Although I've been primarily a visual observer (18" dob) in the past, nowadays I'm mainly into "assisted" observing using an 8" Newt and the very sensitive Lodestar X2 guide camera. But my interest remains the same: detecting faint objects rather than astrophotography, so I find this forum inspirational as well as the fabulous observing guides produced by some of its members.
Motivated by the need for an atlas capable of showing what I can routinely capture in sub-1 minute exposures with the 8" from a SQM 19-20 site, I've been developing from the ground up a set of detailed sky charts whose aim is to be complete down to at least mag 18. Some of you visual guys with huge scopes might conceivably find them useful, hence this post.
The charts use PPMXL and XHIP for stars and LEDA for galaxies, and in addition plot recent catalogues of open/globular clusters, bright, dark, reflection and planetary nebulae, variables (AAVSO), multiples (WDS), quasars (Veron) and galaxy groups/systems (Hickson, Shakhbazian, Palomar, Abell, VV, Arp, Arp-Madore).
When complete, there will be all-sky coverage via 6787 deep charts each covering 3 degrees of declination, along with 324 finder charts to enable rapid location of the relevant deep charts. The charts are vector-graphics PDFs designed to be zoomed to the limit to see all the information contained in them, and are all hyperlinked for ease of navigation. They're meant to be used on a tablet or laptop under any OS.
Currently, nearly 2000 deep charts are available for downloading, covering the following constellations: UMI LEO COM CRB CRT CRV CVN UMA VIR DRA BOO SER1 LIB HYA SEX LMI HER CAM. More will come in the next release when I resolve the issue of star-rich constellations…
The development is being documented on another forum so forgive me for not repeating all the information here (but of course feel free to ask questions on this current thread). You can find more about the motivation and catalogues here
and get hold of the charts via the dropbox links here
Now all the infrastructure is in place it would not be too difficult to develop a set designed explictly for visual-only observers if there is sufficient interest. Do let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements.
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