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Re: (meteorobs) Organized Plotting
In a message dated 96-07-11 15:07:00 EDT, you write:
<< I'm learning a lot as I plot more and more about how to
organize things. I was really bamfloozled last night when a meteor shot
down below the Pleides, and I couldn't figure out which chart it was on. I
think I'm going to enclose it in a ZayCircle (TM) like the little groups in
Aquarius!
Wayne >>
------
To explain to other's what you are referring to about "ZayCircles"....
A while back, I've visually sensed seemingly clusters of stars below the
constellation Aquarius...they made a pattern of a dog like paw...in the dark,
it was very difficult to notice where the clusters are on the chart...so what
I did was draw little circles around these star clusters...I can easily make
out the circled star clusters as a whole...I now just count the clusters in a
semi circle to figure out where I'm at...Personally it has saved me a lot of
night time headaches while plotting. I also drew in M-31 and the cluster in
Cancer...I use these as landmarks as well....Just these last few nights I'm
on the virge of redrawing a line of stars just outside the wing tips of one
side of Cygnus...there's a little area that is giving me night time problems
and I want to make this a little easier too. Another area that I've "fixed
up" is the lines outlining the constellation Eridanus...previously the lines
didn't connect to match obvious visual patterns...so I erased some lines here
too and reconnected a couple stars. There's a few more, but you probably
wouldn't notice them unless you compared the original maps to mine... These
minor modifications do speed up my plots and make them a little more
accurate, but in no way do they change their gnomonic structure...just
matching patterns I normally see in the sky to be easily recognizable on the
charts. I may not know exactly what certain stars are that I'm looking at,
but I can easily convert the sky to my charts...if you do enough plottings,
you will probably modify some areas to fit your own purpose. While looking
at the night time sky, I often catch myself thinking in terms of "connect the
dots" and amusingly think of wanting to assign sequential numbers to the
stars...all in jest here though...I'm kinda fondly thinking of my daughters
when they were young and this helps pass some of the time.
The biggest headache I have while plotting are those long meteors that won't
fit entirely on any one chart...then need to use perhaps two charts.
George Z.