Hi Rashad,
A few of us in Tac-Sac picked up SkyTools 2. We're all novices, maybe
you could give us a few pointers at SSP.
Thanks,
--Gary
On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 18:39, Rashad Al-Mansour wrote:
> Hi Marek,
>
> Skytools will sort in Alt./Az. You can sort by page number of many printed
> Atlases, rise and set time, you can even sort by optimum viewing time! I
> like this program allot, as a matter of fact I'm going to remove most of the
> astronomical software I have on my laptop.
>
> I will keep Skytools 2.0, MegaStar 5.0 and for sentimental reasons TheSky
> 5.0, I'm dumping SkyMap Pro, Cartes du Ciel, StarryNight Pro and 2 or 3
> others. That should clear out about 2 gigabyte of disk space. :-)
>
> Next time we're out observing stop by my spot and I'll let you check it out.
>
> Rashad
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marek Cichanski" <marekc@No-Spam>
> To: <sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 1:00 PM
> Subject: [TAC] Observing order, chart binning, and azimuth order
>
>
> > I've found the recent thread about sorting one's observing list to be
> pretty interesting. I've tangled with this a little bit myself.
> >
> > Bob and Mark have pointed out ways of approaching this that work fairly
> well for them. Sorting by RA, Dec, or constellation are straightforward
> algorithms, and they've had good luck with these methods.
> >
> > Matthew pointed out that there are 'traveling salesman' algorithms that
> might be applied, to do things like minimize hop distances. Turns out that
> astro planning software makes use of this. I use NGCView, which has its own
> proprietary "Observing Order" algorithm. I believe that SkyTools has
> something like this, too; Rashad might have some experience with this.
> >
> > I haven't tested the usefulness of NGCView's 'Observing Order' yet, but it
> mostly seems to make sense. It does create a few weird, long hops from time
> to time, though. One other nice NGCView feature is "binning". You can create
> an observing list, sort it by 'Observing Order', and then bin it by SA2000
> page or Uranometria page. This is pretty handy. I did this at Shingletown
> last year, and it was pretty helpful.
> >
> > What I would really like to see is an "Azimuth Order" algorithm. Why?
> Because I look at DSOs with a dob. The big pain the neck for me is making
> changes in azimuth. Moving my Denver chair and accessory cart is a pain.
> Altitude changes are less of a big deal when I'm using my dob, especially if
> I exclude stuff above about 50 degrees altitude. I'd love to be able to sort
> the list so that I only make azimuth changes in one direction as I work
> through the list. Of course, other factors come in to play, such as the time
> taken on each object, the time of night, and whether or not I take breaks
> while working the list. Mark's approach of sorting an RA window by
> declination is probably a pretty close approximation to the solution I'm
> looking for.
> >
> > I swear, I think I like this part of observing better than the observing
> itself - the "ergonomics" of it. I always want to know how I can make the
> process as easy and efficient as possible, so as to maximize time and energy
> spent looking at the object, and/or searching and destroying. I would call
> my approach to observing "Stop and smell the roses while engaged in your
> search and destroy mission." (Maybe just call it 'search and destroy the
> roses'? Hmm, that sounds a little brutal to me...)
> >
> > Marek
>