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    Star Finder Urgent Re-Design
    From: Zvi Doron
    Date: 2005 Apr 17, 21:14 +0100

    Just received a 2102-D star finder I bought on eBay and finding it hard to
    understand why it was designed to be so difficult to use.
    The point that the celestial sphere is depicted from the outside, rather
    than from within (the way it appears when looking at it from the surface of
    the earth) was already mentioned on this forum before. It is extremely
    confusing. The RAF standard Flower Planisphere was dsigned the 'right' way.
    If anybody knows of any reason why Mr. Rude decided on this anti-intuitive
    arrangement I would love to hear it.
    The other issues concern the blue graticule transparent  disks.
    First, having a miror image set of azimuths and declinations for north and
    south make these very difficult to read quickly. The eye keeps andering
    around looking for the right numbers. A simple two colour solution, similar
    to the Astro Compass, would have solved this for a small additional price.
    More annoying is the fact that whilst star names are written circularly
    around the pole, the azimuths are all oriented so as to be read from one
    direction (south). You have to keep turning the whole thing to read both the
    star name and its azimuth if they are above the line of your zenith (looking
    from south).
    I have added two paper disks that when placed over the pin and aligned
    properly give me a quick indication of GHA Aries, not accurate enough for
    sight reduction but good enough for setting the instrument without an
    almanac and identifying unknown stars showing through gaps in cloud cover.
    They make the star finder a much more capable product. I am tempted to start
    manufacturing an improved version of the Star Finder - (2102 E?) if not for
    making any money at least for making it a much more usable product...
    I know it has been around in its present form for many years, and as we know
    old navigation habits die hard. So did longitude by chronmeter and various
    other needles and confusing conversions between various time systems and
    star location arrangements. Time to move on.
    
    
    

       
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