Hi Guy: Get your Kevlar vest on. I know the laser pointer is here to stay on the observing field (until the Homeland Security Czar takes them away...). -However- If more people come to star parties with GoTo telescopes and laser pointers, than without them, then they are there more for the techie stuff than the view through the eyepiece. Setting circles, digital or traditional, work just as well as a GoTo mount, but not nearly as "cool" to the gadget-happy consumer. If your desire is simply to "pack 'em in", hold a raffle, get a bikini-clad airhead to recline on your telescope, bring a keg, roast a pig! But don't get high and mighty about Technology the Liberator of Mankind. I'm not anti-technology, never said I was, but this is a specific case of inventing a need. From my perspective, the GoTo and laser technology does not make the visual astronomy experience better; this is strictly subjective and not empirical at all. I honestly can't relate to that claim and (sic) refuse to acknowledge it's validity. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion (humble though it may be...). Where you actually a scientist gathering data, or an imager with a target list, time would be at a premium and this argument would be valid, but as a "nature lover" and socialite it just isn't.

From your own statement it is clear that the star party itself and social interaction is the primary motivation here, not increasing one's working knowledge of the sky. May as well be in a philatetic society or book club.

Sure, if the laser works to lure in recruits, OK, but it would be nice to actually teach people something useful. Yes, you point out the object quickly and easily, look really authoritative wielding it as you stab the sky with your light-sabre, but the next night most of those looking up that beam won't be able to remember where you pointed at all. Pity no-one pulled out a star chart and actually showed them how to delineate a constellation and use the stars themselves as a landmark, then helped them find it in the sky themselves. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish...well you know the rest. But it's quantity over quality, I forgot. There are exceptions of course, as Gary said, but these are rare individuals with a real desire to learn, and not typical. Don't worry, you probably won't have to give up your laser until someone pries it from your cold, dead hand. I come from a time when the astro-clubs were a gathering place for people genuinely interested in astronomy and related sciences, not just as an excuse to sit around in a lawn chair and shoot the breeze, holding court before the novices. I suppose that makes me an anachronism. And damn proud of it in this case. I'll post no more on this subject.

purchase telescopes or otherwise become involved in astronomy doesn't matter. What matters is that they keep coming back night after night to engage those of us who show up.

I know, I know, with a manual scope or binoculars, and a thorough knowledge of the sky, who needs technology? It is 2005, and while it's great to live in a simpler less complicated time, technology is here and it's here for a reason. It is used to make things better. To help make better use of time. And whether that technology comes in the form of a green laser, or a fully computerized telescope, that will level and align it'self, that will track an object clear across the sky while you sit back and drink coffee, or, shoot the breeze with your friends, I believe that regardless of it's form, technology has a place at star parties...JMHO

Guy

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