Newbie Alert! - Help with locating objects....

[Evo]

Hello!

First of all, please forgive my ignorance as i am totally new to this, having had a telescope for Christmas. (Based on the fact im always chatting about aliens, space blah blah blah after a few beers )

When i opened the telescope, i was totally confussed, didnt have a clue about the equatorial mount or what anything actually did!!

After almost 2 solid days of reading, researching and basically trial and error, i think i understand how it works, i've balanced the mount, and i know how to align it with Polaris. (although i have not done this yet)

Now, i understand if done correctly, then i should be able to use the 'dials' to locate other objects in the sky - however, i have read before doing this that i will have to locate another star (other than Polaris), and use the co-ordinates from that star, to find others.

This may be a very stupid question, but why cant I just use the coordinates from Polaris to find other objects? (i.e. 02h 43m 30.308s Dec: +89°18'27.286)

I have a 'program' with the telescope that gives me all the coordinates i will need for planets/stars, and obviously as time goes on i will realise that its easier/better to use other stars as pointers, but for now, can i use Polaris??

The reason i ask is because i just know that if i have to find another star, and THEN find the coordinates of it, i will fail miserably! lol

Any help or info is much appreciated

Many thanks in advance

[Evo]

Sorry about replying to my own post lol

Just had a thought! Has finding a second star got something to do with accuracy?

Thanks again

[Greg]

Morning Evo and welcome to the forum..

I wrote this a while ago which people found useful. Have a read through or even print it off.

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,2455.0.html

Use Stellarium (Or the softwar you have) To get the coordinates of a chosen object and away you go..!

http://www.stellarium.org/

Greg

[MikeP]

Hello Evo,

Welcome to SGL. You seem to be making good progress so far.

In order to help us to answer your questions, could you tell us what scope/mount you have please?

Mike

[Doc]

Hello Evo

Sounds like you have some sort of EQ mount. So you are correct in saying by finding another star you are increasing the accuracy of your mount.

Find the brightest star in the sky and see if you can match the constellations and find it using Stellarium.

[John]

I would not bother learning how to use the dials (setting circles as they are known) to find things - they are more trouble than they are worth. The best tools to find objects are i) a good star atlas ii) a red dot type finder on your scope and iii) a low power eyepiece. The star atlas can be computerised (eg: Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel) or a book like "Turn Left at Orion".

You will need to work at this as, with the exception of the moon and the brightest planets, Astronomy is not a hobby of "quick wins" I've found - but it is worth the effort !.

John

[Astro_Baby]

Agree - the setting circles are usually no more than a rough guess. Even the setting circles on an upmarket mount the HEQ5 and 6s are supposed to be hopeless. ( Cant speak for the 6 but the 5 is deffinitely a waste of time ).

The best method of using the setting circles though if you have to is to set the Declination and then sweep the scope around the RA - you should be able to get it using that method assuming the Latitude and Declination setting is accurate. Normally I dont even bother to try and just go by a star atlas/planisphere.

If you can tell us the mount and scope pople can help more - you are doing well to get polar alignment sorted out though.

[Greg]

Agree - the setting circles are usually no more than a rough guess. Even the setting circles on an upmarket mount the HEQ5 and 6s are supposed to be hopeless. ( Cant speak for the 6 but the 5 is deffinitely a waste of time ).

I agree that the setting circles on the EQ6 and HEQ5 are a bit hit and miss but the ones on my EQ3 are very accurate and I have found many doubles and difficult objects with them.

If you know how to use them correctly using a good reference point in the are of sky your object is you can find stuff very quickly.

I was using setting circles long before I moved to GOTO and found it a very rewarding way to locate objects.

Greg

[Astro_Baby]

Odd you mention that Greg - I was looking at my sisters EQ3-2 yesterday and was quite suprised about how well engineered it was. The setting circles did look very accurate on it or at least well machined. The ones on the HEQ5 are dreadful.

My old scope had quite a solid mount years ago. No idea who made it and the setting circles on that were passable.

[Greg]

Mel,

I could never understand why the HEQ5 or the EQ6 had such dreadful setting circles..Considering the amount of extra money we spend on the mount..

I've yet to find anything manually with my HEQ5 Pro.. :crybaby:

The EQ3 is a dream of a mount for manually locating stuff..Very underrated.

