Learn How to Become an Expert Stargazer

On 11/13/2015 4:15 PM, wrote:
On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 3:23:09 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 8:57:43 PM UTC-7, wsne... wrote:

They also make "cars:"

http://www.goto.co.jp/english/produc...astro_car.html

(You can't make this stuff up.)

I followed your link. When I did, it didn't at all seem ridiculous to me that
they would take existing trucks or vans, and make mobile observatories or
mobile planetariums with them. Remember, Japan is a very crowded country with
limited land area. So this is a sensible way to address educational needs for
school districts with limited funding.

I wasn't really criticizing the concept. In fact, I even pondered the same sort of idea on a very much smaller scale years ago.

(See http://www.resonancepub.com/amastro.htm for another take on the idea.)

The vehicle does seem to have a small lecture/AV room for cloudy nights. However, I was a bit taken aback by its carrying only a 25cm scope, something which could simply be rolled out of a minivan.

(Do these trucks drive through the city, playing music before coming to a stop?) :-)

I hope they actually let people look THROUGH the scopes, not just via a video monitor a la LsD.


They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with
an eyepiece. Those that want to see color, structure and detail use the
monitors.

LdB

LdB wrote:
On 11/13/2015 4:15 PM, wrote:
On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 3:23:09 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 8:57:43 PM UTC-7, wsne... wrote:

They also make "cars:"

http://www.goto.co.jp/english/produc...astro_car.html

(You can't make this stuff up.)

I followed your link. When I did, it didn't at all seem ridiculous to me that
they would take existing trucks or vans, and make mobile observatories or
mobile planetariums with them. Remember, Japan is a very crowded country with
limited land area. So this is a sensible way to address educational needs for
school districts with limited funding.

I wasn't really criticizing the concept. In fact, I even pondered the
same sort of idea on a very much smaller scale years ago.

(See http://www.resonancepub.com/amastro.htm for another take on the idea.)

The vehicle does seem to have a small lecture/AV room for cloudy nights.
However, I was a bit taken aback by its carrying only a 25cm scope,
something which could simply be rolled out of a minivan.

(Do these trucks drive through the city, playing music before coming to a stop?) :-)

I hope they actually let people look THROUGH the scopes, not just via a
video monitor a la LsD.


They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with
an eyepiece. Those that want to see color, structure and detail use the
monitors.

LdB


Are you writing about a historical state of Turkey or do you mean queue?

On Monday, November 23, 2015 at 1:36:23 PM UTC-7, Mike Collins wrote:
LdB wrote:

They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with
an eyepiece. Those that want to see color, structure and detail use the
monitors.

Are you writing about a historical state of Turkey or do you mean queue?

I would have thought of a major publisher of reference books about computers.

But so he might be unfamiliar with the word "queue", which is mostly used in
Britain. The more serious issue is that nothing stops someone from joining the
line-up, seeing the "fuzzy dot" with his very own eyes, and then going to the
monitors to see "color, structure, and detail"... and then going to reference
books to see photos of the same object by Hubble, to see even more of those
things.

That some humans have a visceral, emotional response to seeing something with
their own eyes - even with some glass and aluminum in the way - as opposed to
just seeing a photograph, or an image recreated on a monitor screen - may seem
too atavistic and primitive for our friend here, but the rest of us here know
that this type of connection with the heavens is meaningful to many.

John Savard

On Monday, November 23, 2015 at 12:36:23 PM UTC-8, Mike Collins wrote:
LdB wrote:
On 11/13/2015 4:15 PM, wrote:
On Friday, November 13, 2015 at 3:23:09 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:
On Thursday, November 12, 2015 at 8:57:43 PM UTC-7, wsne... wrote:

They also make "cars:"

http://www.goto.co.jp/english/produc...astro_car.html

(You can't make this stuff up.)

I followed your link. When I did, it didn't at all seem ridiculous to me that
they would take existing trucks or vans, and make mobile observatories or
mobile planetariums with them. Remember, Japan is a very crowded country with
limited land area. So this is a sensible way to address educational needs for
school districts with limited funding.

I wasn't really criticizing the concept. In fact, I even pondered the
same sort of idea on a very much smaller scale years ago.

(See http://www.resonancepub.com/amastro.htm for another take on the idea.)

The vehicle does seem to have a small lecture/AV room for cloudy nights.
However, I was a bit taken aback by its carrying only a 25cm scope,
something which could simply be rolled out of a minivan.

(Do these trucks drive through the city, playing music before coming to a stop?) :-)

I hope they actually let people look THROUGH the scopes, not just via a
video monitor a la LsD.


They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with
an eyepiece. Those that want to see color, structure and detail use the
monitors.

LdB


Are you writing about a historical state of Turkey or do you mean queue?

He actually means to say that he is an idiot with a one-track mind...

On Monday, November 23, 2015 at 3:20:31 PM UTC-5, LsD wrote:

They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with
an eyepiece.

The astronomers won't have to bribe them with food.

If they decide to provide food anyway, they should keep a supply of these around:

http://wipes123.com/hot-cold-wet-wipes/bbq-hand-wipes

Those that want to see color, structure and detail use the
monitors.

If the astronomers restrict viewing to video monitors, then they don't need to worry so much about food getting on the equipment, they can just protect the monitors with easy-to-clean glass panels.

But then they don't need to send out a telescope-equipped truck, just a food truck with an internet connection and some monitors mounted on the outside.

