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JUST POINT AND CLICK. PHOTO: JAMES SMEDLEY
Stargazing for Dummies PERSONAL PLANETARIUMS HAVE ARRIVED
PUT AWAY THAT SEXTANT. Stop squint- ing at star charts. Navigating the heavens is now as easy as everything else in this point and click society. A telescope manufacturer has unveiled
bill@ostrompacks.com 12 n C ANOE ROOT S fall 2007
Skyscout, a handheld stargazing aid that puts information about 6,000 stars, planets and constella- tions at your fingertips. Just plug some batter- ies into the device, tar- get a star through the viewfinder, click the button and an audio re- cording or text display will tell you what celes- tial body you are looking at before adding pertinent astronomical facts and historical or mythological information. You can also select a star from the index and follow the directional arrows on the screen until the device locates the star for you. Te 420-gram Skyscout employs GPS
technology to determine your location, a built-in compass to record the unit’s ori- entation, gravitational sensors to gauge what angle you are holding the device at and a clock to account for the earth’s con- stant rotation. It then calculates what star must be appearing in your viewfinder by searching its database of star coordinates. For example, you can point it at the W-
shaped constellation in the northern sky and learn that it is Cassiopeia, named af- ter the Queen of Ethiopia whose daugh- ter Andromeda was chained to a rock at sea by those unhappy with Cassiopeia’s vain boastfulness. Te arrival of
the Skyscout doesn’t mean that the imagi- native skills that have been central to amateur stargaz- ing are obsolete. In-
creasing levels of light pol- lution have obscured the night skies on many canoe routes. Now
you can still enjoy a satisfying stargaze even if you are camping too close to a city to see the stars. Instead of surveying the heavens and using your imagination to group stars together into shapes, just point your Skyscout at the sky, listen to the audio track describing the hidden constellations and use your imagination to picture what the stars look like. With its database of 6,000 objects the
Skyscout has information on almost ev- ery heavenly object visible to the naked eye. It’s safe to say that Galileo would be impressed, as long as he didn’t run out of batteries.—Ian Merringer
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