viewing complete constellations

[Jonesee]

Please can someone advise me on what eyepiece to view complete constellations I have a Celestron astromaster 130 eq with a 10mm and a 25mm but dont seem to view all of the constellation in my ep only part do I need a different size lens

[Cornelius Varley]

Mark 1 eyeball. Constellations are quite big and cover large areas of sky so would be difficult/impossible to view in a telescope.

[AlexB67]

You'll not be able to  reach that kind of field of view in a scope, or even a finder scope in most cases, constellations span too much sky for that.  You can install stellarium on a PC, and setup your eyepieces and telescope in that software and have play around with it. You will see the sky projected as a grid divided into measure of angle, that way you'll get a feel for the number of degrees involved when you look through the eyepiece versus the size of an actual constellation. Stellarium also has what are called telrad projector rings which represent 0.5, 2 and 4 degrees in size that you can move around against the sky. 

Download here

http://www.stellarium.org/

and a video how to get it all configured here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_KnCxm98eI

HTH

[Astro Imp]

Hi Alex, that's a great link to the configuration vid.

Thanks for pointing it out.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I think the only constellation i have seen in a single view through a scope is Aries. It consists of only 3 stars and is small and boring. 

[Fatrick]

Yea, need the naked eye to see constellations. I can only fit the 3 stars of Orions belt on the view of my 8x30 binoculars, never mind a telescope. 

[Langy]

For ease you might want to think about some binoculars. You will be surprised how much you can see.

The other night whilst the scope was piggy backing my camera taking pics, I used the bins and found Andromeda very quickly, By far much easier than I did with the scope.

The other added advantage is that with a set of 10x50 they can be hand held, tripod mounted if you want (which I do both) and can be used for normal day time use.

Even with my bins I can't get the whole plough in, only the main basin and maybe a little more.

As others have said, Stellarium is invaluable.

[brantuk]

It's a great idea observing constellations and learning the main star names. Most deep sky objects are only a short star hop from constellation main stars - and that will be very useful when you turn a scope on the sky. But as above - naked eye is best to identify them, and binocs to pan around constellations looking for faint fuzzies.

[Jonesee]

Thank for the advice everyone and I might pick up some binoculars to my kit any advice on what size I would need

[ronin]

get a reasonable pair of 8x42's, used for birding.

They are generally good and easy to use and hold - a necessary aspect when looking up at the sky.

[Ant]

Aries is way too big to be seen in a scope.

It covers over 440 square degrees, what do you get in an eyepiece? 4 or 5 maybe ? (I actually don't know).

I agree best way to view constellations is sit back in a chair and look up.

Actually nothing quite like it really!

Ant

[Astro Imp]

get a reasonable pair of 8x42's, used for birding.

They are generally good and easy to use and hold - a necessary aspect when looking up at the sky.

Absolutely, I bought a pair of these:- http://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/helios-am-e4-8-x-42-high-resolution-binoculars.html and love them.

[nicks90]

I agree best way to view constellations is sit back in a chair and look up.

Actually nothing quite like it really!

Ant

agreed!

my sun lounger gets more use at night in winter than it does during the day in summer - thats for sure! Nothing quite like lying back with your feet up and a glass of whiskey to keep the cold at bay and gazing up at the stars with a pair of binos.

[Langy]

I raised a topic a few weeks ago about some cheap bins as below. Moving up to £50 which is still cheap I bought the Olympus DPS I, I have to say that for their price what everyone recommended I'm very pleased with them.

If you need to stay fixed to an object then buy a mount, bought a cheap £6 one from eBay which I had to file down a bit so the bins would close at their closest point. This has worked a treat as the other night I had them on a tripod and my daughter came out where I could show her straight away an object in the sky I was looking at.

They can also be used for daytime use.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/207539-praktica-w10x50p-binoculars/

Of all the equipment I have bought these probably get used the most and in fact most enjoyable as they are simple to use and scan the sky. For example I can find Andromeda with them within about 5 seconds, took me over 2 minutes with the scope last night as it is so faint you can only pint the polar scope in the general direction.

[brantuk]

Oh yes I forgot - when you're using a lounger to spot constellations - you spend so much time looking at the sky that the odds of seeing a shooting star increase tenfold.

[Langy]

Oh yes I forgot - when you're using a lounger to spot constellations - you spend so much time looking at the sky that the odds of seeing a shooting star increase tenfold.

Since I took up astronomy this year I've not seen a shooting star since, but I've seen the ISS and several satellites which maybe down to the fact that I check to see what it may have been wen I see it.