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dob tips

redgiantjohn

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swamp thing

swamp thing

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Hi John

I would spend the first few nights just getting to know how the scope moves.

The Moon is pretty easy to find and focus on, so start with that.

Once on it use your highest power and just practice nudging you dob around the moons surface and following it across the sky.

Once you've mastered nudging your Dob and are aware how and in what direction to move it.

Then see what kind of field of view your finder and low power eye piece have.

Finders are normally around 5 to 5.5 degrees, low power eyepieces will vary. For comparison the moon is about 0.5 of a degree.

Once the Moon becomes less prevalent in the sky, have a wander along the Milky way. This is another great place to just explore and enjoy, all the while you'll be getting a better understanding of how the scope moves and the fields of view provided by both scope and finder. Learning without even knowing it.:)

If the milky way isn't visible from your observing site, then pick a constellation at random and just have a wander round it.

With this sort of wandering about you're bound to bump into something interesting, like a star cluster or a Nebula. check out what you've found in a star atlas.

The key to finding anything in the sky is: first be aware of how your scope moves relative to the field of view you see through the eyepiece and the finder.

Second. How much sky ( actual field of view or AFOV ) you can see through your low power eyepiece and finder. You can then see how this relates to your star atlas or charts.

A combination of these two. Knowing how many fields of view and in what direction to move your scope allows any object to be found.

It may take a few nights to become aware of all these factors, but what the heck, there's no hurry.

Good luck and enjoy

Regards Steve

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brantuk

brantuk

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If you find the moon very bright at 3/4 - put the tube cap on the end and remove the small offset cap (place it on the offset stub so you don't loose it in the dark).

This will dim the moon but still give lots of light for viewing it. Stand the scope outside for an hour before use so it cools to ambient, and have a list of maybe half a dozen objects prepared to look at, with constellation positions memorised for your first session.

Stellarium will be useful for that. You won't find them all but it'll be fun trying :)

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redgiantjohn

redgiantjohn

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Some great advice steve so thanks,the scope I had before was a 5" mirror so I'm hoping to see plenty more with a 6" as you mentioned about the moon I sometimes forget about everything else and just spend the session on the moon its a bit of an obsession it amazes me every time I look at it:)

What I'm worried about is nudging it slightly to much or in the wrong way and completely losing what I was viewing,I had enough trouble with re-finding things with slo mo controls on my old scope I suppose its a case of trial and error

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redgiantjohn

redgiantjohn

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Thanks brantuk I have a planisphere that I take out with me as I haven't got access to a computer at the moment,I find that helps a bit.

And as I said before I have a slight obsession with the moon so I bought a lunar map and have been matching things I see through the scope and sort of crossing them off of the map I can't wait to see it through the dob :)

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todd8137

todd8137

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ust have fun,try all the eye peices get used to how it works have a zoom round a would not worry tonight about were this that and the other is find bright stars and try the eps out,just see how it works if ya no were to look already the go for them have set the alarm for jupiter tonight

go for the big target theres a full moon tonight so it may be a bright night and the moon is a great place to start theres so many things to see on it,

this also wil get you used to nudge in scope around that is a art in its self never mind finding faint nebs and gallook forward to read you firstkight blog

cheers pat

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brantuk

brantuk

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Welcome John - another idea (maybe for the future) is a modification to the scope to give you a complete pointing system. For around £30 you can get a Wixey angle guage and an AZ setting circle.

When you do have access to a computer/stellarium, or mobile phone application of the night sky, all you'd need do is read off and set altitude, then scan in azimuth in the object's rough location. Very accurate and removes a lot of doubt with dobs - and very easy to do :)

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