[APBeta] Star Magnitudes

Anthony Tripodi daedalus1 at cox.net
Tue Jan 13 13:06:39 PST 2009


Hello, Paul.

Happy New Year!!

How was London? I used to go there a couple of times a month with the 
great Pan Am. We would lay over in the Mayfair. It is one of the 
greatest cites in the world, and I loved being there.

Well, to business. I have installed 2.0b15 on my Mac Intel Core Duo 
running OS X.5.6, and am still having problems with the FOV star 
magnitudes. I have defined two telescopes in the resource pane: one my 
default 'scope (Tak TOA 130) and the other I use as a finder (StellarVue 
F-50). All of that data has been checked many times and is correct. 
Finder 'scope is limited to the 9th mag and my default 'scope is limited 
to the 12th mag. AP uses the data correctly in that it lists both 
'scopes in the various drop down menus and has the correct eyepiece 
fields when matched to the default 'scope and viewfinder FOV.

Here's what happens when I request a FOV for a particular object. If, 
for example, I have the Tycho catalog as my star source for the field, 
all the stars down to the dimmest magnitude are displayed in the field, 
even though the correct field size is displayed. Thus, even though my 
finder is limited to the 9th mag, stars to the 13th mag are displayed 
when I select "finder" in the eyepiece drop down menu. If I limit the 
magnitude using the slide selector in the FOV pane, all stars dimmer 
than the 9th mag are pinpoints while stars brighter than the 9th mag are 
displayed in their correct relative sizes. If I move the slide all the 
way to the left, all the stars become pinpoints. If I move the slide to 
the right extreme, all the stars become abnormally large. In either 
case, all the stars in the Tycho catalog are displayed no matter what 
their magnitude is.

In preferences > other > star magnitude scale, I have selected and 
deselected the various radio buttons to no avail. The selections change 
the FOV display, but do not limit the number of stars displayed.

Perhaps I have set up something wrong?

Take care,

Tony





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