But then they don't even really need that either, just tell everyone to stay home and watch the nightskiesnetwork.

That should be fun. I'll go make popcorn.

On Tuesday, 24 November 2015 13:06:14 UTC+1, wrote:

That should be fun. I'll go make popcorn.

But will they be "touch sensitive?"

I'm just making up my placard:
"Will show TV stars for food." ;ø]

On Sunday, November 29, 2015 at 9:16:25 AM UTC-5, Chris.B wrote:

But will they be "touch sensitive?"

Will WHAT be "touch sensitive?"

On Monday, 30 November 2015 17:14:42 UTC+1, wrote:

Will WHAT be "touch sensitive?"

The popcorn?

I was referring to your amusing post on visual astronomy via screens taken to extremes.

Video [viewing] astronomy is not dissimilar to the difference between cycling and motorcycling. The latter only seems superior to the former in that one reaches one's goal more quickly. Only to find oneself standing around, feeling bored, eating and drinking to fill the empty time and wondering where to go next. The cyclist relishes the journey and its difficulties. The watering eyes and aching legs, the endlessly changing views and the headwind are all grist to the mill of cycling. Then there's the unique sense of accomplishment. Having heard and seen the birds, the wind in the trees, the smell of the farm and the rushing of streams. Of having overcome the climbs and the thrill of the following descent.

The journey is the thing. Not relying on some new-fangled shortcut to false achievement. Leading rapidly to boredom and the need for yet another, instant gratification, techno "fix" just to keep the interest going. The built in obsolescence demands an endless conveyor belt of enticing new toys. Each with the an inevitable sense of worthlessness the moment each "upgrade" must be purchased at great expense in order to demote the last item to mere trash. Compound, hyperinflation of temporary, Pavlov rewards, immediately followed by guaranteed dissatisfaction. The undeserved self-reward is having eating ice cream and soda for having [merely] risen from ones bed in the morning. Value is placed on "things" as if they delineated social hierarchy in the absence of any other useful measuring stick.

Give a man a bicycle and he can journey for a lifetime of discovery. Give a man a motorcycle and he must find something else to fill the empty hours once he has arrived at nowhere in particular. It always seemed like a good idea before he set out.

A picture is indistinguishable from any other as to source. It takes an expert to place any valuation and to discern a great master from a mere copyist. While a living image on the retina is never forgotten. As we each share our unique viewpoints from our own, individual Earth. Each standing, like some tiny pin, jutting at odd angles from a vast, spherical cushion and squinting upwards into the unknown.

On Monday, November 30, 2015 at 12:18:39 PM UTC-5, Chris.B wrote:
On Monday, 30 November 2015 17:14:42 UTC+1, wsne... wrote:

Will WHAT be "touch sensitive?"

The popcorn?

I was referring to your amusing post on visual astronomy via screens taken to extremes.

Video [viewing] astronomy is not dissimilar to the difference between cycling and motorcycling. The latter only seems superior to the former in that one reaches one's goal more quickly.

I had already made that analogy, and others, when describing LsD's pathological thought patterns.

When LsD said "They have a Que set up for those that only want to see a fuzzy dot with an eyepiece," I started to get hungry.

I imagined ribs with a side of slaw.

On 11/23/2015 8:34 PM, Quadibloc wrote:

That some humans have a visceral, emotional response to seeing something with
their own eyes - even with some glass and aluminum in the way - as opposed to
just seeing a photograph, or an image recreated on a monitor screen - may seem
too atavistic and primitive for our friend here, but the rest of us here know
that this type of connection with the heavens is meaningful to many.

John Savard


There really isn't much more amusing than the "I have to see it with my
own eyes" anthem of the traditionalist. That's about all they have left
of the hobby. You can go on all you like but in reality you know it's
the truth.

Eyes are nothing more than organic versions of the cameras I use. Your
eyes don't see the image, they just convert the incoming light into a
biological signal and send it off to the brain for processing.

The image is produced by the mind not the eyeball and of course the mind
often produces an image it wants to see. You have all seen the optical
illusions that trick the mind into seeing something that isn't there.
Then there are the optical delusions of the traditionalist "looking as
hard as they can" into their eyepiece. Those are as much imagination
as reality. Some have stretched their imagination to the point they
believe what their minds have conjured up. Some might simply explain the
phenomenon as form of brainwashing, mental masturbation.

Many of you strut around and brag that it is your observing skills that
allow you to see more than an ordinary person. I have those same skills
and honed them over fifty years but I also have the desire to see what
is up there. I know what the traditionalist can see and for what it is
worth I have probably seen more with an eyepiece than many of the them
ever will. There was a time when the eyepiece view was good enough but
there was nothing else. Not anymore. The modern view passes through a
better "Eye" on it's way to the mind but ultimately it is the mind that
does the seeing.

The difference between the modern astronomer and the eyepiece
traditionalist is that it is not good enough for us to get a fleeting
glimpse of an object then strut around bragging about how skillful an
observer they are.

I can point my electronic eye at an object and see it for what it really
is. I can also point my obsolete observing skills at the traditionalists
and see them for what they really are.

You traditionalists are long overdue rephrasing your anthem. Here's a
suggestion. "I don't really want see it with my own eyes, I just want to
tell everyone I saw it with my own eyes."

The feel good part doesn't come from the view, it's from the admiration
of the other traditionalists. The ones who haven't quite figured out
that you aren't in this to see anything, your just in this for the
praise.