wibblefish

I went out yesterday (first clear sky for a while) and saw 3 in the space of an hour and half from around 2100-2230. Slightly disappointed after reading about it having a high rate of meteors though I am told there is a significant drop off, something like 1/4, from peak which was on Monday so I guess I was lucky I saw any at all coupled with urban location!

As I am new to all this and the nights seem very few and far between at present so I guess am trying to find some books that will peak my interest in what's out there whilst I wait and help to give me some confidence to be able to navigate / know what I am seeing to make the most of the times I am able to get out with the telescope. If the ones I have currently read are the most useful at this stage I will just re-read them I do think a lot of what I am currently struggling with will actually be resolved more practice, familiarizing myself with the telescope controls as well as being able to work out what the different stars are and where with reference to star maps - TLAO looks perfect for this (I use my phone app at present and while its fantastic I feel like it might be a bit of a crutch!). I also find it hard to differentiate star magnitudes / colours of celestial object at present and navigate off of known "bright stars" to where I want to go but I suspect itll come with experience!

After scouring various forums / best lists I also have the following on my list as potentials (though I appreciate some are just star maps rather than reading material) - "Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders" - Robert Bruce Thompson & Barbara Fritchman - "Astronomy Hacks: Tips and Tools for observing the Night Sky" - Robert Bruce Thompson & Barbara Fritchman - "Stars & Planets: The most complete guide to the Stars, Planets, Galaxies, and Solar System" - Ian Ridpath & Wil Tirion - "The Cambridge Star Atlas" - Wil Tirion - "The Cambridge Photographic Star Atlas" - Axel Mellinger, Ronald Stoyan - "Philips 2021 Stargazing Month-By-Month Guide" - Heather Couper, Nigel Henbest - "The Stars: A New Way to See Them" - H A Rey - "Collins Stargazing: Beginners guide to astronomy" - Royal Observatory Greenwich & Radmila Topalovic - "50 Things to see with a small telescope" - John A Read - "The Practical Astronomer" - DK - "100 Things to see in the night sky" - Dean Regas - Moongazing: Beginners guide to exploring the moon - Royal Observatory Greenwich & Tom Kerss

Howdy, As the current cloud cover / rain / fog here seems to be continuing unabated (1 clear night in the last 2 weeks and counting!) I am currently trying to read some books on Astronomy so when there is a good night I will have some clue what to look at / what I am looking at! I have currently read: "Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe" - Terence Dickinson - I found this book very engaging, very accessible and a great overview of a bit of everything and a handy spiral bound format for using some of the included charts. "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide" - Terence Dickinson & Alan Dyer - This was amazingly in depth, covered a lot of detail on telescopes, setups, choice, eyepeices etc as well as what to see and some history. It was perhaps a little more advanced than where I am in some areas but I am hoping subsequent re-reads with a bit more experience will let me get more out of it / use it as reference. "Turn Left at Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects to See in a Home Telescope – and How to Find Them" - Guy Consolmagno & Dan M Davis - Highly recommended on every astronomy board for beginners and for good reason, it is packed with well detailed sky maps of various sights as well as ratings for suitability for using binoculars / small refractors / dobs. It also shows what you are likely see in the telescope view and so help temper the expectations and hopefully help prevent beginners being disappointed with what they see. I haven't had a chance to use this book in the field yet but I am looking forward to it! To that end I am curious what books people would recommend to keep up some interest whilst the wait goes on?

Interesting, I will look it up thanks, I have done some sky stuff with just a long exposure on a tripod with my dslr but its been a few years since I tried it (see below not entirely sure what it was even aiming at lol) I am definately all about working with what I have rather than chasing the dragon at the moment since pennies are hard to come by especially if its going to be cloudy the whole time! I bought a pair of binoculars I will also be using for being out and about or quick cloud cover breaks!

