Hungry4info wrote:Thanks. Unfortunately, my telescope is actually a "cheap supermarket telescope". Do you think I could just fashion a device to block out Sirius A as you describe?
That is the much harder part, and in my case required a lathe with centering facilities to make the tiny steel cone for the eyepiece and the metal mounting and adjustment for an additional lens that properly maps the cone... Fortunately I had such tools available throughout my youth (and still today as well
). Moreover, for the cone being effective, you need a pretty accurate motor drive
, otherwise Sirius A will immediately move away from the cone ...
Well if you think your optics "luckily" provides a relatively crisp image of the moon at high magnification, you might just try, nevertheless.
But without the rotatable hexagonal cardboard mask you have no chance. Since making the mask is less than 30 mins of work, I would simply try it. You will learn something, also if not "successful"
You need to use the biggest eyepiece magnification (shortest available focus).
If you are interested in the physics behind such diffractive masks, have a look in the net under the keyword:
apodization. That's what the mask is about! You will be surprised and see Fourier transforms at work and some very interesting basic physics (optics).
With Celestia, you first locate the position of B relative to North. You need to know rather precisely beforehand, WHERE to look for B in your telescope! Then start rotating the mask slowly and watch your hexagonal A component carefully between it's rotating 6 spikes.
Fridger
PS: The "black hiding spot" of course only makes sense, if your optics is able to exquisitely map very bright point sources into a close to "theoretical" diffraction disc in the focal plane. Cheap telescopes will generate plenty of noise and spikes for such bright objects, which will protrude from the black disk, thus turning it useless...
