Where in the world am I ?

[burnout]

So my first proper question for the forum .

I have taken possession of a Sky-watcher sky max 127 synscsn AZ GoTo .

when playing with the handset it asks me where Iam 

West and North ......so i done a search and i get these numbers 55.58 N and 2.57 W

It then asks for the brightest stars ................now i have tried to find out and for the life of me i have no clue ...i think i find out then i get conflicting answers ..

Can anyone help ?

Sorry for the schoolboy questions ...never payed much attention at school

cheers

Burnout 

[Davey-T]

Video here

Download Stellarium to see where the stars are

Dave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C03CdNY71k8

 

[saac]

Go with what Dave said, put your location into Stellarium orient yourself to the screen and what you see above and you should be able to identify the most prominent stars. Vega and Capella are usually easy targets or if you are still struggling go for stars that make up constellations with which you are familiar.

 

Jim

[burnout]

In Stellarium right now jeez its a touch confusing ....wish i could see my back door in the program lol 

 

[Davey-T]

8 minutes ago, burnout said:

In Stellarium right now jeez its a touch confusing ....wish i could see my back door in the program lol 

 

Find the location setting and put in your co-ords

Dave

[ronin]

The Skywatcher scopes seem to expect you to have some idea of the stars. When you say "It then asks for the brightest stars" are you presuming they are the brightest stars or what??

Only ask as in the pst Skywatcher scopes have asked for some fairly faint stars not bright ones. In one case it asked the person to centre a faint star in Leo when at the time the 2 brightest stars in Leo were visible and a lot easier.

Not sure if you can make it pick easy bright single stars but I think that m,eans that you have to define the alignment stars, meaning in turn that you need to know half a dozen around the sky. At this time Deneb, Capella, Castor or Pollox, Alkaid (last star in the handle of the plough), Caph (Last star in the W of Cassiopeia) are fair choices. All should be easay for you to identify. After that it is getting them in the centre - long focal length eyepiece.

Check your Long+Lat, they do not seem to match to Edinburgh that well. Long might be 3.57 W not 2.57. Also do you mean .57 or 57 minutes ?

[Davey-T]

Ignore the brightest star bit and do a 2 star alignment, you only need to know one bright star from a list it gives you, after centering that the next star you choose it will head off on its own to pretty close so you just finish it off.

This is not a bad thing as you have to start learning your way around

Dave

[burnout]

14 minutes ago, ronin said:

 

Check your Long+Lat, they do not seem to match to Edinburgh that well. Long might be 3.57 W not 2.57. Also do you mean .57 or 57 minutes ?

Hi ronin ,i put my postcode into whats my gps .com and it gave those numbers back ..i am strictly not in Edinburgh really   

[Major]

Check with google maps - find your postcode there and you should see coordinates as well.

[brantuk]

I get my co-ords from here : https://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

And I get my night sky from Stellarium : http://www.stellarium.org/en_GB/

Hth

[Aaron F Johnson]

Cell phone GPS apps are available online and and make it easy to get your coordinates when a field as well Stellarium is available for mobil devices. There are even apps for moon atlases and night mode so you can access all your apps  and get your bearings without greatly affecting dark adaptation. Sure beats copying star charts in the public library with pencil and pad like when I started in this hobby. Try to put to memory the bright stars that go overhead each night weather you are a field or at home. I typically overview Stellarium each day weather I plan to observe or not, it really helps me to remain astronomically aware and plan sessions as well the impromptu kind. Be sure to go at a pace that is comfortable for you...

[Dave In Vermont]

According to this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Long.+Lat.+East+Lothian+Scotland&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

You are:

55.9493° N, 2.7704° W

That should do it,

Dave

[Linda]

When I use Stellarium, it shows the direction at the horizon, north, east, south, west. You could use a compass to check which direction you are looking at and then have Stellarium opened beside you. Then look at the sky for the most brightest constellation you see. Check in Stellarium which one that is. Repeat this over time, so that you learn a few more constellations. This might come in very handy when finding reference points in Stellarium.

[Cornelius Varley]

2 hours ago, Dave In Vermont said:

According to this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Long.+Lat.+East+Lothian+Scotland&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

You are:

55.9493° N, 2.7704° W

That should do it,

Dave

Those coordinates won't work. Decimal coordinates as used in gps and google need to be converted into normal mapping units, degrees and minutes before being inputted into a synscan handset and probably all other goto systems.

[popeye85]

Try downloading the app 'synscaninnit' 

And just copy what the screen says into your handset-no need for converting or looking up positions in advance.

Screen shot if the ago I just took -

[popeye85]

Just noticed that you are looking for co-ords at Kingston,N worth Berwick- that's only a couple minutes away from where I do my observing, if you want to meet up at any point I am happy to help you out with what i can-although in fairly new myself so have limited knowledge!!

[Dave In Vermont]

That's odd. I've always used:

44.2759 N

-73.2121 W

in my Autostars and Audiostars. Strange, but I can pick this by name in Stellarium.

Strange days indeed -

Dave

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Newbies with no idea which star is which (we all had to start from there) could do worse than get a copy of 'Norton's Star Atlas'. I use my softback copy of this printed atlas on almost every observing night. If you don't want to spring for a new one, a used copy of any edition will do. I also have a hardback copy that is over 50 years old and the maps and 'interesting object' listings are almost the same.

Stellarium is powerful, but could be confusing if you are a new user. Whoever designed it seems to have never heard of Windows standard design rules, which makes the simplest task such as exiting from the program a puzzle if you are not familiar with it.

For smartphones and tablets there are apps like Star Tracker, which can use an internal compass to align a star & planet map with the actual sky.

As for the Synscan, if you don't know what star it's asking for you can probably press the Info button to see what constellation it's in, and go back and  scroll to another alignment star if you don't like the answer.

[Davey-T]

Lots of smartphone apps such as Sky Safari that you can just point it at the sky and it will show you the name of the bright star you're aiming at.

Dave

 

[Aaron F Johnson]

13 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Those coordinates won't work. Decimal coordinates as used in gps and google need to be converted into normal mapping units, degrees and minutes before being inputted into a synscan handset and probably all other goto systems.

Google play has GPS apps designed for location only that give you coordinates in up to three conversions, I won't suggest the one I'm using on 4 phones because it's no longer available but there are many more. One only has to just invest the time to download and try a few out.

[Major]

That sounds like a lot of hassle to get two numbers . I would really encourage trying Google maps, quick and simple, with accuracy down to the tree in my backyard .

[Aaron F Johnson]

I use only use a phone for coordinates when observing on road trips...at home the coordinates have been the same for 20 years...lol...No hassle I think I spent a whole 15min doing all four phones. On a side note your phones GPS will work even when the phone has no call or internet signal

[Major]

That changes a lot then