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Oceanside Pier, thirty seconds

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Stellarium


Stan was kind enough to send the following link www.stellarium.org. This is a pretty amazing tool for constellation watching. You can dial in Navajo, Norse or other assorted cultural constellation choices including that old favorite, Greek. Check it out and play with it - tricky but you will figure it out!

go to the link and select your OS...(MAC or Windows)

In the configuration bar, the one that looks like a box wrench, along the lower left tool bar, select Location along the top of the submenu and choose a geographical area near where you are...click on the map. Just needs to be close.
Choose Guereins as a Landscape to begin with, so you can see where the horizon is, and then, when it is dark out, you can drag the horizon left and right until you have come to a view that lines up to where you are looking....make sure you have selected Cardinal Points (the four pointed star) in the lower tool bar, which tells you your N,S,E,W orientation.
On my computer, the time sets itself automatically. Also, go to Rendering in the same submenu, and click on Constellations Lines, Planets, Nubulas, and the last four, the Ground, Atmoshere, Cardinal Pts, and Fog.
Select the first three items, or any combo, along the bottom tool bar, to get an idea of the constellations and the planets.

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