Suddenly after reading a newspaper article approaching Mars in the beginning of August (2003), I recalled that I was watching stars long ago in my boyhood with a refracting telescope (100X). With my old memory in my boyhood and for the help of free research homework of daughter's summer vacation, suddenly I bought a reflecting telescope of 20cm φ(VMC200L) and set it at the 10F of veranda of my home in Wako city. This telescope VMC200L is "Meniscus Catadioptoric" of D=200mm f=1950mm, the length of the telescope is very short compared with the focal plane length (1950mm) and very good at handing at the narrow space such as veranda. Since Polaris is invisible location, initial setting equatorial was done combined with a compass and a level of granularity. With the automatic star tracking system by an equatorial and a single axis pulse motor, I was able to correct to the direction of equatorial by the shift of stars with time evolution.
last
updated on 12 Dec 2003)