star hopping.

[bibbsy]

hi everyone,

sorry if this has been asked before but please exorcise your typing fingers for me (or in my case typing finger )

could i please ask for some targets to try and find via star hopping,in idiots form please,IE,look to the east at around such and such time, find x,then along to the left about 3 stars ect ect,easy targets would be great,so long as its a clear night tonight.

managed to stumble upon M45 last night by way of pure luck,would love to find some other stuff for a check list.

[onesmallstep]

Hi

Try the following link:

http://stargazerslounge.com/primers-tutorials/137298-star-hoping-how-find-anything-sgl6.html

HTH!

[jimmythemoonlight]

the best thing to look for is jupiter its the brightest star in the sky and to the east is pleiades star cluster and to the east of that is the planet mars but get yourself a star chart and all these things will be on it if you study it for about 1 hour before going out when you start star hopping its the easiest thing to get into but you need to get out of that trend in order to use the star chart properly hope this has been helpful to you clear skies always jimmythemoonlight

[bibbsy]

thank you very much for the link john,time to put the kettle on and then have a good read

[bibbsy]

hi jimmy,

yup im ok with jupiter,we meet up most nights also found pleiades last night for the first time,i shall go for mars tonight,i do have a planisphere but it ended up being a frisbee

[Nova]

hi bibbsy. Have you got yourself a sky atlas? if you want to learn to starhop id strongly reccomend one. the sky and telescope pocket sky atlas is great and pretty cheap on amazon. An alternative is the tri-atlas which is free to download and print. the complete set is massive but the advantage of it is you can print pages as you want them. You can find it here JR's website on Deep Sky Astronomy

[bibbsy]

thank you very much steve

[rory]

a good beginers book i can recomend is " turn left at orion" its a great book in very simple dialogue( perfect for me ).

also illustrated guide to astronomical wonders will give you enough for years.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Turn-Left-Orion-Guy-J-Consolmagno-Dan-M-Davis-/230681047973?pt=Non_Fiction&hash=item35b5a973a5

found this. its a steal and well worth seven quid, i paid double only a few months back.

[johnkirkpatrick]

I hate the star hopping plava.. It works on somethings and not on others.. I need to practice more I think.. Still can't find M51 or 81, 82. I have seen them but just got lucky....

[Merry]

I'd second 'Turn Left at Orion' - it's what I started out with and helped me find a number of the easier targets. Also has good explanations and drawings of what it's likely to look like through various equipment. This is really useful as to be honest I wouldn't have known if I'd found something or not to start off with.

Second thing I started using was Stellarium (available here) which shows you what's in the sky at any given time. It's free and really useful for learning the sky.

Lastly, the most useful thing I find right now is one of my various iPhone apps (many of which are available on Android and other phones if you have such a thing) which you can hold up to the sky and it tells you what you're looking at. Most usefully is Star Map Pro which has a section entitled 'Tonight' which tells you what is visible from you location tonight and when it will be visible. It also categories the targets into Planets, Nebula etc. and lets you know what magnitude it is so you can tell if it's likely to be seen using your equipment / from your location.

Nick

[The Bat]

I use star hopping all the time. 'Turn Left at Orion' is a great start and will lead you to all sorts of stuff.

I now have a good star altas (Star Atlas 2000, 2nd Ed) which I ordered online. It shows stars down to mag 8.5 which more or less matches what I can see in my finderscope. What I have done is, using the scale given in the star atlas, draw a circle on a piece of clear acetate that matches the FOV of my finderscope (6 degrees in my case). I find a naked eye star near to the target object, centre the scope on that and place the circle over that star on the chart. The circle then shows me the view in the finderscope (albeit inverted). I can then follow the stars in the direction of the target, moving the circle across the map to keep track along the way.

It requires a certain degree of patience but it's not really much different from using a road map. It allows me to find all sorts of targets - the sorts they highlight in the monthly mags that are not featured in 'Turn Left'.

Hope that makes sense.

Rachel

[onesmallstep]

Another link for you:

Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas: Amazon.co.uk: Roger W. Sinnott: Books

[assasincz]

If you have a laptop, you should take it out with you. If you are out by car, buy yourself a AC power source that plugs in to the cigarette lighter. I find Stellarium to be a cracking help for star hopping.

