I need a little help with everything

[Steddy Eddy]

Hello everyone, I'm absolutely new to this. I just purchased a 5SE and familiarized myself with the basics of it this past weekend. I live in Florida and have a vacation home in north Georgia. The Georgia home is very rural in the mountains with little light pollution. I'll be going up there next week and would like to make the most of it. What would you folks say my first essential accessory purchases should be to maximize my viewing on this little vacation? I have already determined I need the T-mount adapter to mount my Canon DSLR. Maybe an additional eyepiece?

[rowan46]

A dew shield was my first priority the corrector is very prone to collecting moisture

[Langy]

Hello and welcome to SGL.

I think the best advise I've heard in here is not to rush in to buying everything.

Learn to find things in the sky and get used to your current equipment.

Stellarium is a free piece of software that would help greatly where ever you are in the world.

[Northern Soul man]

Hi Steddy, a very nice purchase for you, and as Langy says - just get up to your dark sky site and just learn to use the scope and getting into the habit of just seeing how things look through your new scope, try not to expect the wonderful pictures/images that you see in the press - aperture will be fine if you have a dark sky and this is the most important "thing" to have - and, for you, its FREE - set the scope up (align and away you go !!!)  choose the "Tour" function from the handset - this will give you the best and brightest objects to see on any given night, also if you have good views down to the horizon, make the most of this.  The Messier (M) galaxies would be the best to start with, M65, M66 in Leo, M36, M37 and M38 - these are open star clusters in Auriga, M81 and M82 in Ursa Major (the Plough), the Eskimo's very nice and very distinct - a planetary nebula in Gemini a little later the Virgo group are up - loads of galaxies here.

Make the most of Jupiter as she is nice and high in the sky from you Latitude, later will be Mars and Saturn.

Visually, the Galaxies will be just smudges of mist grey light - so don't expect great star factories with very well defined spiral arms - the rule of thumb is that if you can see the Milky Way - most of the Galaxies you try for will be visible, the more you suffer with light pollution - the less you will see visually, from a dark site the open star clusters will be amazing.

Once set up, just check the accuracy of your alignment by viewing the brightest objects first, also if you move to another part of the sky - say moving from observing in the East, sending the scope over to the Western portion of the sky, you may have to re - align to objects in that part of the sky - try to just observe each part of the sky at first - say all the objects in the East, this keeps the accuracy of the mount - the further you move away from this point the accuracy of the mount diminishes.

If you have a PC - as Langy says - download Stellarium - you can use this program to search for objects to view, also, if you have a mobile phone, there's free Apps called SkyEye, Google Sky Maps and Night Sky Tools (think they are both on Android) to help, just install, open and hold your phone up to the sky, you then see the Constellations on your phone against the background sky showing you the objects visible in each constellation together with the main stars and their names to help with alignment.

Hope that helps a little Steddy, get your dew shield for now and just enjoy the wonders of the sky from a dark location, I have been observing for years and have to put up with light polluted surburban skies - and still enjoy - after all this time.  Regards    Paul.

[bomberbaz]

I would just get a cheapo barlow for now assuming you have the 25 and 10mm eyepeice that came with the kit, thus doubling your focal range. And dl stellarium as mentioned and make a dew shield.

 northern soul man's post above is excellent advice, especially the bit about sticking in one part of the sky at a time. This is where the sky apps come in to help finding objects in a given area of the viewing sky.

steve

[des anderson]

every thing that has been said by my learned friend is to say the least.....good advice and common sense,ENJOY

[Steddy Eddy]

Thanks everyone, it all sounds like great advice. I downloaded Stellarium and will give it a look.

[NGC 1502]

Hi Steddy welcome to SGL.

All good advice above, but I'd suggest a good portable rechargeable power supply would be an early purchase, or at the very least take lots of spare top notch batteries.

Have a great time in north Georgia, sounds good........

Regards, Ed.

[Ags]

If you are going to dark skies then I would not worry too much about eyepieces with high magnification, as you will find those more useful on planets - and you can enjoy those regardless of light pollution. You might want to get a wider low-power EP for finding and enjoying DSOs. A 32mm plossl would be very cheap, or you could get something like a 24mm baader hyperion for more money. You would definitely find a dew hood useful at this time of the year, but you could make one yourself from a camping mat.