2024-01-25, 05:40 PM
Firstly, I think maybe I failed just a bit to make myself fully understood. Its my job to solve your problems. But that's not the same thing as giving you exactly what you asked for. Like I said, you tell me why you want something-how it fits into the way you observe-and I'll find the solution. Please don't imagine that means that I want to force you into doing things "my way." People say that when I don't give them exactly what they want. But that's not really fair. SkyTools must remain consistent, it must remain as uncluttered as possible, and what you want it to do needs to be doable. I have a lot of things to consider that are not obvious to everyone else.
I know its unusual, but what I really want is to have an argument about this. I want someone to make me understand the nature of their issue, and then when I push back, perhaps by suggesting the problem has already been solved in another way, convince me I'm wrong. Believe it or not, there are some key features of SkyTools that long ago were the result of someone taking the time to have an argument with me about it.
You said, "I'm working my way through a set of objects in a list like the Messier list and I get to M84 and realize that, in my scope, it's in the same field of view as M86. How would you "group" or create a visual link between these two objects... so that every time I see M84 in my Messier list, I remember that it's *associated* with M86?"
Now that - that's a good argument. Its something I can sink my teeth into.
But again, to play devils advocate - what if we had a simple visual way to achieve this that had the following features: 1) you had to take no actions to make it work, and 2) that it would even tell you these objects were grouped together before you ever observed them?
To my mind that's why we have charts, especially the eyepiece views. Now, I'm not trying to be facetious here- what I mean is that when I decide to go out to observe, however I may be doing that at the time, I usually take a little time to research the objects that I am going to look at. This means first filtering the list to just the ones I am going to try for that night, and then I right-click to open the Object Info and/or a chart. The Object Information has a tab that can find nearby objects by the way, and of course the charts naturally show them.
To remind myself I could make a note in the brief for M81 to remind me to look at M82 when I go to M81.
But what you guys were talking about earlier was a feature that linked log entries, and you wanted to be the arbiter of which objects were connected in this manner rather than some sort of automated process. That's the part I'm having trouble with and it seems somewhat unrelated to the problem you have posed. It seems to me like a different issue altogether. Lets think about M46 and its planetary nebula, NGC 2438. Its difficult to separate the two observations, yet they are for two distinct objects of different types. Its not like two galaxies that are part of a galaxy cluster and you could just log the cluster. But I don't see this as having to do with observing lists and planning. It seems to me to be more about organizing your logs. Assuming you made separate log entries for each of them, isn't it really more about wanting to quickly see the log for one when viewing the log for the other?
I know its unusual, but what I really want is to have an argument about this. I want someone to make me understand the nature of their issue, and then when I push back, perhaps by suggesting the problem has already been solved in another way, convince me I'm wrong. Believe it or not, there are some key features of SkyTools that long ago were the result of someone taking the time to have an argument with me about it.
You said, "I'm working my way through a set of objects in a list like the Messier list and I get to M84 and realize that, in my scope, it's in the same field of view as M86. How would you "group" or create a visual link between these two objects... so that every time I see M84 in my Messier list, I remember that it's *associated* with M86?"
Now that - that's a good argument. Its something I can sink my teeth into.
But again, to play devils advocate - what if we had a simple visual way to achieve this that had the following features: 1) you had to take no actions to make it work, and 2) that it would even tell you these objects were grouped together before you ever observed them?
To my mind that's why we have charts, especially the eyepiece views. Now, I'm not trying to be facetious here- what I mean is that when I decide to go out to observe, however I may be doing that at the time, I usually take a little time to research the objects that I am going to look at. This means first filtering the list to just the ones I am going to try for that night, and then I right-click to open the Object Info and/or a chart. The Object Information has a tab that can find nearby objects by the way, and of course the charts naturally show them.
To remind myself I could make a note in the brief for M81 to remind me to look at M82 when I go to M81.
But what you guys were talking about earlier was a feature that linked log entries, and you wanted to be the arbiter of which objects were connected in this manner rather than some sort of automated process. That's the part I'm having trouble with and it seems somewhat unrelated to the problem you have posed. It seems to me like a different issue altogether. Lets think about M46 and its planetary nebula, NGC 2438. Its difficult to separate the two observations, yet they are for two distinct objects of different types. Its not like two galaxies that are part of a galaxy cluster and you could just log the cluster. But I don't see this as having to do with observing lists and planning. It seems to me to be more about organizing your logs. Assuming you made separate log entries for each of them, isn't it really more about wanting to quickly see the log for one when viewing the log for the other?
Clear skies,
Greg
Head Dude at Skyhound
Greg
Head Dude at Skyhound