Tips on keeping interested in summer

[miguel87]

The sat-nav of the skies!

[Stu]

1 hour ago, miguel87 said:

The sat-nav of the skies!

Always nice to arrive, rather than stay lost 😛

[John]

As has been said, there a lots of different was to enjoy the skies and no wrong ones, unless its adding light pollution !

Personally I don't use GOTO systems and enjoy hunting new targets down. I can see though where not taking too much time to find something is a good thing eg: when time is short and when non-astro family and friends are waiting !

Also GOTO is invaluable for imagers.

 

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, John said:

As has been said, there a lots of different was to enjoy the skies and no wrong ones, unless its adding light pollution !

Personally I don't use GOTO systems and enjoy hunting new targets down. I can see though where not taking too much time to find something is a good thing eg: when time is short and when non-astro family and friends are waiting !

Also GOTO is invaluable for imagers.

 

I spent forever trying to nail down Uranus and Neptune with my Dob, but I was never quite sure if I was on target since I wasn't quite sure what they should look like.  I added DSCs to my Dob as a result and nailed both on the first try out.  I then went on to find various planetary nebula that had eluded me as well.  Soon after that, though, I was satisfied and have used them rarely since.  They have gotten handy again as light pollution has increased in my area over the last 10 years since I can't even see basic constellation stars on some nights due to haziness and sky brightness, so star hopping is all but impossible.

[Louis D]

12 hours ago, miguel87 said:

If the LP is so bad you cant star hop, you have no chance of viewing the object

Not once you apply enough power.  M22 is just barely visible as a smudge at low power in my southerly skies on good nights and completely indistinguishable on bad nights, but jack up the power to around 200x, and it starts to resolve and becomes quite apparent.  Luckily, I know where to look for it among the bright teapot stars of Sagittarius, but this is not the case for many DSOs which are often nowhere close to any brighter stars, so that's where having DSCs come in handy.

As far as full goto, however, I've found tracking is only a necessity for group viewing and sketching.  I can manually track objects at high powers in wide field eyepieces using Dobs and alt-az mounts by nudging and letting the object drift across the field of view.  I also find I see more detail in a moving target than in a stationary target.  I may even jostle the scope a bit to make a faint fuzzy pop out from the background better.  After all, it's easier to see a well camouflaged animal when it moves than when it remains still.