Sky and Telescope - August 2015 - 6

Letters

A Century of Stargazing

manually and then tell the hand controller
that's where north is. It's also possible to
bypass the GPS (or Easy) Alignment and
leave the compass totally out of the setup
process - though that's not as convenient.

I always bring the current issue of Sky &
Telescope with me when I visit the dark
skies in Tupper Lake, New York, to see
my cousin Muriel Ginsberg, who celebrated her 105th birthday last November.
She's so interested in the magazine that,
for the last couple of years, I've been
buying her a gift subscription, which she
cherishes. (Caregivers read it to her.) Last
summer, she even attended the opening
of the nearby Adirondack Public Observatory, to which she donates. Kudos to
everyone at S&T for enriching the waning
years of perhaps their oldest subscriber.
Edward Ginsberg
Boston, Massachusetts

The "How" and
"So What" of Astronomy

Thanks for the awesome article about
H. P. Lovecraft and his history with
astronomy (S&T: Feb. 2015, p. 34). I'm an
avid fan, and it was nice to read about his
early works in amateur astronomy as well
as the other delicious details. Thanks for
including an article not just about science
and the workings of our scopes. Please
publish more like this.
Chan Webb
Bozeman, Montana

Go To Alignment Puzzler
Rod Mollise's article on aligning Go To
mounts (S&T: Feb. 2015, p. 62) didn't
address how a telescope's electronic
compass can become confused by local
magnetic-ﬁeld anomalies. This is a real
showstopper for amateur astronomers
living in urban locations. In my neighborhood, magnetic north is almost never
where it's supposed to be, and the main

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August 2015 sky & telescope

Still active at 105, Muriel Ginsberg
enjoys keeping up with astronomy and
visiting the local public observatory.

cause of trouble seems to be magnetic
interference from steel handrails nearby.
So when I set my telescope up on the
sidewalk and start to align it, the result is
typically oﬀ by more than 5°°. It took me
quite a few months to ﬁgure out what was
going wrong. First I have to determine
which star it's looking for and then center
the star manually. Once I've done this
(twice), it's ﬁne.
Graeme Birchall
Jersey City, New Jersey
Rod Mollise replies: Local masses of metal,
often your vehicle, can indeed interfere with
your scope's magnetic compass. Luckily, it's
not as much of a problem as it used to be.
Celestron's original GPS systems used an
internal compass to point north, but this
feature was eventually eliminated from all
of its telescopes. Some Meade telescopes do
still use an electronic compass, however.
So what's the solution if you can't move
away from all that metal? A routine in the
Autostar hand controller allows you to "calibrate" the compass. You ﬁrst point at Polaris

EDWARD GINSBERG

Lovecraft's Astronomy

Having subscribed to S&T since 1970,
I ﬁnd that the magazine gives short
shrift to an important aspect: the How of
astronomy. I suspect that science illiteracy
is driven partly because science reporting
tends to emphasize results (the What of
science) but neglects the How. People don't
understand how the results come about.
Moreover, one important part of How is
Who. Only people do science - not computers, spacecraft, or telescopes. S&T could
do more to expose the individuals involved
in astronomy and space science.
Another aspect of How is observation.
Nearly all astronomical and space-science
observations are made indirectly - that
is, some sort of instrument intervenes
between the natural object of study and
the human observer. S&T could do more
to describe and explain modern astronomical and space-science instrumentation. One example is spectrographs. You
and I know that spectrographs are among
the most important astronomical instruments, but the public is largely unaware
of this fact. Moreover, modern spectrographs have evolved greatly over the last
few decades and are a far cry from the
simple slit-and-prism schematic illustration that's usually trotted out to explain
their function.
Could S&T, by better exposing the
How of astronomy and space science, contribute more to overall scientiﬁc literacy?
Mark Holm
Monroeville, Pennsylvania
Camille Carlisle replies: It's true that many
people do not understand how science works.
Part of that is specialization in knowledge:
I know a few things about astronomy - but
next to nothing about taxes.
We do try to ﬁnd the balance between

Sky and Telescope - August 2015

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