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frosty

By frosty
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frosty

frosty

Posted
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Hi, at the ripe old age of 55 i've just got into astronomy. Still trying to get my head around star charts and trying to find what i want to look at and where it might be in the sky.

As a present this christmas i recieved the SKYMAX-127 SynScan AZ GOTO.(as if my head wasn't cabbaged enough). 

I live in the northwest of England, Wigan to be precise and would be grateful if anyone can suggest which stars to line it up with and where i might find them.

Many thanks

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swag72

swag72

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Welcome to SGL!! To help you with what is in the sky and where, you could download the free planetarium software - Stellarium. That will give you a good starting point. Make sure also that you have your finder scope aligned with your main scope, otherwise that can make things just that little more frustrating!

Look forward to seeing you around :smiley:

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paulastro

paulastro

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Welcome to SGL.  You'd be welcome to come  up to The Astronomy Centre nr Todmorden on any Saturday night if it's not too far.  There are friendly faces who are more than happy to help you get your telescope up and running, show you around the night sky and lots of telescopes up to 17 inches aperture you can look through.

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CumbrianGadgey

CumbrianGadgey

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Hi and welcome.

If you are in the North West, I'm in the far North West of England, just before you step into Scotland. I'm relatively new to astronomy, too.

I wondered about aligning the scope fantastically well, as you're supposed to but can't be bothered most of the time. I don't know if your set up can be used manually, but if it can, just make sure the tripod is level, point the RA axis roughly at the pole star, with the latitude set to as close to 53.5 degrees as you can get it and off you go! I find, I only occasionally have to tweak the declination.

You simply must try Jupiter which is still pretty impressive and rises in the East not too long after sunset...again, a big bright thing you can't miss!

If you need a good star to do it properly, Vega is a dead cert and should be seen to the West after sunset. It's the brightest one up there and is almost the first you'll see as the sky darkens after sunset.

Hope that helps.

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