Thursday, November 17, 2022

helped Dave with southern doubles for bins

Dave C pinged me, again. He's heading to Cuba, again, and asked if I had a list of double stars for binoculars. Some southern targets.

I replied.

No...

I didn't think so. 

But I'd snoop around. 

In the meantime I suggested he check the Astronomical League and the Sky & Telescope web site.

Then I jumped into SkyTools and pulled up the previously downloaded AL binoculars list. Hmm. Decidedly northern hemisphere.

But then I surprised myself. I had made back in 2018 an observing list based on the book Observing and Measuring Double Stars book, second edition. It had a few targets with low declination values. All right. I found that the existing location profile for Dacca had the same latitude, so I activated it to generate appropriate altitude values. Made a custom column set and output a PDF. Mailed it to Dave.

I had reached out to Chris V for ideas. He said there was a Texas Star Party list in the SkySafari repository. He wondered if there might be ones for the winter star party in Florida. Good tips, which I relayed.

Dave reported back. He now had his list made in SkySafari. "Should keep me busy," he said. He's looking forward to observing in November in shorts and a t-shift.

And I'm jealous.

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Such a shame all the times I was down south, the Dominican, the Caymans, I wasn't into astronomy!

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