When I forget my laptop home or want to quickly check on something, I rather like this sky atlas:

http://www.astronomie.cz/data/2009/04/00-atlas-85.pdf

It may be confusing at first as the constellation patterns are not connected with lines but it is an exhausting sky map.

Anyway, using Stellarium, I find the object I want to locate and pick a bright star nearby from which I start hopping around. I point my right angled finder at it and try to match star patterns I see in it to the patterns in Stellarium to get my head round how the image is orientated. Easiest is to look for triangular and square-ish patterns.

It takes a bit of time but when I get the direction I want to move in then I hop, from one star to another.

When attempting to locate something especially dim (Owl Nebula for example) I even star hop looking throught the eyepiece when I am sure I am close enough.

Some find star hopping annoying and consider it a waste of time. I actually find it rewarding, but perhaps I am one of the wierdos that could do without goto

[bibbsy]

thanks everyone for the tips,links and advice

[Nibor]

bibbsy,

Like you I am new to this star hopping caper and find it very challenging!! BUT when you finally track down your target the sense of achievement is immense!!

I have been practising my star hopping by hopping from star to star on the constellations which also helping me learn the night sky. I have also tried to find double stars which can be relatively easily identified. I have found the odd Messier object as well!!

The Pocket Sky Atlas has been a boon as has TLAO and "An Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders"

Binoculars have also played their part but it is important to know the field of view of your finderscope or binos.

Enjoy!!

[Cjg]

a good beginers book i can recomend is " turn left at orion" its a great book in very simple dialogue( perfect for me ).

also illustrated guide to astronomical wonders will give you enough for years.

Turn Left at Orion By Guy J. Consolmagno,Dan M. Davis | eBay

found this. its a steal and well worth seven quid, i paid double only a few months back.

Thanks for the tip off - I've just purchased this ....at under £8 that's worth a punt!

Cheers

Chris

[rory]

Thanks for the tip off - I've just purchased this ....at under £8 that's worth a punt!

Cheers

Chris

nice one.

i know theres a new edition due any time now, but the mainstay of the starhopping objects are the same . its a bargain, free post too:)

[Phil4130]

A telrad/rigel quikfinder can get you in the vicinity of an object in seconds . Then referring to your finderscope and a star atlas to confirm. I have to recommend 'The illustrated Guide To Astronomical Wonders' which methodically shows you how to find everything worth seeing in the northern hemisphere .

[drewk1]

Thanks everyone for the links.

Some very good maps there.

Study time for me

[glowjet]

For all who are interested I have just received my copy of The Cambridge Photographic Star Atlas, publication was delayed for some time, and at the moment I am not in a position to give a detailed revue, but my initial reaction does have the WOW factor. Over a period of two years the whole sky was digitally photographed from dark sites in the USA and South Africa, the results are published as 82 sections of the sky at a scale of 1 degree per cm, upon which is marked 1500 DSO and 2500 stars, the stars are shown down to mag 14 and the Constellations are also outlined. So how does it work, quite simple on the left page you have a black and white section of the sky upon which is marked all the detail, Constellations are outlined in blue, on the right side you have the same section of sky but in its natural colour, I have already spent a short, but very enjoyable amount of time exploring the night sky, not with my scope but a large magnifying glass, you can at last see where all your targets are located and work out how to find them in the future with the scope. All the data is listed in their respective catalogue numbers NGC etc but no description, so if you are not sure what it is you will have to look it up. I ordered my copy early on, so it was very reasonable, it now cost £28 through Amazon IMHO well worth it

John.

[bibbsy]

thanks guys for all the help,tips and advice

[JamesM]

bibbsy, it would seem that you have to approach star hopping using a variety of different tools and that is certainly true in my experience. The Telrad and a right angled finder would be the perfect optical tools to use. Telrad gets you very close and cuts out a lot of the searching with the angled finder with its back to front image (not back to front AND inverted with the straight through types) will not only help you to close in on your subject, but offers a more comfortable viewing position without any neck ache. Together, they help you to the eyepiece to enjoy the view. Stellarium as Assasincz mentions is so useful but for me I tend to use it to identify what else is nearby that might be of interest. I have the Star Atlas 2000 map and again is a very useful guide but what I did was to both photocopy and enlarge each page (A2) and then arranged them into clear wallets to protect them from the dew when using them outside. This atlas does come in a laminated form but for me, it proved cheaper to create my own folder with larger pages.

Clear skies soon to put it into practice!

James

[bibbsy]

thank you very much james