@Jasonb I do have that exact telescope That sounds similar to my thinking, good to know I am not thinking something odd in terms of upgrade paths. I was oddly thinking of going wider rather than narrower but I probably need to read into it more as you say 25 > 32 might not do much. I need to read more into it I imagine to work out what might be best. Appreciate the links and thoughts! @Cosmic Geoff yeah I hear most stock 10mm are junk so I am not hopeful, I do wonder if the magnification will be a problem for Saturn etc. since this is a smaller refractor though the fov sims say it might with a good barlow on as well, guess I will have to take a punt (carefully!)

Thank you for the suggestions so far, I think eye pieces is likely the right route. @Cosmic Geoff I currently have a standard Sky-watcher stock 10mm and 25mm I would need to check exactly what though, the 25mm seems fine (to my eyes anyway) though I haven't had a go with the 10mm yet. I was thinking along the lines of a 32mm and something around 14mm plus a 2x barlow but I am not quite sure what sizes would be best for a good coverage of magnifications? Interesting idea @Neil H would there be any in particular you might recommend, I see BST Starguiders recommended alot here? @happy-kat thanks for the suggestions, the newsletter sounds like a good idea for targets, I do have a beanie but an SGL one might be a good upgrade

Thats interesting, good to know there are ways around it, I was guessing something simpler like point an app on a phone at Polaris and get a "rough" alignment. I am in Bortle 4 I think (well when there isn't thick cloud) though lots of bright streetlights around even with our tree cover and some security lights as well as some field of view limitations for low horizon objects I do live right near rural places so once I am more comfortable I might take a wander out to some darker skies in future. Yeah, Turn Left at Orion is (hopefully) more of a help to find XYZ interesting place in the sky book which is what I am looking for next rather than having to overly rely on my phone apps to understand what I am seeing though I am sure it will be a practice thing primarily.

My goal is primarily observation, astrophotography is probably to rich for my blood Saying that I will probably buy an adapter for the m43 dslr at some point (though I doubt it will be that great as its a small sensor) and will take some eyepeice pictures with a camera no doubt. I have an AZ pronto mount for the scope and it seems sturdy enough from moving it around the garden the other night trying to find various things (my garden is small / surrounded by trees / buildings), on and off grass. The telescope is quite light and its not overbalanced as it is a short tube, one of the reasons I went for it as it is portable enough and easy to take in and out of the garage. So overall I am satisfied the mount is enough, though I guess I could move to a better one later (or likely the next telescope way in the future), not sure on EQ since polaris is not visible from my location I have finished Nightwatch and Backyard Astronomers guide, both are excellent and have kept me learning and interested whilst the weather is terrible. I would probably give the edge to Nightwatch in terms of explaining the sky and observations for beginners as well as having some good simple charts. Backyard Astronomers Guide is very detailed and discusses viewing, telescopes, asscessories, and lots more in a lot of depth which I think would make it ideal if you were looking at choosing telescopes / starting in astrophotography as well as getting into the hobby. I think they both kind of complement each other well! I am awaiting a copy of Turn Left at Orion to arrive today as that seems to be recommended by just about everyone

Hi, I am fairly new to everything astronomy related so am devouring all the beginner books and only just gotten myself a telescope (Sky-Watcher Evostar 90/660 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/sky-watcher-evostar-90-660-az-pronto.html). I have only managed to successfully get out with this once at present due to the poor weather at present but thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Double so since I had made sure I wouldn't have to lofty ambitions about what I might see in terms of detail as I am aware that the scope and present ability to find / see are both likely to be very limited! Been wow'd by the moon of course, loved navigating through the constellations (simple ones I have been able to find so far) and would like to be able to see planets though like Mars I saw I am expecting it to be a very small dot! I hadn't planned on doing any upgrades for a while (or maybe at all) bar buying more books, planisphere etc. to get my brain used to what I am seeing. That said, however, I have some very kind family that would like to give me some pennies towards the new hobby for Christmas / birthday and I am wondering if anyone could recommend some additional pieces that may be improvements on the stock items I have already? I was guessing some simple things based on various books / posts the following but I am not honestly sure if they would be worth while in terms of improving things: - 2x Barlow - New eyepeices, perhaps something like a 32mm, 15-18mm which could be combined with a barlow for high magnification? I've looked at the fov calc visualizations with various sizes to try and get a reasonable (small) image of Saturn but I fear it might be more of a telescope limitation than anything I can achieve directly. - New star diagonal? I read a few recommendations but I am not clear if this will improve things overly as the opinions were mixed. - Improved RDF to a Telrad / Quikfinder, again it doesn't seem overly worth while but I haven't looked into this one much Anyways I am more inclined to hold fire on anything till I get much more observation under my belt but any suggestions are welcome! Also I am aware of the current stock limitations due to the pandemic so that will also help the no rush policy I hope! Cheers

