend and I assumed that some how I must of stuffed up the obtaining of the azimuth and declination readings so a few days later I went out and repeated the exercice and nearly all the points taken were re-done and the telescope hand controller gave all the same figures as the first set to within about 1/10th of a degree. When I am out using the scope it always knows where it is pointing, so its not as if the scope is "lost" !

Please has any one got any ideas how to sort this one out ? is it a software problem, an eclectronic scope problem or a human problem ?.LOL.

Carl.

[Oddsocks]

If you are getting your declination angles from the handset of an EQ mount then It is displaying celestial (polar) declination, not horizon angles since the pole is not directly above you, the celestial equator is aligned with the earths equator but your local horizon is tilted with respect to this by an angle related to your latitude.

I don't know sky map pro but if it can display both polar celestial grid and horizon grid at the same time then you will be able to map your measured polar declination angles to the true horizon angles quite easily.

When I created a custom horizon in the SkyX Pro for my own observatory I used the iPhone/iPad App "Spyglass",  it uses the magnetic and angle sensors in an iPhone or iPad to superimpose what looks like a semi transparent aircraft HUD gyro compass display onto the camera utitlty, you just point the camera at the horizon and take a series of shots in a circle to create your local horizon panorama and use the the recorded superimposed magnetic bearing and true horizon angle to create your custom horizon, fairly painless and all done in a couple of hours.