A plan for gazing at the heavens?

[RussellA]

I have a new scope, I'm a novice, rather than just gawping at random objects in the sky, what might a be a useful approach for deciding what to look at? I want to put some structure to how I use the scope, and learn more intelligently in the process. What do you suggest would be a good star/lunar/planetary etc-gazing approach?

[timetraveller]

hello Russella

with the weather the way it is at the moment staying outdoors for any real length of time I don't think is going to be a viable option and with the Moon prominent in the night sky, I think I would be tempted to spend some short viewing sessions looking at and finding your way around the Lunar surface. That ways you will get practise with your scope and it will give you time to ac-customise yourself, with how the different lenses you have give you different views and magnifications plus if you feel up to it you could also try your hand at sketching and recording your observations IMHO

regards Pete

[dave1978]

I would advise to download some free software like Stellarium! just put your location into the settings, time and date etc. This will give you some idea of whats about from month to month and where you need to be looking from your location. At the moment the planets arnt very good for viewing, Saturn is good but not till after midnight and thats about it.

Ragarding an actual plan, well i printed the messier list off Wikipedia and just tick them off as i go really with dates of when i saw them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects

http://www.stellarium.org/

[Merlin66]

A medium to longer term solution is to invest in a Planning software like AstroPlanner.

This lets you select various objects ( from hundreds of Catalogues) determine which ones are visible from your site with your telescope and can control GOTO telescopes and let's you record your obsevations.

[Talitha]

For DSOs, how about concentrating on one constellation at a time? Nebulae and galaxies won't look their best when there's lunar interference, but you can go for clusters and double stars.

With the Moon you can learn a lot by making basic sketches at the eyepiece and then identifying them using the VMA (the 'Expert' version is good enough).

Want a fun planetary project? Find Venus during the daytime... she's far enough away from the Sun to view in complete safety right now. Naked-eye, she looks like a silver speck, and you'll see her phase with a scope. Binos work well too, but TBH I'm not sure if you'd see the phase or not.. must give it a try.

...edit

Couldn't make out a phase with the 11x70s, but naked-eye she looks like very small silver jet. No contrails, though.