Yup, I am hoping when I get more time / confidence I might head to more rural skies but at the moment my slightly light polluted back garden will suffice for the rare cloud breaks at present!

Interesting I have the mobile version of it but I have so far found SkyView Pro is easier to use. Will definitely look into that! I think it will come with practice and I will need to work it out as I do want to try to use sky maps in books also😎 Yes what with the pandemic reducing stock I took a bit of a gamble on the scope as I cant find any review online though the 90/900 is well known. I am happy so far as its portable enough and seems fine optically though I dont have much experience or anything to compare it with so not sure what older more knowledge folks would make of it. I think Im glad I went for the refractor over the mak I was looking at as I think the wider view is better at the moment!

Hello! I have been lurking on the forum for a little while and it was suggested to me when I posted earlier I should introduce myself here Total beginner here though I hope I can learn a few things and maybe ask some questions / answer some questions though I am not sure my opinions will be worth much as yet! Been looking for a while for a new hobby and recently had to do some investigating for a potential astronomy purchase for a family members birthday and got bitten by the bug myself I have done a few nights by eye and one with binoculars (though they were old and out of collimation so I have another set coming!) but decided to get a small, portable telescope as well for my birthday / Christmas since the opportunity arose! I purchased a Skywatcher Evostar 90/660 from FLO a few weeks ago and I finally got my first nights viewing last weekend (weather here has been terrible!) and sat totally amazed for a good two hours looking at Castor & Pollux, Orion (and the nebula is amazing), Casseopia and Mars (though it was just a bright dot in the scope!) as well as the moon and took a terrible phone picture through the eyepeice. Been going back to the books and trying to get my head around what I was seeing as I totally didn't clue in about the left / right mirroring in the scope till I sat with my notes and figured out why things weren't quite where I was expecting. Looking forward to trying to get my brain in gear in learning the night sky and using star maps to hop about, though until then I am finding the iphone AR applications rather handy!

Hi! I will do that thank you, I have been lurking on the forums for a little while now reading up on lots of telescope opinions and various sticky topics Yes definitely steep but a good learning curve as I haven't had a proper hobby for a while now and this has caught my imagination so far! I have been voraciously reading a few good books and loving the few nights I have managed to get out (eye, binos then telescope finally!), hopefully enough to keep it all going longer term.

I managed to finally get my new telescope out on Saturday night for a couple of hours (thanks for including the clouds in the box FLO! :D) and I had some trouble with the Red Dot Finder at first. I had setup the scope and aligned the RDF in the daylight the week before on a distant tree (that took several goes, I would definitely pick a more obvious landmark next time!) which helped immensely than trying to do it in the dark as well as learning how to work the telescope! I think it took me majority of the 2 hour session before I got a bit more comfortable with the RDF, I found as others have said that you have to sit back from it a little (which can be awkward even with the short tube refractor I have!) and use both eyes. I found myself trying to use a single eye at first but the sight is mostly opaque so you can't see to many light points through it, it definitely took my brain a while to work out how to "see" the red dot in my right eye overlaid with the stars my left eye was seeing so it definitely feels like a practice thing! I appreciate I am a total newbie but it was definately a little frustrating, hoping it will become easier over time