Hi from West Yorkshire UK

[hazegood]

_{HI Gary and welcome}

_{, there are a few astro societies  groups in the west Yorkshire area, take a look at the groups  and societies section of the forum, any of them are willing to help out newbies,  I have been here a while, and still learning something new every day .}

_{Leigh (Live in Light polluted Leeds)}

[-Aldebaran-]

Hi Gary,

Welcome to SGL

Ant. Sunny N.Wales

[Christhorpe]

Hi Gary. Couple of easy things to start you off. Make sure that the mount is level. On some mounts there is a bubble level built into the mount. Next make sure your finder scope is aligned to the telescope. Ie. make sure that view through the finder scope is replicated in the eyepiece. Next ensure your GPS setting and time settings are correct. If you have an iPhone, it will show your latitude settings. If not you can pick up your coordinates for where you live pretty easy. Next I guess is the star alignment. The Summer Triangle of vega , Altair and Deneb are great ones for beginner alignment as they are so bright. I recommend you get yourself a good star atlas or even 'turn left at Orion' which is a great book for beginners.

Enjoy your new hobby. If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

[woodmeister]

Hi Gary welcome to SGL from another West Yorkshire member.

I don't own a cassegrain telescope so I could not comment on alignment. However you could try taking the scope out during the day and align the finderscope to the eyepiece on a building or object in the distance.

If you have not already download stellarium which is a free astronomy showing the constellations, planets, DSO's and has a lot of other useful features.

Good luck and clear skies.

[tekkydave]

Hi Gary,

The WYAS is not far from you http://www.wyas.org.uk/

I went along to one of their meetings during National Astronomy Week and found them very friendly. They have a very nice 14" Meade LX200 scope in their dome obsy aswell.

[gingergeek]

Hi there and welcome to SGL

[gordhandas]

Hi. I also live in Pontefract and have a GOTO Skywatcher 127 MAK scope. Not a million miles away. Welcome to the forum.

Kirit

[AndyExton]

Hi Gary and welcome to SGL from the Yorkshire coast.

[MattJenko]

Hi Gary. As a fellow newcomer to the forum and the skies themselves, I am sure you are going to love both. Cheers, Matt

[C7tsj]

Welcome to the forum.

Mark

[sologuitarist61]

Hello and a warm welcome to SGL

[glowjet]

Hi Garry and welcome to SGL

[tony210]

Hi and welcome Tony

[Jim Steele]

Hi Gary and welcome to SGL