My first night of stargazing

[bennethos]

Hi there, 

Thought I would share my experience to get some feedback and advice. 

Here I am in the south of france, beautiful dark site setting up my scope and mount. white eq6 pro without goto or remote and an esprit 100.

I saw the Big dipper in the sky and setup my mount roughly pointing to the north,  set my correct longitude based on my location as welll. Then I struggled for 2 hours polar aligning it. Didnt have a clue what I was looking at through that polar scope… finally with some android software PolarFinder I could compare what I was looking at. 

The big dipper drawing doesn't show up properly in my polar scope either,  unless I start unscrewing it,  at which point it becomes wobbly and hard to use… Forgot to bring tiny Alan keys with me. 

2nd challenge I encountered was navigating the sky as a newbie ! no goto or remote… star hopping with my finder scope 9x50 was too much of a challenge for me as a newbie.

Using the ra and dec rings on my eq6 didn't prove easy to navigate or understand either. extra challenge ? although I've read that they are pretty useless… 

any advice on navigating the sky without goto or remote for a newbie ?

any help and advice would be appreciated

thx !

 

[rockystar]

you're probably not going to like me for saying this, but an equatorial mount is not the easiest to star hop with. I had much better results when I put my mount into Alt-AZ mode (set it to point to 90 degrees) and abandoned polar aligning.

do you have any kind of star atlas? Once you get the hang of them, you can use them a bit like a road map for navigating the sky. Start with the Andromeda galaxy, you may be able to see it naked eye, and will definitely be able to see it in your finder. Use stellarium (or other planetarium software) to show you where it is.

[Stub Mandrel]

Use Polar Finder and don't worry about the drawings in the polarscope reticle.

This is how I starhop with an EQ mount:

Find a bright, obvious star near your target and make sure it is centred in the eyepiece and the viewfinder.

Turn you map upside down so it matches your finder view and work out a route that only uses moves in one of RA or DEC so you get to the target in a series of zig-zag steps. Its' best NOT to use a computer programme with lots of faint stars, better to use a map which will only show the brighter stars as visible in your finder.

Lets take M101, you line up on the bright double Alkaid in the handle of the Plough, then follow a series of smaller but quite bright stars roughly aligned with RA move from each one to the next, the map will show you the last hop is a move of about the same distance as between the two last stars in both RA and DEC. If you have a dark sky you may even spot a faint sign of the galaxy in your finder.

 

[almcl]

If you are only doing visual, a super accurate polar alignment is not really essential.  Get it pointing north (ish) with the dec set for your latitude and the stars should stay in place.

Agreed setting circles aren't easy, but if you point to a bright star you do recognise (Vega - alpha Lyr is good here at the moment) you can check you have the circles set correctly and then move to another target.  It may not be spot on but you will be in the right area of sky.  
I found Sky and Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas very helpful for learning the way round the constellations, that and a planetarium (the plastic and cardboard sort not the software).  It does get easier with practice so persevere!  It will be worth it.

Another tip I picked up on SGL is to use a pair of binoculars (if you have or can borrow them).  These can really help when planning a star-hop in the finder scope and they are quite nice for scanning the sky with, anyway.  I will admit to having obtained a RACI finder to help with star hopping and found it did help although I then found I needed a red dot finder to get me to the starting star.

[Putaendo Patrick]

5 hours ago, bennethos said:

any advice on navigating the sky without goto or remote for a newbie ?

Although I agree with Stub Mandrel that computer programs can often show too much confusing information, Stellarium can be set to show only stars above a certain magnitude. Set it for 6.5 (or less even if there is significant light pollution) which is about the limit for naked eye viewing. Also switch Stellarium to the red night-vision mode.

Polaris and 57 other bright stars are considered as "navigation stars" used by mariners and pilots. These are well worth learning gradually. Stellarium has a sextant symbol in the bottom tool-bar which will highlight these. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_selected_stars_for_navigation

Apart from using your telescope, viewing the sky with your naked eye, or low powered binoculars will help you to find your way around. I enjoy sitting outside at dusk, watching the stars as they begin to "appear" and trying to identify them as they come out. A cheap compass can be helpful at first to give a rough orientation - although you will soon enough not need it.

