CreepyOlmos

Thanks for the advice! I'm gathering information for my Hunt list, but from my balcony the Cancer constellation is too low on the sky, and almost hidden by buildings and LP :<. I will definitely need to try the binos on a clear, dark sky area, but the Phoenix Park in Dublin doesn't seems safe enough to go alone in the middle on the night, I've read story about amateur stargazer being stalked by creeper while observing the sky here

So the moon do mess up with Deep sky object around? I was wondering that. That's reassuring, maybe the LP isn't that disturbing after all.

Actually, the sentence is right ^^.

Frak yes, first light with these great binoculars I got a couple of days ago! To set the stage, I live in Ireland, so it's really cloudy most of the time, and quite a lot of light pollution, but luckily my flat is on the 4th floor, and I have a nice balcony. 22h: Oh damn it, frakking clouds, just get the hell out of my sky! 23h: Are you kidding me? You damn stupid country! I can't even see the moon! 00h00: Come on! For the love of... Oh wait, where are the clouds? So I set up everything rapidly, deploy my cheap tripod, put the 15x70, prepare my computer with Stellarium and some other paper maps. And here come the first question: "Where should I start?" > The moon of course, almost full! "Okay so, the moon, easy to spot, it should be here, wait for it... HOLY Sh!&'. Mind blowing! So much details, craters! I couldn't look anywhere else, I was like hypnotised! "Next target? Hm, what's this bright star just near the moon? let's take a look... Hey that's weird, that doesn't look like a star, I should check on the map... What the... is that frakking SATURN? :°" Can't believe I could saw it with binocular! I could definitely saw the shape of the ring. "Okay, great, well, let's try the Leo Triplet... damn, I can't find M66, maybe too much LP or because of the almost-full moon?" "Let's head to the Gemini twins, there should be a cluster somewhere near their feets... nothing here... ho, there's a lot of stars here, wait I remember this pattern, oh yeah, M35!, hard to believe there're so much stars we can't see with naked eyes!". "What the, I can see something moving, definitely not a bird or a plane, could that be a sattelite?!" "So, if I go far more on the right, before Auriga, I should get... oh, is that M37? hard to tell, damn LP. And even further on the right... wow, hello M36, or is that M38? Hm, I definitly need some practice! :p" I have underestimate the effect of the LP I have around, but still, I can't wait the next free-cloud night to try to find those clusters! Any tips to differentiate these clusters by the way? ^^'.

Hello there, Well, hm, what should I say... Right, I'm 19, I'm French but I live in Dublin (Silly idea, isn't it? ), and I've started really learning about astronomy couple of months ago, I've always been facinated by the sky, but it's only recently that I told myself "Come on, do it for frak sake!". So I've read books, done some naked-eyes stargazing, and here I am... When I think about it; learning about the sky, understanding what's out there, I can't help myself but to wonder "Why isn't everyone interested in astronomy?". I mean, let's take an exemple: When you move into a new town on your new house, you're curious about your new neighbors, you want to go around and explore, see if there are any interesting shop, bars or something... It's the same think with astronomy! Our house is Earth, we live on the Solar System street, on the local group departement, in the Milky way country, so it's perfectly normal that we go and look around! But well, that's just my opinion, some people aren't curious enough I guess Oh, and I recently got a nice Skymaster 15x70, I'll post my "First light" right away!