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Hello from Sunny Cyprus!

MrsAppleton

By MrsAppleton
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MrsAppleton

MrsAppleton

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Hello everyone,

Just wanted to post and say a very warm hello to everyone here. I am new to star gazing. my husband brought me a telescope for Christmas after spending the past 6months staring at the beautiful Cypriot skies and wondering what is where......

I literally have no clue what I am doing!! I have a celestron 130 EQ. Red dot finder is so hard to use, but we have managed to look closely at the moon and Jupiter (although seen no detail on it yet). And look at a few pretty stars.

Can't wait to find some deep space objects, but it seems I have a ton of learning to do before that can happen!!

Look forward to chatting some others who share my love of the night sky!

Gemma.

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Dannae

Dannae

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Hi Gemma :)

Welcome to SGL.

Red dot finders can be really grumpy sometimes - always a bit tricky to align. It might be a good idea to get it aligned on a large target such as the moon and refine it a little later on something smaller like Jupiter. You can download an excellent (and free) pc planetarium called Stellarium:

http://www.stellarium.org/

Wish you well and I envy you looking up at things for the first time ;)

Regards

Dannae

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Gemma and welcome to the forum. In addition to Dannae's suggestion of Stellarium, you might like to consider ordering a book called "Turn left at Orion". It lists some 100 objects that are divided seasonally ensuring that there is always something to look at through the year. It contains both written and pictorial instructions on how to find the object along with useful background information to help you understand what you are looking at. There are of course other guides out there and although this one isn't the cheapest, it has certainly proved popular among many here as a means of learning the night sky and where everything is. You can take a look here If you want an example of what to expect from the layout of this book .

Clear skies and hope you enjoy your stay here.

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MrsAppleton

MrsAppleton

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Thank you everyone for your warm welcome.

Had an amazing evening star gazing tonight. Started out looking at Jupiter and finally got to see the bands. Looked fantastic! Then moved onto the Orion nebular (i think that's what it's called), it was a grey smudge with a few stars in it and looked overwhelmingingly beautiful. I was so excited, bouncing round the garden getting my husband to look!! And finally I managed to locate the love joy comet *i think*!!!

I always seem to be filled with a little uncertainty and find myself saying 'is that it?! Am I seeing what I should be seeing?!' And I suppose with experience i'll gain more confidence....... Could have stayed out all night, but with the school run in the morning I was forced to pack up early!

Gemma

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MrsAppleton

MrsAppleton

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Hi Gemma and welcome to the forum. In addition to Dannae's suggestion of Stellarium, you might like to consider ordering a book called "Turn left at Orion". It lists some 100 objects that are divided seasonally ensuring that there is always something to look at through the year. It contains both written and pictorial instructions on how to find the object along with useful background information to help you understand what you are looking at. There are of course other guides out there and although this one isn't the cheapest, it has certainly proved popular among many here as a means of learning the night sky and where everything is. You can take a look here If you want an example of what to expect from the layout of this book .

Clear skies and hope you enjoy your stay here.

Thank you for the book suggestion, I will have a look at it tomorrow!

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