advice on planishperes

I like my David Chandler "The Night Sky" planisphere. It is distortion
corrected and easy to operate and read at night. I have the 8X10 size.

However, I do wish it had more Messier objects on it. It only has six.
I would like one that had at least 25 or so. Like the mini Messier
marathon objects.

I checked out the Firefly recommended by Brian, but it appears to be
targeted at people who live between Lat. 40 and 60. I am at 29.

I will probably just end up taking my existing planisphere and
carefully marking it up with the M objects (and others) that I like to
see regularly.

Errol
pasnola.org

I like my David Chandler "The Night Sky" planisphere....
However, I do wish it had more Messier objects on it. It only has six.

Correction and apology.

I miss stated when I said that David Chandler's The Night Sky
planisphere only contained six Messier objects.

It has, and I'm pretty sure because I actually looked at it in day
light this time, about 15 plus two other DSOs. Of course my eyes
aren't the best, but the last time I looked it was o-dark-thirty. I'm
happy to find that I was wrong about that.

It has:

M42, 45, 35, 44, 5, 13, 31, 33, 22, 6, 7, 8, 41, double cluster in
Cassiopeia (I guess that counts as two), NGC 253, and some globular
star cluster denoted by the Greek letter omega; whatever that is.

Errol
pasnola.org

Starboard wrote:
M42, 45, 35, 44, 5, 13, 31, 33, 22, 6, 7, 8, 41, double cluster in
Cassiopeia (I guess that counts as two), NGC 253, and some globular
star cluster denoted by the Greek letter omega; whatever that is.

That's omega Centauri. Sucks. Could be anything.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

That's omega Centauri. Sucks. Could be anything.

NGC 5139. Or something similar.

Errol

Starboard wrote (of omega Centauri):
NGC 5139. Or something similar.

It's a joke, son, a *joke*!

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

It's a joke, son, a *joke*!

Well there's a duh.... And when I said "something similar?" 8^)

Oh the possibilities.....

Anyway, *it was* meant for the op, not you.

Errol

Starboard wrote:
Oh the possibilities.....

Anyway, *it was* meant for the op, not you.

I know--I was just riffin'.

--
Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html

On Feb 16, 2:42 pm, "Starboard" wrote:
not bad! wish the clouds were not in the sky......

Those clouds are the Milky Way my friend. Pretty much all planisheres
have them. 8^)

Errol
pasnola.org


I said in the sky, not in the planisphere....

and as for the milky way, on a clear moonless night, I can shut off my
yard light and see a HAZE that induces vertigo. and not a dim haze
either.

I love living out in the woods

not bad! wish the clouds were not in the sky......
Those clouds are the Milky Way my friend. Pretty much all planisheres
have them. 8^)
I said in the sky, not in the planisphere....
and as for the milky way, on a clear moonless night, I can shut off my
yard light and see a HAZE that induces vertigo. and not a dim haze
either.
I love living out in the woods

Yeah, thought you meant the sky of the planishere. Been a long time
since I've seen the MW.

I used to go on seatrials with new navy ships. While 100 miles off
shore, we would turn all the ships lights off (test we called darken
ship) and inspectors would man the life boats and slowly troll around
the ship looking for even a twinkle of light emanating from the ship.
Fail the test, we could not. Many times people were scolded for
smoking during this test because the ember was initially thought to be
light coming through a window are something. I used to lie out on the
back deck looking up. I've known no darkness like that.

Errol

On Feb 17, 12:41 pm, "Starboard" wrote:
not bad! wish the clouds were not in the sky......
Those clouds are the Milky Way my friend. Pretty much all planisheres
have them. 8^)
I said in the sky, not in the planisphere....
and as for the milky way, on a clear moonless night, I can shut off my
yard light and see a HAZE that induces vertigo. and not a dim haze
either.
I love living out in the woods

Yeah, thought you meant the sky of the planishere. Been a long time
since I've seen the MW.

I used to go on seatrials with new navy ships. While 100 miles off
shore, we would turn all the ships lights off (test we called darken
ship) and inspectors would man the life boats and slowly troll around
the ship looking for even a twinkle of light emanating from the ship.
Fail the test, we could not. Many times people were scolded for
smoking during this test because the ember was initially thought to be
light coming through a window are something. I used to lie out on the
back deck looking up. I've known no darkness like that.

Errol


A dark sky is truly beautiful, though the closest thing I get to it
nowasdays is Mt. Palomar. Problem is, that sky seems to be getting
less dark year by year. I cannot imagine the type of sky Errol is
talking about.

Oh, as for the planisphere, I imagine the first question is how you
plan on using it. If you are using it as a primary map, you will want
something more detailed (and I imagine the big Levy one might be it,
if I remember correctly). My own preference is to use a monthly map
from S&T with the planets on it in conjunction with a smaller
planisphere, which I use to orient myself every so-often. Other times
I have used the Petersen Guide with the planisphere -- but it is about
as cumbersome as it sounds. Eventually I would like to get some
larger fold-out maps (my eyes are not getting any younger) and then I
might not even need a planisphere at all. Just my 2 cents.

Erik
socalsw