[beamer3.6m]

Simply do this:

1. Put your scope on the mount so that the weights are pointing towards the ground (directly down).

2. At this time your whole set-up should be as follows;

Scope on mount

Weights pointing down

The scope (with the mount in the above position) should be facing north

3. Now to polar align all you need to do it make sure that the mount (NOT the scope) is lined up with Polaris.

However, for basic visual observing you can mis out no.3 because as long as the scope is facing north (towards Polaris) when it is just sitting on the mount with the weights down you are done.

The manuals make it all sound very difficult and it is not.

[Evo]

Hello everyone Thanks for comments! So many already, fantastic!!

The scope I have is only a Celestron 114EQ, with a 20mm and 10mm eyepiece, the mount came with it

My girlfriend bought it me for Christmas. She obviously didnt want to spend a lot of money for my first scope, and to be perfectly honest, neither of us spoke about me having a telescope, so i think it was more of a helping hand to get me started, rather than buying me a quality one.

In saying that, she got it for LESS than £50 brand new, delivered to the door. So, when I found out the price, I was very, very happy with her purchase.

Given time, and obviously if im still interested in the night sky, I will upgrade to something that will be more suitable to me. But that will be in a few months time, and I'm sure I'll start another post about that lol

Again, thanks for the input

I was just wanting to use them setting circles to get me somewhere near to what i was looking for lol As you can imagine, when i look into the sky now, its all just white dots to me! lol

I was just curious why you cannot use Polaris for the 'guide' star? You align with Polaris, but then have to find a second star to use the setting circles from.

I'm off to buy a compass and a book/start chart now

Cheers

[Evo]

Sorry double post

[Astro_Baby]

Greg - I guess the HEQ5 and 6 were probably designed with GoTo in mind so they probably didnt bother about the setting circles running well. To be honest I never used them anyway - or at most set the DEC and then sweep through the RA but none of my mounts prior to the HEQ5 have been that well engineered for finding things.

[mdstuart]

Well you can use polaris to get the declanation setting right but the RA setting changes as the earth turns.

I recommend picking a few objects using the book turn left at Orion or just try M36/M37/M38 is Auriga using a map off the internet. Using the brightest stars try with your low power eyepeice to line up the telescope in the right sort of area and with a bit of patience you will stumble accross one of these three clusters. Belive me you will never foget the first view of them on a good clear night..

Also try Venus, the bright "star" over to the SW after sunset...On high power it should look like a half moon.

Enjoy your new scope...

Mark

[Evo]

Thanks for the replies

Mdstuart - exactly what i needed to know mate

Just a shame i havent had one clear night since I got the telescope still not used it

Thanks again

[RichieJarvis]

Welcome to the hobby Evo...

So its your fault that we've got wall-to-wall cloud at the moment since Christmas then is it? :laughing2: :laughing2:

Seriously though, it seems to be the way of things - you get a new shiny piece of astro-kit, and the clouds come in and stay there, rendering your new kit about as useful as a chocolate fireguard

As for aligning on Polaris - for visual observing that will be absolutely fine. Aligning on a second star is used by computerised Goto systems to correct for any mis-alignments in the mount/date/time/location. For a mount to work properly you see, it has to know where it is, when it is, and has to be exactly level - none of which is realistic all the time unless you are very very careful. Its also worth doing to make sure you can find a known, bright star, so that you know where you are in the sky.

Good luck with the scope - hope you enjoy it!

Richie

[Evo]

Thanks Richie, Much appreciated and yes, its my fault :laughing2:

Just looking at the usual websites (bbc etc) it says that its clear as from 6pm tonight (in my area) but looking outside, all I see is cloud

Can anyone suggest a decent, up to date website that is accurate? lol Would be handy to know when it will clear up

Actually, I'll do a search now to see if this has already been covered

Thanks

[RichieJarvis]

When you find one, can you let us all know???

Thats the holy grail that is!

Most of the time they disagree with each other - and when they do agree, they get it wrong half the time!

Personally, I check:

http://www.metcheck.com

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

http://sat24.com/Region.aspx?country=gb&sat=ir&type=loop

http://astroforecast.org:8080/index.html

http://7timer.y234.cn/V3/product.php?language=en&product_id=1&country=UK&adm=UKE2&site=0

And I am still none the wiser....

Good luck!

Richie