New comer

[Kieran oconnor]

Hi guys, I am 14 year old, who just got a telescope for my xmas. I got sky scanner 130m na. I really haven't got a clue what I am doing so I will probably need some guidance. Hopefully some of you could help. It has been clear sky a night so can see anything in clydebank.bso just waiting on the clear notes to come. Is there anything yous think I should know or do before I start.

Anyways cheers

Kieran

[ronin]

Well first have you got the name correct?
Skyscanner comes up as a cheap flight website.

These nights that may be more useful, sky is not good.

Do you mean Sky Watcher 130M ?

If so we have a start point.

Which is good.

Assuming a Sky Watcher 130M, reasonable start. How are you finding the EQ mount.

[Vagif]

Hello and welcome, im 15 years old

Download stellarium, type in your location and time and it will show you your night sky. 

Easy things to look at: Orion nebula (m42) jupiter, saturn and andromeda galaxy. Good luck!

[JamesF]

Welcome.  If you can get a copy of "Turn Left At Orion" I'm sure you'd find that useful in terms of learning to navigate around the sky and finding things to observe.

I'd also recommend getting everything set up during the day, make sure you can focus on a distant target and get the finder aligned with the main scope.  In a week or so the Moon should be visible again.  That's always a good target to start with as it's quite hard to miss

James

[bingevader]

Try and find out if there's a local astronomy club. They'd be a great source of advice and help.

I'm sure you'll be able to find some reasonably local events going on when Stargazing Live kicks off, they might help too.

Cheers

[SpaceBug]

Hi, I'm also 14 and a beginner in astronomy I've found Stellarium to be very useful, as Vagif mentioned. I got the books "Turn left at orion" and "Nightwatch" for christmas and they are really good, as they will show you what you can look at and how to find objects with a small telescope. They also show you what you can expect to see through the telescope. If your telescope has got an equatorial mounting, you will have to learn how to polar-align it to be able to track objects easily. Here's a good guide that I found: http://www.astro-baby.com/simplepolar/simple_polar_alignment.htm

I hope you will enjoy your scope

[Pig]

Hello & welcome I'm 48 years old

Its great to see younger ones taking up the hobby, enjoy the forum and feel free to ask anyone else any questions.

Shaun

[knobby]

I'm 50:-) , but seriously , it's nice to see the youngsters taking an active role on the forum! Well done chaps !

[esxste]

Hi all,

I too am new to SGL and astronomy in general. I'm afraid I was one of those people that had to get the telescope first, and learn everything else from there. My partner bought me the same telescope, the Skywatcher 130m, for Christmas this year. First night out I was having great fun admiring the moon. But looking at anything else proved almost impossible.

I'd looked at the instructions but they didn't make much sense to me, I couldn't bring them into practical use. I looked on you tube and found the following videos:

How to polar align:

How to use an EQ mount:

They're slightly cheesy, but very useful and easy to understand.

I practised that day, using my iPad app to point at Polaris and other stars. Once I got out in the garden that night, I found Jupiter with ease, and could keep it in view for ages by just turning the R.A.

The other tip I would impart on this is to use the 25x lens/eyepiece first to find your object, centre it in the telescope then use the 10x eyepiece to view the object. Centre it again and add the Barlow eyepiece.

Remember to take the telescope outside and leave it to cool down before expecting decent results, be patient and just practise using the EQ mount

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[bomberbaz]

Those videos are excellent, I watched them when I first started out and they helped me immensely

[rwilkey]

Hi Kieran, and a warm welcome to the forum, I wish I had started stargazing when I was 14 years old, what a lovely present!  It takes time to get used to the telescope and seek out objects, ignore the instructions about finding stuff by the setting circles, they don't really work, the best way is to check out Stellarium and do some star-hopping, you will soon get used to it.  Orion is one of the best constellations to star-hop from.

[Mr Q]

   Hello SpaceBug and Kieran and welcome to the forums.

   There are several ways to learn your way around the night sky in order to locate lots of nice objects to observe with both a telescope or binocular. In fact, most observers do have both, like myself.

    Here is a site where you can print out monthly star charts to take outside to start your journey in finding the easy objects first so that your interest does not fade due to frustration.  Once there, select the "northern hemisphere" map to be useful at your latitude.

   http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html

    When outside using these maps, use a red light torch or a very dim torch to preserve your night vision. Remember to use only enough light to read the map in order to preserve your dark adapted eyes since most objects are rather faint.