[bennethos]

Thank you for all the great advice.  I did bring binoculars as well as a starchart.  I also decided to not get involved in astrophotography for a couple of years until I know the sky and have seen things.

Realize that stargazing is also a lot of prepping,  which I love doing… ie investigating possible stargazing spots during daytime,  prepping which things are easiest to spot at this time of year (I use the turn left at Orion book for  now) etc… 

thumbs up for stellarium and it's granular config indeed. 

no star atlas yet,  although I sense that everyone owns the pocket atlas,  which I might have to get at some point. Am using turn left at orion to start out with. 

I agree thag there is definetely a  learning curve to manually use an equatorial Mount for hopping !

I had indeed planned the Andromeda galaxy as well as the hercules globular cluster to start with. shouldn't really be able to miss those. 

Do you think I could benefit using a Telrad ? How do you  mount it ?

Round 2 is Sunday night. found a dark spot in the mountains. although I guess the moon isn't helping a lot either atm. 

[bennethos]

Oh…  actually,  is there a good guide on how to set circles and use them ? The hours on the circle versus degrees in stellarium dont make it any easier,  how do I convert these values ? any link or info that I can read up on would be welcome. 

[almcl]

There are one or two guides, here's one http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/feature/how-guide/how-master-setting-circles .

 

Astro baby's website also has an article, more concerned with the polar scope, but a useful read.

As regards the numbers, there's more than one way to specify the co-ordinates and you need to use the viewing tab in Stellarium to make sure the ones you need are displayed.

Sky & Telescope's article here may help :

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/the-setting-circles-on-your-telescope/

[Dave In Vermont]

As Stellarium was mentioned as a way to find your way about in the nighttime sky, I'll help to get this going. Stellarium is an excellent software-program that provides you with a very realistic view of the sky-at-night from your location - which you tell it. And then you can set-up the program to show you all the objects you wish to see, such as stars, nebulae, planets, etc. Such programs can run you £200 and more. Stellarium is completely free. Perhaps the greatest bargain out there! So here you go:

On this link is the main page for downloading Stellarium. Choose which version is correct for your computer. Here you go:

http://www.stellarium.org/
 
As for instructions, a full copy of them is bundled with the program that you download. But if you need another copy for some reason, these can be downloaded here:
 
https://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/files/Stellarium-user-guide/0.15.0-1/stellarium_user_guide-0.15.0-1.pdf/download

This program is quite large, so download when you have a few minutes. I'll leave you with a screenshot of mine. Please know I am an experienced user. When you first open your copy, it will be far less advanced and very easy to understand.

Enjoy!

Dave

 

Click on image for full-size.

[Stu]

A Telrd or Rigel finder would certainly be useful, and you could combine this with a 9x50 RACI finder which presents images to you which are the right way up and not reversed, it makes lift a lot easier.

For starters, I wouldn't even both looking through your polar scope! Put the mount facing North correctly, and set your attitude as accurately as possible and for visual that should be close enough. Do you have single or dual axis motors or are you totally manual?

To give you an example of this, I have a Vixen GP mount, no polar scope but with tracking motors. I align it as above during the daytime, obviously with no sight of Polaris and it will track the sun for 10 to 15 mins quite ok. Yes, it drifts but for visual you are normally moving your view far more frequently than this anyway.

I wouldn't worry about the setting circles either, they are not easy to use. I would just make sure your finder is aligned properly, then visually identify (in binoculars) a couple of easy targets such as M13, M31 etc then just get used to pointing the scope  and finder at the target, acquiring it in the finder and then the scope using a low power eyepiece. You can push to higher powers once you've got the target in view at low power.

[billyharris72]

Getting the polar scope constellations in the right places troubled me for a couple of sessions too. Temptation was to turn the scope, which just loosens it and destroys it's accuracy. Ended up just pointing straight at Polaris, which is more that good enough for visual.

Then I realised what happens if you look through the scope and move the RA axis. D'oh!

