A Big Improvement !

[Stevie816]

Talking mainly about visual Observing

OK you've got your scope and mount, a few ep's books etc.

Now what piece of kit made that big improvement ?

A magic eye piece ? a diagonal. Going to 2 inches ?

Or nothing really.

To get it started the best improvement I ever made was moving to a darker site, and then probably by binoviewers ?

Stevie816

[TheMightyKong]

Observing at a darker Site,

Binoviewers,

Extra warm coat

[brantuk]

First quality ep I bought made me realise how poor the supplied ones are - turned the scope into a decent instrument. And bv's..... yeah - amazing way to view. I second the dark site idea too - pretty essential

[Moonshane]

top five for me

Dark site

Telrad

Observing seat

Bigger aperture

Televue

[MartinB]

Experience! At first I couldn't see most DSOs e.g. M1 or M33. It took me a while to become used to how faint they were. Over time you get better though, making better use of averted vision and just having more patience.

[Stevie816]

Hi Martin

You're right actually the biggest improvements are experience and patience (Where can i buy them !)

[John]

I'll go with experience as well. Spending time on a single object, and repeated observing of it under varied conditions, really brings dividends on the amount of detail you can see. Also learning the impact that poor seeing can have and not blaming the scope !.

I'm a huge fan of red dot / circle finders too as at least that is kit which was the original question.

[lw24]

I think that your eyes have to learn to see faint objects. First time I used my scope, the Orion Nebula was clearly there, but not very bright. Over repeated viewings, I can now see more of the nebula branching off the brightest part.

One thing I was impressed with was that I spotted the Crab Nebula almost instantly. My dad couldn't see it at all

Clear Skies

[NickK]

1. Dark site

2. Bigger aperature

3. Better EPs

4. Baader Neodynium filter - giving better results under LPed conditions.

5. Spending time with experienced people

6. Stellarium (although the accuracy can be in doubt)

[swamp thing]

Hi

I think experience is by far the deciding factor in making improvements to your observing.

Only experience teaches you about the importance of proper dark sky adaptation, averted vision techniques and dark skies.

Experience also teaches you to pick out fine planetary detail that you otherwise would not see.

The difference any other improvement makes is only evident if you have the advantage of experience.

Regards Steve

[ollypenrice]

Dark site for sure and then Shane beat me to it on the subject of a seat. Sit down! The mount and scope are not the only things that jitter. A seat is worth half a magnitude. Then comes patience. Oh, and no computers even wrapped in kinky red see-through!

Olly