Hello from a complete newbie - Struggling already!

[sloz1664]

Hi and a warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

[Linda]

Welcome to the site.

Pointing the scope roughly in the right direction and then using your finder, might indeed be time consuming. It was for me, at least. I bought an extra reddot finder, which helps you find your initial naked eye star. From there, you can use the finder scope. This took away a lot of my frustration.

I have also heard that astrophotography is something else than normal photography. Don't get disheartened and also try some visual observation at first, to get used to your scope.

I have no idea what quality finder that came with your scope, but you could consider replacing it with a RACI finder, that corrects the view left-right and up-down. I have just ordered one of those for my own scope. But even if you don't you can use the red dot finder for checking in which direction your scope moves when you search with your finder.

[tony210]

Hi and welcome - polar alignment is a challenging issue for all of us I think but vital for long exposure deepsky astrophotography - there are great programs out there if you are computerised and I am a great fan of astrotortilla that plate solves and polar aligns -polar aligmment scopes are a good guess though - best wishes Tony

[alacant]

Hi and welcome

You soon get used to it and everyone here is sooo helpful. Even when you don't know what to ask, have a go. Someone has always had the same problem.