Watch Mixed with meteorite - trying to get more people to look up (need advice)

[JamesG]

Hi There, 

 

I hope I have found the right place to post but I am 23 years old  (living in Manchester, UK) and have a mission to try and get more of my generation to take the time to look up. I want more people to share my passion and get as excited about the universe as I do. 

For the last 2 years, I have been working to create a watch which is made with meteoite, to serve as a daily reminder, so people take the time to look up and put all their worries and concerns into perspective. 

I am reaching out to this staregazing community for help and advice, how I might do this better, also I am hoping to learn and get some feedback - I would love hear what you think of it. 

In other news I am looking to buy my first telescope and I would be open to as much help on that too! 

 

Either way thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from some of you soon

James

[JamesG]

If this is in the wrong place, please let me know where I should post! Thank you!

[John]

Hello and welcome to the forum

There have been such watches available for some time now. Generally they use an etched slice of an iron meteorite, such as Gibeon, as the watch face. They tend to be rather expensive and I'm not sure that they would fulfil your ambition to make people look up in all honesty. Other issues are that thin sliced meteorite is fragile, quite expensive to obtain, difficult to prepare and the irons have a tendancy to rust in the UK climate.

A watch that shows the phases of the moon or a simple planisphere would be more likely to achieve interest in the heavens I'd have thought. And it has to be affordable if it is to be accessible to many people rather than just an expensive novelty.

I'd post about your plans to buy your 1st telescope in this section and you will get lots of good advice

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/186-getting-started-equipment-help-and-advice/

 

 

[JamesG]

Thanks for the response John, 

Noted. - The meteorite is actually mixed with stainless steel. Yes I have seen the etched method and Although this is nice I thought it didnt actually look nice/ tacky!?

Thank you for the telescope info! I shall take a look now! Thanks again!

[ronin]

The meteorite watch sounds nice but not sure that it will cause anyone to start looking at he skies. A meteorite is after all a limp of rock. What you end up with is a watch face that is made from a thin slice of rock.

First scope is almost always every option possible, my likeing is for refractors and therefore I would suggest a 90mm refractor, although I find a 102 Bresser very useful in the short version. Really the question is the mount not the scope. For low cost then a manual Alt/Az is the start.

Harking back to the Bresser they do a Twilight mount, there is recently a Skywatcher AZ5 that would do well. Jsut be careful of rising costs.

I would say get a small scope, the 102 is not big but really an 80mm achro (not an f/5 one) is good. Will show a lot and not costly. Initially avoid the large hernia inducing scopes. There is a good one but it is not sold in the UK/EU.

If you want people to look at the sky a well run pleasant public star party is the way. That means a club and likely you to get it all in place, if the club does not mind public all over the place. This comes from the occasional visit to the one run here by the University, it is every week and gets a lot of people attending. It is also geared to the kids getting taken seriously. Adults come second, if they are lucky. 20 adults may stick their hand up to ask a question but if one kid has theirs up they get to ask.

 

[Dave In Vermont]

One aspect of our sky you might wish to consider, in addition to the meteorite, would be to add a Moon-Phase image to the face of the watch. And maybe a Sun & Moon rise & set times. The possibilities are as vast as you wish it to be.

Enjoy,

Dave