Summer Visitors at the Peak

by Richard Navarrete

I had a great time with the Lumicon Digital Setting Circles I purchased just after Christmas for my 10.1 inch Coulter dob (John Hales also had a Lumicon DSC on his combo C11 and 4 inch Vixen Flourite set-up.) Set-up was very quick and easy, and I found the accuracy to be excellent as long as I first sighted and aligned on an object that was in the same general area of other objects I wanted to find. At first, I was just randomly visiting objects all over the sky, mostly bright M objects, so that I could get the feel for the DSC's. What a treat to punch in the object number, swing the scope around and....there it is!

I've done my share of star hopping, and have gotten much better at it within the last year, but I have to admit it was sometimes frustrating, time consuming and fruitless. Now Mark Wagner loves the hunt, and has the patience (and skill) to track down the faintest of fuzzies. I marvel at how sensitive his seeing has become (and Alan Nelms', his Herschel list observing buddy) and, while I USUALLY can see the objects they find, I know I would pass completely over them if I was looking on my own.

Anyway, I had a great time using the venerable Norton Mag 6 star atlas and visiting everything that was plotted in Ursa Major. Punch in the number, switch to 'guide' mode, follow the arrows and BOOM, WOW! look at that! :-) A few times I ran across things that weren't plotted on Norton's. O.k., center the object, go to identify mode, set the object type and magnitude, AND IT TELLS YOU WHAT IT IS, complete with a short description! What a joy.

Sure, some of you are avowed star hoppers, and wouldn't be caught dead using DSC's, and I know I will continue to star hop with my SCT and learn the sky more intimately, but DSC's certainly have their place in amateur astronomy. I understand now the attraction to the LX 200 series of scopes. The best part of the DSC's though is that they are silent. :-)

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Posted on sf-bay-tac Jan 25, 1998 13:33:36 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 20, 2005 08:50:49 PT