First night with telescope

[Sagan]

I finally managed to find an hour of clear skies tonight! Poked my head outside around 9:30pm, saw the stars, and excitedly moved everything into the back garden to cool down. Views are a little restricted due to the buildings on every side, but it helped keep out the light pollution. The first look through the scope got a "wow". Amazed at the number of stars I could see. For most of the hour, I just roamed the skies. I tried to find M31, but no such luck. I had the scope pointing in the right direction, but I just could not find it. I did find what looked to be a double star, though I'm not sure which one it was. Obviously, I have lots to learn, but I thoroughly enjoyed the evening until the clouds rolled back in.

[Charic]

Once you find M31, you will always find it!

Find the constellation of Cassiopeia, the great big  ' W ' in the sky. Look at the right hand  half of the ' W ', it forms an inverted triangle, follow from the  point towards the next brightest Star, Mirach. 

Then come back just a little, maybe 1/3 distance and slightly right, study around there for a while and you shall find it. Going to a really dark site  makes it even  easier to find.

[laudropb]

Hi Sagan and well done on your first session. It takes a little practice and a bit of time to find your way around the night sky, but don't worry most of us don't find M31 at the first attempt. You hit the nail on the head when you said you enjoyed your evening. That is the main thing. Have you downloaded any Apps ? If not try Stellarium. It will help you a lot.

[seo]

If you enjoyed the evening by looking at the stars trough your telescope then, at least for me, that's the best possible start !

[Dave In Vermont]

+1 on getting Stellarium.

Sagan - Stellarium is what is called a planetarium program. You start by setting it to your location, and it will show you a very realistic representation of the night sky - complete with any and all objects up there you choose to include. The instructions are quite large. Setting it up can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 days. It's up to you. Similar programs can run you £200. But Stellarium is totally free. And away we go:

http://www.stellarium.org/
 
As for instructions, the most current one's are posted in Wiki due to their being new features & functions being created almost daily. There is also a Pdf. that's almost up-to-date. Here's the Wiki-Link:
 
http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Stellarium_User_Guide
 
And the Pdf. is here:
 
http://barry.sarcasmogerdes.com/stellarium/stellarium_user_guide-new.pdf
 
This should help you to find just about everything under the Sun.

Clear skies,

Dave
 

[Sagan]

Once you find M31, you will always find it!

Find the constellation of Cassiopeia, the great big  ' W ' in the sky. Look at the right hand  half of the ' W ', it forms an inverted triangle, follow from the  point towards the next brightest Star, Mirach. 

Then come back just a little, maybe 1/3 distance and slightly right, study around there for a while and you shall find it. Going to a really dark site  makes it even  easier to find.

Thanks very much! I found Cassiopeia and followed on from there, but from the looks of your screencap, I didn't go far enough away. I'll try again if the skies stay clear tonight!

[Charic]

....just keep at it. Sometimes it helps to use averted vision from non-perfect sites. You look at one bit directly but your eye picks up stuff on the perimeter?

There are other ways to find M31 from the constellation of Andromeda itself, but a big ' W ' is easier to find!

I managed a quick peek this morning, wanted to see if I could see anything with the 15x70s, hand held, looking at  Orion as it disappears behind the house, but looking straight up, M31 was in its glory, but still quite dim, its a smudge more than anything, so in all probability, you may have unknowingly seen it, but not registered it. I have subsequently viewed M31 from darker sites with the telescope, and boy is M31 big? my BST 25mm at 60°afov is not big enough, so I use the 70° Panaview, Now M31 looks stunning, and possibly a bigger field of view is still required?

The local conditions will affect what you can / cannot see. A dark place is always a better place, just be careful when away or alone. stay safe.

[rockystar]

Dave in Vermont, is that post permanently in your clipboard ;-)  Defiantly agree with installing it though, very handy when you get it set up properly - the main setting (other than time and location) that I find most handy, is getting the LP correct, it makes it much easier when what you see on the screen, is actually what you see in the eye piece. The only thing I find, is that sometimes I wish the DSOs were a bit more representative of what can actually be seen, rather than beautiful Hubble style images - as lovely as these are, I think it would confirm a bit better that I'd found what I was looking for. 

As for M31, I can only see the core (as a large bright smudge) from my back garden, so the apparent size of it fits nicely in my 18mm 68°, but I know that when I get to a really dark site, it will just engulf that eyepiece with much more detail - can't wait, and need a lower powered and wider field ep :-)

I love just sweeping the scope slowly through the milky way and seeing all those extra starts that you just can't see with the naked eye.

[Charic]

Thanks very much! I found Cassiopeia and followed on from there, but from the looks of your screencap, I didn't go far enough away. I'll try again if the skies stay clear tonight!

Click the image to enlarge it for a better view or simply create your own map from Stellarium. 

Most folk, unless they have perfect conditions will say   ".....is that it ?....." because M31 is often not much at first glance, but when you see it in all its glory, under the right conditions, its huge,  many times bigger than the Moon! so why is it so difficult to find.