    SpaceBug - Your 10x50 bins are the best size for star gazing and hope you get a scope soon. A 4 1/2 inch reflector would be a good starter scope and a
Dobsonian" mount will keep the price down but still easy to use with "star hopping" while using star maps - the best way to learn your way around the ever changing night sky.

    By the way, I too started at your age and I'm still learning at age 66. Take it slow and easy to insure your interest will grow over the years to come

[itmo]

about the polar alignment: If you are not doing astrophotography , it is enough to point the "north" mark to approximately north and have the altitude setting at approximately your latitude. Even a poorly polar aligned mount will keep targets in sight for 10-15 minutes. Nowadays i just stomp my eq5 on the ground and check that the spirit level says it mostly level and leg is pointing north. 

[SpaceBug]

    SpaceBug - Your 10x50 bins are the best size for star gazing and hope you get a scope soon. A 4 1/2 inch reflector would be a good starter scope and a

Dobsonian" mount will keep the price down but still easy to use with "star hopping" while using star maps - the best way to learn your way around the ever changing night sky.

Hi, Mr Q.

As you can see in my signature, I have now ordered a Skyliner 200P, and that scope will probably last for many years The big aperture will also show more of the faint fuzzies

[bomberbaz]

Hi, Mr Q.

As you can see in my signature, I have now ordered a Skyliner 200P, and that scope will probably last for many years The big aperture will also show more of the faint fuzzies

bank of mum n dad Spacebug, hehe.

Seriously a great buy that buddy and you will get years of viewing fun from it, clear skies

[LukeSkywatcher]

14 yrs old and only starting to observe the night sky?

Left that a bit late.

Just kidding. 

Welcome to SGL. Feel free to ask any question you can think of. They have been asked before.

[SpaceBug]

bank of mum n dad Spacebug, hehe.

Nope! I've actually saved up for a telescope for a year and a half or so and done various little jobs to get some extra money

[cussine]

Well done Spacebug

[Vicki Harrison]

Welcome all the younger people wow I thought I was a younger one in this Hobbie I'm 26. Well done on your first scope. As a mum myself I feel I must say dont be alone in a dark place even if its not far from your home! Try to stick in groups of you. Follow the country side codes and such. Ive seen younger astromoner trashing places setting fire to parts of the fields etc. Just be careful. Practice makes perfect! Learn from websites forums etc trial and error in most cases. Its a very exciting hobbie any questions ask their are some very experienced people on here

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[knobby]

Welcome all the younger people wow I thought I was a younger one in this Hobbie I'm 26. Well done on your first scope. As a mum myself I feel I must say dont be alone in a dark place even if its not far from your home! Try to stick in groups of you. Follow the country side codes and such. Ive seen younger astromoner trashing places setting fire to parts of the fields etc. Just be careful. Practice makes perfect! Learn from websites forums etc trial and error in most cases. Its a very exciting hobbie any questions ask their are some very experienced people on here

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Well said mum ;-) and excellent advice.

[itmo]

Btw branding is a wonderful thing. I still remember the color of the scope i SOO  wanted when i was a kid,I remember where the shop was , what it looked like, what the scope looked like. I remember enough from almost 30 years back that I could deduce the make of the scope. Can you guess which color it was? 

[bomberbaz]

Blue or red!

[Mr Q]

   SpaceBug - You should know that these big scopes not only are light buckets for those faint fuzzies but they also brighten the background which can be a problem if any light pollution is present. But they do work nice at resonably dark sky sites

   And BTW, be sure to tell us know what happened on your "first light" viewing - whether good or bad results   My first light night with my 10" many years ago was so amazing, it knocked my socks AND by pants off and good thing it was dark out and the neighbors didn't see me

   BTW, some years ago on a no longer active forum in this country, a boy your age was so thrilled in upgrading from a 2" refractor to a 8" reflector, he said he took it to bed with him the first night and I believed him

[Mr Q]

Nope! I've actually saved up for a telescope for a year and a half or so and done various little jobs to get some extra money

   Good boy! Doing that makes the scope more valuable to you and it also will make using it that much more rewarding

   And before you know it, EP fever will set in and then its back to square one

[SpaceBug]

  

   BTW, some years ago on a no longer active forum in this country, a boy your age was so thrilled in upgrading from a 2" refractor to a 8" reflector, he said he took it to bed with him the first night and I believed him

Haha, I don't think there's any risk of that happening