Posted 30 March 2017 - 02:11 PM

A quick update:

The 6x30 comes today. I hope to hook it up this weekend and will then share pics of my fully modded OneSky. But I wanted to discuss push to "technology." It was inspired by a post by "chewie" in this topic.

Using this site (http://www.blocklaye...dividereng.aspx) I was able to design a 17" setting circle. They can make them in almost any size.

I had Office Depot print and laminate it. I loosely attached it to the 2x4 tripod I built using the center bolt and washer. Theoretically I would just line up the setting circle to Polaris (with the OneSky also aligned to 0° on the circle). But this was all for naught as you will see below.

I also purchased a digital angle gauge from Lowes (this one: http://low.es/2nkAgOp). It has a magnetic base so it stays put on the OTA. I now had a method push the OneSky 360° and also know the angle of the OTA. All set.

Using the Stellarium app - in the red screen mode - I can dial up some DSOs and find them. But what I discovered is that I SHOULD have attached the setting circle just under the rotating base of the OneSky. Because keeping it all aligned to Polaris -- especially in the dark -- was hard and actually unnecessary.

What I ended up doing was laying my iPhone on the OneSky mount flush to the up-arm so it was parallel to the OTA. I then opened the compass app. So now I was digital in both directions! In 10 to 15 minutes I was able to find M81 & M82, M101, M5, the Beehive (and countless other clusters I grabbed from the Stellarium app). This was just a test of the system - hence the quick session - but it worked great. I was using the 8-24 zoom at 24 mm for my widest FOV for those interested. Wider = better.

For night-vision using the iPhone is not the best option. The app does use a black face but still uses white light. And when switching between Stellarium and the compass you get some light bleed. Not to mention the lock screen, or hitting the wrong app. I have an old iPhone I may rig with red gel to conquer this. It can be the compass while I use my new phone for Stellarium.

This angle gauge has an LED automatically backlit in green. A plus is once it is turned on it will activate (light up) again once you move the OTA.

I am still looking forward to honing my star hopping skills but this is a nice addition for those nights when I have 30 minutes or less to observe. I am fortunate to live in SoCal outside the city so there are many clear (and clear enough) nights I can view. I will also be helpful when I want to quickly show someone an object. Or even to confirm what I am looking at is what I am actually looking at.

Who knows...maybe I'll discover a comet or asteroid and need to know the coordinates! Sure.

Lastly -- The only really odd thing during the test was Jupiter. Although we can all find Jupiter with the naked eye, I decide to use the coordinates and push-to system for kicks. All the other objects were near dead on from the Stellarium. But Jupiter was not. In fact, it was off by a full 4 degrees on the setting circle. Dead on on the angle gauge. I am not sure what that was about. Was the Stellarium app being a bit goofy? It was weird but I was not able to confirm the coordinates from another source to see if Stellarium was acting up. This weekend I will give it another go.

Either way the test was a success. If you have read this far...thanks for hanging in.

Back to work.