Being so  large its light output is vastly reduced to the naked eye and what's left is  just the central core, still a dim smudge.  Your 25mm should detect the Galaxy, and when locked on, if you insert the Barlow  then the 25mm-Barlowed you will get much closer, but will see less, due to the higher magnification? seems daft, but that's how it works.

Finding the best eyepiece that frames the target, giving you your perfect image is what's required to get the best result and satisfaction. That's the sole reason I have several eyepieces available, it gives me a  greater choice framing my subjects.. 

[Grotemobile]

Thanks for the link

to Stellarium Dave.

Steve.

[Sagan]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I tried again tonight for about an hour until the skies were too hazy to see much. Found Cassiopeia, then found Mirach. I looked around for quite awhile but didn't have much luck. As soon as I came inside, I took a look at Stellarium, and I can see that I wasn't quite there. Close but I needed to go just a little bit further to the right! I think I may be able to find it next time.

[Charic]

......fingers crossed!

[cjdawson]

Hehe.  Finding something for the first time is always "fun".   I'm lucky enough to have SkySafari Pro on my iPad, which I can use at at the scope.  Makes it much easier to be able to identify stars in the eyepiece against the chart, then figure out which way to move to get to the object.

It's a skill that's worth learning, as even with a Goto scope, they can point slightly off target, and will require little corrections from time to time.  (unless that's just me not aligning the scope properly

[rockystar]

finding things for the first time is fantastic, but going back for the 3rd or 4th time, knowing where it is,and getting there straight away so you can spend a bit more time at it, and wedeling out a bit more detail; I find that even more rewarding. M13, M57 & M31 are my current targets in that set.

Forecast is good tonight, so hoping for a quick & easy 2nd find of the Dumbell Nebula, and a first find of the Pinwheel galaxy.

happy days, clear skies :-)

[Sagan]

Found it, found it, found it! Perfectly clear skies tonight, so I took the scope out for my first look at the moon. I swear the neighbors must have heard my gasp when I put my eye to the eyepiece. I knew I'd get a close view with crater details, but it still awed me seeing it myself. After that, I thought I'd try for M31 again. This time, I found it without much difficulty. A dull smudge of stars. I felt like prancing around to celebrate and stared at it for what felt like ages. An entire galaxy. I'm hooked! I would have stayed out later, but my hands were numb. Might go out for round two in a bit!

[Charic]

Glad you found M31. You'll find it straight away next time. Then when you have a chance, view from some darker site, you may need a wider field of view if the conditions are just right?

As for the Moon, I could never be bored, considering so much detail up there.

[Sagan]

Thanks for all your help on this! I look forward to making it to a dark site soon, potentially even this weekend if the weather is good.

[jetstream]

Congrats Sagan!

You did a fine job locating M31 and yes those lunar views are definitely WOW  moments! Just had one viewing the moon myself tonight.

The moon is great to view but really hurts dark skies..., might be worth checking out before you travel to the dark site. You have a great telescope Sagan and will see lots with it, keep up the good work.

[rockystar]

Yeah, I think the full moon is coming this coming this weekend so that isn't going to help any Andromeda viewings; and remember, when you are out on the moors , "beware the moon and stick to the roads".

Clouds forecast for the next week up here.

[Astro Imp]

Well done on a successful night.

If you get hooked on the moon the Virtual Moon Atlas is a great free tool:- http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualmoon/

Also to structure your luna viewing the Lunar 100 is a fun list of objects to track down.

[GeoffB]

Congratulations on finding it, my so and I need a widerfield of view and possibly need lower magnifications for enjoying some of tne andromeda galaxy in a lot of ways we have a range of eyepieces from 28 to 3mm but when going to higher magnifications we just get lost in space loking in absolute awe asyou say itz a big wow moment. I hope the skies clear as here we have had poor skies for most of the last week.

I dont know how you Essex people get such good skies we had a few snatched minutes down here this last week.

Geoff

[cjdawson]

Congratulations on finding here.  Here's my top tip for keeping your hands warm.

Get a couple of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zippo-Hand-Warmer-Non-Reflective-Black/dp/B005MIM8U0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445628673&sr=8-1&keywords=zippo+hand+warmer

And put them in your pockets, then when you are not using your hands put them in the same pockets and your hands will be toasty warm.   If you are wondering how good these are.   I have Raynaud's phenomenon and use them to stop my hands from having an attack whilst I'm out with my scope.

[rockystar]

Best investment I made: http://www.astrogloves.net/

[GeoffB]

Sagan as many have said the moon is one of the better places to start with astrophotography I attach a photo I took last night I am still rather new to this myself. During the past year I have been playing with my sons "toy" Celestron Travelscope which I bought for £40 doing direct photography via the scope in the past couple of months.

[GeoffB]

Whoops upload did not happen round 2