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Newbie to the telescopes :)


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Hi everyone. 

I purchased a sky-watcher heritage 100 last Saturday and lets just say every chance I have had to take it out in the evenings i have.

I have the stellarium software on my laptop and find it quite useful for picking out certain stars/planets.

I have seen Arcturus, Vega, Altair and of course i have seen the moon and caught a quick glimse of Saturn. 

As I only have a very basic knowledge of what is up in the sky I was wondering if someone could advise me what to look for next or how to find out what to look for. I am learning about this to help my 5 year old son who has a great knowledge of space already. He is absolutely fascinated by the telescope and has seen pretty much everything i have seen.

Thanks in advance 

Kirsty x

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Hi Kirsty

There are many very good books and other resources to help you find your way around the sky, Turn Left at Orion is highly recommended by many at SGL but there are many others that are equally recommended.

Also down load  an app, many use stellarium and rate it highly, i prefer Sky Safari 4 but thats just a personal thing.

Cheers

Ps. Haha just saw you already have Stellarium!!

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Hello kirsty and welcome I too would recommend turn left at Orion it will give you plenty of targets throughout the year.

At the moment m 13 the great globular cluster and m 57 the ring nebula are well placed.

You could also check out some nice double stars like albireo and mizar and gamma delphinus.

Enjoy

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Saturn - will need about 100x to get the rings.

If you have found Vega and Altair then the third one is Deneb = Summer Triangle. Deneb is the main start of Cygnus - Cygnus forms a sort of cross, with Deneb at the top, wander "down" Cygnus and you find a just visible start at the end, that is Albireo. Look at that, actually a double and different colours.

Vega is the main star of Lyra, Off to one side of Vega is the double double, by eye looks like one star, in binoculars a double and in a scope each star is itself a double. Scope should get all 4.

Back in Lyra sort of away from Vega 4 stars form a trapesium shape, locate the lower 2 that form a short side and look in the middle of these - should be a "blur" this is M57 the ring nebula.

Between Cassiopeia and Perseus is the Double Cluster, need low power and widerish field to get both in.

Cassiopeia points ofr helps finding Andromeda, forget the scope for this use binoculars.

If you can find Hercules, not in our light polluted skies obvious, then find the square and along one edge is a blob called the Great Cluster in Hercules, M13. Again binoculars help to determine where M13 is.

Left thing vague as to how well they will appear. M57 should be a ring and usually is but just in case I have said "blur", OK circular blur.

Bookwise I prefer The Monthly Sky Guide by Ridpath+Tirion, just the information suits me.

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4th vote although I never owned it. 

You could try M13, M57, M27 if you have reasonably dark skies. You could try M31 early september I guess.

Double stars are great fun too! Albireo, the double double in Lyra, some others are on Cygnus (don't remember which Cotterless45 could help here :p) Izar in Bootes and the Pole star.

P.S: I forgot the great double cluster in Perseus. If you could hang out late enough you would be able to see M31 and this beautiful Cluster

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Hi Kirsty and welcome to SGL :)

I also enjoy owning Turn Left at Orion, but the reading that got me really going with finding objects and learning the night sky was Sky at Night magazine. The center pages have a full overview of the sky, and the sky tour articles and "pick of the month" objects give a great idea of sky movement and seasonal fluctuations.

It also gives a good idea of which size scopes or bins to use to view particular objects, along with an idea of how bright they are, and finding & star hopping suggestions. Read it monthly for a year and you'll soon understand what's going on up there.

Anything else you're struggling with you can either google, or of course come back here and ask specific questions. Hth :)

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Another vote for turn left at orion, I have the pdf of it and is a good read.

Also, stellarium is lovely for a young'un and you as well, as it's very intuitive and visual.

It's fantastic that your inspiration is to keep your son captivated. Such a lovely thing. I'd think possibly looking at the moon, trying to spot the moon landing sites. You can always look into the space programs then.

Does he have any particular interests with space? Planets, constellations, moon etc?

I bet he has been really interested in new horizons mission!

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

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