list of challenges for newbies ...through to old hats !!

[hemihaggis]

hi folks ,

we seem to be having an influx of new members (i wonder why?? lol)

many ask similar questions , about kinds of scope and eqipment , and many also ask about objects for beginners to have a go finding ,

i know there are many lists to go through like the messier list ,ngc and caldwell ect , but i found it tricky as a newbie to work out some good targets for the nights i was viewing as the lists are quite large and require some investigation and detective work to find what is visable/at what mag/ at what time of year/where from in the world ...hope you still with me lol....

lucky for us newbies the highland astronomical society has written a list of challenges for us , starting with the bronze challenge ,a list of 12 messier objects all different and beautiful , which should be visable through a small/medium sized scope during the year from the uk

the H.A.S. messier challenge has four levels with somthing for everyone form newbies at bronze, to old hats having a go at the platinum challenge with the more difficult messier objects .

anyway hope this helps and encourages newbies and old hats alike ,have a go !!

Highlands Astronomical Society | Messier Challenge

ps on the the subject od brian cox .....i thought B.C. meant before christ ......now i know better :D

[paul schofield]

Great post hemihaggis, might give the bronze a shot myself and see how I do. Thanks for posting.

[hemihaggis]

exellent , go for it ,

clear skies

[stevetynant]

Great - thanks very much - posted earlier about getting myself a list to challenge myself and now you've done it for me

[ecosse]

Great link cheers

[Brent]

Great thread, thanks

I'm pretty chuffed having looked through all 4 lists - I've seen at least a couple of objects from all of them! Maybe I'm better at finding things than I thought

[pel]

Great, thanks.

[hemihaggis]

i think they are a great resourse

[Reni]

Thanks! I've been looking for something like this for quite some time. I'm starting to work on it Thanks again!

[Jaywillis78]

Thanks for the post, gives me something to start on now! Just have to wait for the telescope to be delivered!!

[hemihaggis]

hope you all enjoy

[DazC]

+1 here hemihaggis. Great post. I'll have a go at bronze.

D.C

[hemihaggis]

thanks , and bump back to the top

[hemihaggis]

bump

[Woolleson]

Great post, so easy for noobs (me included) to get lost in the skies!

Here's one that will take up the challenge, just need to get ink for my printer now :0@

Thanks!

[c3po]

excellent list, especially for us newbies looking for targets!!

i'm going to download and print off all the lists and work my way through them... are there any more like these around or are we limited on what we can see in the UK to what's on those lists from HAS?

[hemihaggis]

excellent list, especially for us newbies looking for targets!!

i'm going to download and print off all the lists and work my way through them... are there any more like these around or are we limited on what we can see in the UK to what's on those lists from HAS?

hi c3po , no there are thousands more objects we can see in the uk.

i belive nearly all the messier list can be viewed from the uk ,

numbers 1 to around 60 of the caldwell catolouge can be see from uk ....

and there are over 7,000 objects on the ngc ...i think my goto lists 42,000 objects in total !!

i liked the way HAS made there lists , they were concise and offered a good challenge ,and had a bit of everything in them ,galaxies/nebulas/starclusters ect .just what we need !!

anyway the lists from HAS are a great starting point , so happy hunting

[Scott]

hey this is great. thanks heaps. should keep me busy for a while.

[SkyRookie]

Wow, thank you! I'm definitely going to give that a go.