Celestial Globes

[Mimi]

Does anyone have any recommendations on what celestial globe would be a good one to get?

I’m looking into getting one…

[Mimi]

[frozendragon]

um…what is that….

I’ve never heard of it….

[Mimi]

Its basically a 3 dimensional star atlas that tells you exactly where in the sky particular stars, etc. should be, for any selected location at any selected time/date.

Here’s what it looks like. This is one of the really expensive ones that I came across, a lot of them are cheaper.

[Starbreeze]

Here’s a website with a lot of them: http://www.worldglobes.com/search/index.cfm?Ntt=celestial&Ntk=all&source=overture&kwid=celestial%20globe&ysmwa=8IPSYS2e8-TagMc5WJLj74GNhGx7lpp9qES0kCKmvmLkHLU5nxRsu-XMABbovyLc

[Mimi]

Hey, I hadn’t seen some of those yet!

Oooh…this oneis nice…

[Starbreeze]

That one is cool!!! A bit expensive though!! 😀

[Mimi]

So it seems…its as much as an OOAK OW! 😆

There are a lot of neat ones on that site. I’m checking out what other ones they have right now…

[Starbreeze]

I hope you find one you like. Celestial globes are cool!! 😀

[Mimi]

Yup! 😀 The expensive ones are really nice, but I’m trying to decide if the cheaper ones would also serve the purpose…

[Maria]

Those are neat, Mimi! I looked at the one you pointed out and thought, “Down the lines of an SK…” 😆

[Mimi]

Exactly! 😀

[Mimi]

In case anyone else is interested in getting a celestial globe — this one is highly recommended. I got the 16″ version with a floor stand, and I’m very pleased with the quality.

This portable celestial hemisphere is also highly recommended. I came across that when I was looking for the celestial globe and ended up getting one also.

I got both of these from an EBay seller for a really good price (~55% of the retail price, brand new). 😀 Anyone who’s interested in the details, let me know…

[darjeb]

I am in shock. When I looked at the World Globes.com website one of them looked like one I picked up at a garage sale a few years ago. It is the Blue Green Earthsphere with a sculptured base and it is priced at $249.99. I paid $5 for it because I thought it would look nice on my table. I love garage sales and flea markets.

[Heather]

If folks would like a star guide, there’s this little gizmo called a PlaniSphere that’s inexpensive and fairly useful. It’s two stacked disc shapes. The bottom one is printed with all of the stars and constellations. The top one has a big oval window cut in it. The edges of the discs are printed with months and hours of night. Basically, you line up the window by dialing to the current time of year and time of night. Then you turn so that the “East” and “West” printed on the window section point east and west. And that’s it. You now have in your hands a map that shows what is visible overhead. If you want to see what’s coming up later that night, you can dial forward and find out. And it’ll tell you what constellations are visible at what time of year. 🙂

There’s always a snag, and the PlaniSphere’s is this: It only shows one hemisphere (you can buy one to show either Northern or Southern), and you need to find the one that matches your latitude as closely as possible. They don’t make them for every latitude; most of the time, one just finds a near match. So if you live at 32 degrees, don’t buy the one for 45 degrees–it won’t show enough of the southern constellations.

Most models have the star names printed next to each star, and the stars themselves are displayed by symbols that tell you what magnitude they are. The constellations are picked out with lines and labelled. On some models, the edges of the window are printed with a scale to show how many degrees above the horizon each star will be.

It’s definitely not as cool as a celestial sphere, but it’s fun and it travels well. I learned a lot on my own using a PlaniSphere, and they used them in our astronomy class in college. It seems to me that PlaniSphere is just a trade name; they’re probably sold under other names.

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