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munro

By munro
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munro

munro

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I have recently retired and now have time to take up some hobbies including stargazing which has always fascinated me.

I have bought a Starwatcher 150p with EQ3-2 GOTO mount and (after reading the excellent reviews on this site) some BST eyepieces. I have viewed Jupiter on a few occasions and was delighted to see the moons around it. I hope to see a see some galaxies and nebulas soon.

The question is where to start. I read the thread about Skywatcher GOTO mounts (what they dont tell you in the manual) and must admit It has put me off trying the GOTO at least for now. I wonder if I should just use it for tracking.

Also what would be the best order of viewing to progress. I have read about the messier catalogue - should I just work through that?

All advice would be appreciated.

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JamesF

JamesF

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Welcome to SGL.

Plenty of people start by viewing the Moon, planets and the Messier catalogue, so you'd be in good company there. The GOTO isn't that hard to operate once you get the hang of setting it up. I like star-hopping personally, but given the weather we're having of late I can really see GOTO becoming more attractive to make the best use of those clear nights.

The books "Turn Left at Orion" and "Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders" should give you some ideas for objects to view, too. The first is probably more suited to starting out.

James

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Double Kick Drum

Double Kick Drum

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Hi Munro and welcome aboard.

I second 'Turn Left at Orion'. It has enough targets to keep you going for many a while and is a great and thorough intro to practical Astronomy.

Start with using your scope on naked eye objects. Then perhaps graduate to those you can see in a finder scope or binoculars. Once you have the knack of finding things with reasonable ease, you will have a feel for how feint some objects can be.

A six inch scope is capable of many hundreds of deep sky objects, subject to the clarity of your sky and light pollution.

Happy hunting!

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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Hello and welcome Munro,

Sounds like you're starting on a great new adventure in retirement and off to a good start with this scope, mount, eps, some light reading and always plenty of advice from all the SGLers out there.

Enjoy and a very happy New Year - Jake

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Munro and welcome to the forum. Certainly agree with James's recommendation of books and they will certainly help you start looking at objects but they also provide great background information too which will tie you over when its cloudy! Goto is not difficult to setup or use though the instructions can make it seem more difficult than it really is - crikey if I can use it then anyone can! :grin: :grin: :grin:

Lets hope there is some clear nights ahead for you to get going. You might want to consider downloading a free piece of planetarium software called "Stellarium" which you can read about here. It has lots of great features including the advance date/time facility which will allow you to view the sky at any future date and time, which will certainly help you calculate when some of those objects illustrated in the the suggested books above will be available. It can be configured to your precise viewing location too which can further help you identify objects that you may have discovered by chance - all good fun and very popular amongst forum members here.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum

James

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munro

munro

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What a nice welcome. Thank you all. Actually had a session this evening - although no joy with the Synscan -problem with solar alignment with and advancing years :rolleyes: (have posted about this in the beginners forum). As somebody has said GOTO is not all its cracked up to be. You have to know the stars to align. I know a few of the main stars but once I looked through the scope with a 25mm eyepiece everything looked so different. I have decided to put the GOTO aside for the moment until I learn where a lot more stars are ( hopefully turn left at Oriob will set me on the right path).

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