[rockystar]

A guide to using setting circles: 

 

 

[cloudsweeper]

Yes, the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas is a great guide for hopping.  And what really helps is a wide-angle view, so a "fast" 'scope is useful here, or at least a low power (high focal length) eyepiece in whatever  'scope you have.

Doug.

[bennethos]

ok the circles are pretty useless from what I have read.  but could be ok'ish to reset every time you find a star and need to hop to another one using stellarium and some math.  make sense though… if you look at the hemisphere and the size of the deals… ridiculous indeed. 

my mount is completely manual atm. will bring my MAC on which I installed and configured stellarium on my 2nd session as well as my bino's and my wife to assist me in my raptures :-) 

thx for all the great advice !

[Stu]

Good luck!

Have you made sure your finder is aligned? That makes life far easier in the dark!

Always good to practise on brighter objects first like the moon, Vega, Arcturus etc to get the hang of pointing the thing!

[bennethos]

Hello, 

Thought I would give some feedback concerning my 2nd attempt.  It was a big success personally ;-) .

was able to align my scope for viewing within 10min this time, had to adjust my latitude a tiny bit to get Polaris on the circle. 

naked eye could see up to mag 5.5

Did some star hopping with the EQ6 in the big dipper and cassiopeia using a bit of math and Stellarium (what a great piece of software) >> I basically used it as a star atlas I guess. It helped me recognize patterns,  triangles,  trapezoid's and the like. 

Near cassiopeia I was able to center on the pacman ngc 281 but couldn't make out anything. I guess our eyes aren't made to pickup the color. 

I then hopped from Shedir on to the Andromeda galaxy ! what a sight!  I basically looked at it for 2 hours :-) , having deep meaningful thoughts with myself . it didnt take up the whole EP as it is often showed in pictures though. I saw a smudge and a center of light in it and could zoom up to 8mm with my Baader hyperion mk3. Maybe because of light pollution or practically full moon ?

Things I need to improve on. the eq6 is clearly not meant for manual star hopping,  it us just awkward and time consuming.  Time is not on your side while stargazing. So definitely am going for goto option using laptop etc,  DIY battery kit etc… 

I found the RA clock pretty useful for manual hopping.  The DEC clock is a nightmare though,  too small and when you're scope is positioned in an awkward kind of way you cannot access it properly or even read it without having the agility of a snakeman. 

 

thx for all the encouraging words and help ! It is a steep learning curve when doing this hobby solo !

[cloudsweeper]

GOTo (well set up) and Stellarium "in the field" make an excellent combination.  I soon learned to trust GoTo to aim right at targets (or extremely close), then Stellarium can be used as an atlas to pinpoint further targets, as well as for confirmation - should it be considered necessary! - that you are looking at what you think you are!

Doug.

[Stu]

Sounds like a successful second attempt. Setting up an EQ isn't trivial to start off with.

Be wary of over using Stellarium when observing, particularly when the moon is new and you have dark skies. It has a big impact on the objects you can see, full dark adaptation (which can take 45 mins or more at a really dark site) makes all the difference. One look at a bright laptop screen and you start the clock again. A piece of red acetate over the screen will really help though, if you haven't tried this already.

[cloudsweeper]

Good advice, Stu - I forgot to mention that!  (Even in Night Mode, the screen can be bright from certain angles.)

Doug.

[N3ptune]

On 2016-08-18 at 08:49, bennethos said:

 star hopping with my finder scope 9x50 was too much of a challenge for me as a newbie.

You can use the 9x50 finder scope a lot and look at a simple inexpensive map, eventually your brain will do the maths and you will notice you are starting to know the sky, the effort of learning this is providing great satisfaction. I started with a simple map like the one bellow (with a small red light) to learn the constellations and to locate the brightest stars with the finder scope. I also think the equatorial mount is a great choice, it's an effort path but at the end of the day, you can be proud of getting good at leaning how to use a awesome tracking device!

http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/astronomy/accessories/publications/celestron-sky-maps 

[Stub Mandrel]

It's heresy but I don't use a right angle finder scope. If you use a straight through one all you have to do is turn the map upside down and everything matches. Don't worry about which way to turn the handles, it is obvious whether or not the cross hairs are going the right way.