Astronomy Without a Telescope
latinized bayer designation
- A tricky Commodore PET repair: tracking down 6 1/2 bad chips (righto.com)
In 1977, Commodore released the PET computer, a quirky home computer that combined the processor, a tiny keyboard, a cassette drive for storage, and a trapezoidal screen in a metal unit. The Commodore PET, the Apple II, and Radio Shack’s TRS-80 started the home computer market with ready-to-run computers, systems that were called in retrospect the 1977 Trinity. I did much of my early programming on the PET, so when someone offered me a non-working PET a few years ago, I took it for nostalgic reasons.
- Eltanin (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
ELTANIN (Gamma Draconis). Because it was the pole star during a time of ancient Egypt, Thuban is the most famed star of Draco, the Dragon, and justly received Bayer’s Alpha designation even though at bright fourth magnitude it is hardly the constellation’s brightest star.
