Figuring out 'where I am' in the bins + Jupiter's moons names?

[Claire]

I've managed to find Andromeda pretty easily in the bins. Mainly thanks to well placed stars near the roof of my house so I could navigate towards it.

I've had a look at the messier list and the Pacman nebula is apparantly easy to view in the bins (I have 15x70 ones).

Problem is, although I know where to look in the sky, I'm finding when I'm actually looking through them, because of the extra stars, I can't figure out which the stars are that I was using to navigate with without the bins.

I know they are a fairly high magnification, and I might do better going to 10x50's - but would that help much more in locating where I am?

On a side note, I saw Jupiter and I definately saw 3 of it's moons. Does anyone know which ones these might be? They were in a line at the bottom left if that helps!

[Qualia]

Out in the field, although folk may recommend printing out star maps from the internet, I've personally found that the Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas is my essential guiding book to help me star hop around and to be honest, I think it is absolutely indispensable. Each page covers a nice amount of sky to give you both a good perspective of the area you are looking at and the colourful detail is suffice for star hopping with binoculars or finder scope given that stars are shown down to about magnitude 8.

Regarding, Jupiter, you might find Sky & Telescope's java script of Jupiter a useful tool.

Of interest, around midnight UK time (about 1am here) on the 9th you'll be able to see Io's shadow passing over the gas giant and around the same time on the 11th, you should be able to see Europa's shadow. Really quite a spectular sight and well worth recording and witnessing.

Hope this helps a little.

[rowan46]

my guess is they were callisto ganymede and europa. I saw io as well but it was very close to ganymede so you may have missed it. As to help with bins I am fairly new to high power ones too so other than practice I don't really have any tips. I hope tetenterre looks in on this thread what he doesn't know about bins isnt worth knowing.

[rowan46]

Out in the field, although folk may recommend printing out star maps from the internet, I've personally found that the Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas is my essential guiding book to help me star hop around and to be honest, I think it is absolutely indispensable. Each page covers a nice amount of sky to give you both a good perspective of the area you are looking at and the colourful detail is suffice for star hopping with binoculars or finder scope given that stars are shown down to about magnitude 8.

Regarding, Jupiter, you might find Sky & Telescope's java script of Jupiter a useful tool.

Of interest, around midnight UK time (about 1am here) on the 9th you'll be able to see Io's shadow passing over the gas giant and around the same time on the 11th, you should be able to see Europa's shadow. Really quite a spectular sight and well worth recording and witnessing.

Hope this helps a little.

We have the internet, stellarium, goto and you suggest BOOKS! What a blumming brilliant idea. Tetenterre is not the only smart one it seems thankyou. In my quest to give up the goto and electronics it never even occurred to me to get charts.

[rowan46]

just found another idea which may help http://www.cloudynig...15/Main/2380042

[jason.p]

I know exactly what you mean. Why can't we see the constellation lines like in the books I've got 10x50 bins and find it difficult to go from bins to finder so at the moment (I'm still very new to this) I use easy "marker" stars by eye and try and hop around. I must say it's getting a bit easier as I'm learning the skies (and my scope) bit by bit and when I do find what I'v been looking for I get quite a buzz. I always draw an "idiots guide" map and just concentrate on one or two targets per session. I will treat myself to a Telrad one day but in the time being doing it the hard way is a good way to learn (for me anyway).

(To be honest there have been occasions where I've almost given up in despair and I've no doubt ther will be others. Keep an eye on classifieds, TAL2 for sale :smiley: )

Jason

[brantuk]

Here's a nice little planetarium software package for checking the moons of Jupiter and Saturn - totally free to download:

http://www.skyviewca...w.php?version=4

As usual you will have to look up or key in your precise location. Tick the "Track current time" box and then choose the "Moons" tab. The planet depictions can be enlarged or reduced depending how many moons you want to see with a slide bar / mouse wheel. Plus there's loads of other interesting stuff too like - view the dark/light shadow over the Earth in real time - moon phase calendar - ephemeris - and night sky tracking (orientate the celestial globe with North at the top). It's a bit like a basic "Stellarium" with very easy user controls.

[Claire]

Thanks guys

Its not so much struggling to find where certain 'objects' are in the sky with my naked eye. I can quite easily 'star hop' just by looking. Its being able to find the same stars again in the bins!

Thanks for the Jupiter moons answers. I did go back out after and I thought I saw 4 moons. .'. ---< three like that, and then one a little further away.

[Stu]

Hi Claire

Have you seen this post from Steve? Thought it might be useful for you and give you some star hopping practise

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php?/topic/164096-Ten-Easy-Autumn-Star-Hops#entry1659388

I wear glasses but take them off for star gazing which makes life more difficult. If you know where you are with the naked eye, then I just alternate between identifying a particular star, lining up the binos and making sure you've got the right one, then identifying the next by comparing location and brightness with the current one. You'll get there with practise. Actually, with many objects I just star hop with naked eye to the nearest visible star then identify where the object its relative to it, line the binos up and it's normally there.

Enjoy

Stu

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Its worth remembering, the stars you can see with the naked eye, will be the BRIGHTEST stars through the bins. I use this to help me with my finderscope as i get very confused very quickly lol.

[Claire]

Thanks - I guess that's true. The brightest stars will be the ones I can see. I hadn't thought about that! Thanks Matt.

I think my big problem is I don't use a tripod atm. I'm getting one, but I'm not sure which I need. So, I think that's making it 100x times harder to find where I am

[brantuk]

If you can lean on a gate post/fence or car roof or anything solid - that will steady your arms and the bins - and will help a lot with the views till you get a tripod. It needn't be expensive - you can get a cheap camera tripod and an adaptor for bins s/h for under £40. But obviously the more you spend the more choices you'll have for stable platforms. With the 15x70's a tripod is pretty much essential but the 10x50's should be ok with your elbows firmly planted.

[Alastair Rae]

Don't you need really dark skies to see Pacman with bins?