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Prep for first night.

popeye85

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popeye85

popeye85

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Finally got round to ordering a telescope! (Skywatcher discovery 150) and I should be here next week. Need help with a couple of questions though! 1. The alignment for the go to requires you to line the score up with a specific star however I really haven't got a clue what I'm looking at how do I reconize it? I have sky walker on my phone but due to the weather ive not been able to test out how accurate it is! 2. Is there any thing else people would recommend for my first go? I.e easy targets to locate etc? Thanks for the help!

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D4N

D4N

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The brightest stars in the sky at the moment are Capella in the East and Vega in the West.

M42 in Orions sword is a wonderful sight (rises slightly later).

M45 the Pleiades is also beautiful to look at.

M31 is a bit harder to find if you have light pollution but well worth it to get your first Galaxy!

Use your lowest power eyepiece to locate the targets then increase the magnification. The goto might not put you bang on target if the alignment is slightly out, just slew around a bit if you don't see anything.

/Dan

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Astro Imp

Astro Imp

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A great free resource to help find your way around is Stellarium:- http://www.stellarium.org/

Want to know what to look at? Try Tonight's Sky:- http://tonightssky.com/MainPage.php, set it for your location and time and I would suggest other than the objects already mentioned you select some easy open clusters. 

HTH and have fun.

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Putaendo Patrick

Putaendo Patrick

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Some things to consider for your first night:

Check the weather forecast in advance.

A red light torch, lets you see what you're doing without ruining your night vision. You can just cover an ordinary torch with red plastic or cellophane etc.

Warm clothing and wool cap etc. Nothing is more of a turn-off than getting really cold to the bone!

Maybe a thermos of hot drink.

If you don't have a star atlas, you can print out screen shots from Stellarium on your computer. If you have a laptop, Stellarium can also operate in a red and black night screen mode.

Spare batteries for the go-to are always a useful backup.

Ideally let your telescope adapt to the outside temperature for about 30 minutes before observing. Likewise give your eyes time to accustom to the dark.

And, more than anything, HAVE FUN!

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brantuk

brantuk

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I've always said that even with a goto scope, newbies still need at least a basic knowledge of the sky in order to use a goto system - particularly cos you need to do the initial alignment. I've never had any trouble using the winter triangle or summer triangle. Any refinements can be done later by re-aligning one star or planet at a time - after half a dozen realignments in a session the goto pretty well knows where it's going for the rest of the night.

It's good to see someone considering this ahead of receiving their first scope purchase. I mostly use Stellarium for learning the sky - but it's useful to go outside even with just a pair of bins, and reinforce your knowledge by actually looking at the sky. Once you know all the major constellations and their main stars, alignment is never a problem. It takes about a year just learning two or three constellations per month - which is no biggie for most folks. Hth :)

Edit - Up in Scotland the problem won't be LP - I surprisingly found that there were so many stars in sky of all different brightnes's that I couldn't even make out the shape of the constellations. The sky is carpeted with stars from one horizon to the other lol. :)

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popeye85

popeye85

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Thanks for all the advice much appreciated!! I have installed stellarium and it's definitely helped me get my bearings!although I have heard that some apps can be used to interface with the goto unit-is stellarium one of these??

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Rickwal68

Rickwal68

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I've had my scope now for 3 weeks dob 250px I've not seen much because of conditions so I'm just using the time to scan round (weather permitting) I also bought some explorer scientific eyepieces 35mm 20mm an 10mm. I'm a complete beginner as well, I know these eyepieces are decent but cant help thinking I'm missing something up there , is there much to look at, at the moment or am I doing something wrong.excuse my Astro ignorance, but we all have to start at the beginning.

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Rickwal68

Rickwal68

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Bit of both really, I had some good images of the moon to begin with but looking at stars etc I'm just getting used to everything been upside down. I have an app called night sky pro on the I phone which is ok , but I feel I've bought at prob the worst time of year. I'm using the 35 mm to just scan round ( my word there's a lot more than you can see with the eye

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Astro Imp

Astro Imp

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Hi. you have started your exploration of the night sky at arguably the best time of year. There are long dark nights with plenty of interesting objects to view. 

Quite a few people start thinking this hobby is best carried out under warm summer nights in a t-shirt and shorts but the problem is the sky either doesn't get properly dark or if it does only for a short time.

For a good start Turn Left at Orion is a great introduction arranged season by season with simple instructions on how to find objects and sketches of what to expect to see. Another good resource are the monthly astro. magazines which have guides for the current month.

Good luck.

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brantuk

brantuk

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Jupiter should show 4 moons most of the time - but during their orbit one or two sometimes slip behind the planet out of view for a while. It's fun to try and locate the missing moon(s) the following night when they'll likely be visible again.

There's a chart in Sky at Night magazine every month showing Jupiters moon positions fyi. :)

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