Beginners March Viewing

[Langy]

I know there is a wealth of websites available for what to find in the sky. Now for us beginners unless you have a good scope or a goto system most of the objects are pretty hard to find. A lot of us live in places like towns where LP is also an issue but often or not at least one small portion of the sky is actually quite visible.

So I thought why don’t we try and create a new monthly post in the forum which may be some extra assistance for the newbie. I for one only tried to look for and found within a couple of minutes M44 Beehive Cluster, only because someone had posted an image of it in the Beginners Imaging section.

Now this may not appeal to everyone, but I think if we lay down a few simple guides for people to follow before posting we can come up with a few objects each month to get people starting with either just the eye or a reasonable pair of binoculars.

For March then what simple find can you offer a newbie to look for and where and when is the best time to view it.

Can you add a good easy target in a different part of the sky or different viewing time for the newbies to view in March?

A couple of my suggestions:

M44 Orion Nebula is visible as a faint object within Orion but clearly visible with 10x50 bins. Best viewing is early evening starting South but it will disappear at the horizon in the West by midnight.

Jupiter visible high in the sky from early evening in Gemini and should remain visible until after midnight for a couple of hours before it hits the horizon in the West.

[Ptarmigan]

That's a good idea !

I'd like to suggest asteroid Pallas, currently at opposition, mag7, so good for bino viewing etc. and nicely placed in the southern sky. (for us northern Europeans !)

After visiting Jupiter and M44 Beehive ( always a good sight for newbies and oldies alike!) an amble downwards and leftish a bit will bring you to alpha Hydra (aka Alphard) a nice orange jewel, then left from that brings you to Pallas.

Going a bit further leftwards a similar distance brings you to gamma Sextans

Why do I mention gamma Sextans ?

Well if you find it you know you have gone too far for finding Pallas !

and secondly Sextans is a small constellation that doesnt often get a mention, so this is a good excuse to search it out

So, what made me suggest this, well I had a surprise patch of clear sky between clouds and rain, I had nothing planned and was wandering aimlessly with my 10x50 binos and Stellarium on my laptop whilst waiting for Mars to clear some trees to my SEast

[Marky1973]

As a newby starting out and reading books/Sky at Night magazine and playing with binoculars while I try and make a scope decision, I think this is a brilliant idea.....obviosuly slightly selfishly, as I doubt I would have anything to contribute for a long time - but if people were able to throw up a few posts like this, I, for one, would be very grateful.

[Stridor]

M81 & M82 are good targets and do-able with a pair of 10x50 bino`s (within the Ursa Major constellation)

[dick_dangerous]

As someone who can't stand early mornings and lives in a city, I think this is an excellent idea. For the beginner I would recommend the following:

• M42/43, Orion Nebula - Because if it's in the sky it's rude not to. I tweak the finderscope on this one every night.
• Jupiter - Riding high right now.
• M44, Praesepe - Can't agree enough with this one. Best viewed with binoculars or wide-field telescope. It's on the cusp of naked eye visibility even in Zone 6.
• M67 - the other Cancer cluster. It keeps on giving - with my ST80 its a suggestive haze, very lovely, with the 150P it resolves into countless ancient orange stars.
• M35 - Another of my favourite clusters - cusp of naked eye visible from a dark site, but easy enough to find without!
• NGC 2392, The Clown Face / Eskimo Nebula - How easy is this planetary nebula to find? It's high surface brightness makes it a doddle with a larger aperture, even in London.
• M81/M82 - Bit of a tough star hop, but once you know it, it just keeps getting easier. These two are some of the only galaxies bright enough to be visible even under sodium lamps, although the darker the site, the better the view.
• Mars - If you can stand staying up that late / getting up that early. So far I've only pointed the ST80 at it, and was underwhelmed, but I've seen the ice caps before through my old 3.5'' Tal with high magnification so I just need a chance to get the Dob on the job.

For reading matter, the perennial favourite Turn Left at Orion is a good bet for suggested objects, as is Mark Thompson's book - A Down to Earth Guide to the Cosmos. It's aimed squarely at the beginner and divided into months.

DD

[Ptarmigan]

• M67 - the other Cancer cluster

Thank you, nice one, I dont think I've looked at that one before !

[MalcolmC]

Great intro. Thank you.

[nicks90]

M50 - heart shaped cluster - directly above Sirius

and dont forget M3, super globular near bootes in the east.

[John101]

Thanks Paul,

Outstanding suggestion to craft such a list as this!

And big THANKS to contributors.

I cant wait for the April list!

Old-to-radio-new-to-optics,

John

[buzzlightyear]

Great post guys. I'm sure this will help newbies like myself.

[purdo]

Just came  across this via another thread, excellent idea, thanks a lot, it will be a great help. 

[johnd]

Yes a great list of 'easier' DSO's to try in my SW LP views. Thanks

[Doyley]

What a great idea. All this will really help me knowing what to look out for and where.

Thanks

[Stu]

A very good idea.

There are resources out there already which give help and pointers as to what to look for:

The Skymaps site is very useful with monthly download PDFs

http://skymaps.com/skymaps/tesmn1403.pdf

http://skymaps.com/downloads.html

www.binocularsky.com is also very good, and useful for positioning of asteroids and comets etc

www.heavens-above.com is also a very handy site to check.

Hope those are of some use.

Cheers,

Stu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lemonysam]

Great idea. Might be nice to highlight areas where there's lots going on as that helps to get used to moving around and starting star hopping. 

For example M36-8 are still a good target - easy to get close to but still needing patience to find all of. Then a bit further afield but still easy to find you have M35 and once you want a slightly bigger challenge -  M1. Those are all doable without any particularly major adjustments to your scope. Then it's an easy readjustment to move left to cancer to M44 and M67.