using an app to identify planets.

[StarSteve]

Hello. I'm a little confused how you locate planets and stars with a telescope. I'm sure I'll get there soon. There just seems to be a lot to take in at the moment.

It seems the thread quickly focused on your latter questions (maps and apps) and nobody got around to explaining the basics of star-hopping I'll give it a go.

The basic principle for finding stuff the old fashioned (yet still very much valid, nay, necessary) way is to "star-hop" from brighter / easier to find objects to increasingly fainter / harder to see objects until you reach your target, sometimes in many "hops" if it's a difficult one to find. This makes it possible to locate things that are too faint to see with your bare eyes. You might start with the constellation, then finding a bright star in it, then progress towards your target. At some point you switch to your finder scope (if you have one installed) and eventually hop with your actual telescope.

There are tricks, of course, like for example "pointer stars", drawing an imaginary line through two easy to see stars to find a fainter one.

Of course as you learn your way around the skies it becomes quicker and easier, star hopping is more an art than a science

You need the maps, apps or computer software to plan a "hopping sequence" and to know where to start. For me software have completely replaced paper maps, but not for everyone. There are also tools like the Telrad (an classic and ingenious star finder that attaches to your scope, showing concentric rings you use to hop a certain distance, and many software programs & apps can show the "telrad rings" on the map, super-useful).

One tip since you are in the UK is to watch BBC's Sky at night (I don't know what will happen to it now that Patrick Moore sadly passed away but it seems unlikely they will cancel their longest running show). It usually contain a section where Peter Lawrence explains a star hopping sequence in detail, exactly how to find something, and it's a very good way to get the principle down and learn some of the aforementioned tricks.

HTH

Steve