From: George Zack <zack@indra.com>
Subject: Big Bopper Parties and a question
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 19:07:53 -0700
Hey Gang, Sorry that I have been so quiet ... Here at Gilpin County School in the heart of the Rockies, we are fortunate enough to have a relatively powerful telescope (a six inch lens and an eight inch lens with an attached camera). I am more of an educator geologist than an educator astronomer but we have been cranking open our observatory once a week (weather permitting) to grab a view of Hale-Bopp. We have been also fortunate to see Mars, Jupiter and Jupiter's moons. Last week we also were fortunate enough to catch a bit of the waning moon just before dawn. When I started annoucing to kids, and staff that the observatory was going to be open at 4:30 (which calls for me waking up at 3:00) everyone said I was nuts. To my suprise, we have had those naysayers showing up in the cold early mornings! We have had an attendance of about 10-20 each time that the scope was open. Since we only have 345 kids K-12, I feel that this is a pretty good turnout. Anyway ... I also have a question. As I recall the sky is lined with imaginary lines called right ascension and declination (very similar to lat and long on the Earth). This celestial sphere appears to rotate about the Earth because f the Earth's rotation. If you know the RA, and dec of a star you can simply dial up that star .. and wham! ... There it is in your scope. At least this is how I remember it while I was at UCONN (Go Lady Huskies!). Here is the problem ... that does not work on this scope ...I tried dialing something up and I seemed to me that the scope started cranking into the wrong direction. Since this scope was donated by a local gentlemen (Who is apprently out of the area and is a bit difficult to get a hold of), and put in by a few local good doers ... I suspect my problem may be one of two things: 1.) the scope is not lined up with this reference frame (-- if this is the case, how would I line it up?), or I am doing something fundamentally wrong. Your thoughts? George ------------------------------------------------------------- George Zack Gilpin County School District RE-1 MS/HS Science Educator Home of the Eagles /Elevation: 9200' AMSL zack@indra.com 10595 Highway 119, Black Hawk CO 80403 303-582-3444 ext 353 http://indra.net/~zack/academics/science/scicenter.html