New to astronomy

[10-7]

Hi all I am new to this hobby and know very little. I have a apertura 10" dob for a scope starting to learn the night sky. Haven't found any DSO yet but will keep trying. I live in mid Michigan in a class 5 bortle area. I am retired . Thanks in advance for any advice 

Ken

[AstroNebulee]

Welcome to SGL, clear skies 

[Mr Spock]

Hi, welcome to SGL

[Pryce]

My first visual DSO was Andromeda and its really easy to find!

Find Mirach(a redish star in the Andromeda/Pegasus constellation East/South East around midnight tonight) and go almost straight up from there. With a 25mm EP you'll see it real well!  Screenshot from stellarium of where you can find Mirach attached!

Clears skies! 

Edit: Oh and I completely forgot; Welcome to SGL! 😁

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Pryce

[Starwatcher2001]

Welcome aboard SGL and astronomy. Good to have you with us.

That's a nice sized Dob and with some practice and patience you'll be able to see a lot of the fine jewels that the universe has on offer.  Being undriven, you'll need to learn the art of star-hopping from one object to another, which is a fun skill on its own. That starts with getting a good book (or maybe an app) with the constellations on it and getting a feel for where the constellations are, how they move night to night, and where the bright starts are. That gives you a backdrop to to pin the locations of all the cool objects on.

Pryce has already given you a good one to go for, may I suggest M13 in Hercules is a good second one? That's a globular cluster (a ball of thousands of stars on the edge of our own galaxy) that looks like a snowball in smaller scopes, but will start to resolve into a beautiful collection of stars in your scope.

If you haven't already, make sure your finder scope is aligned with your main tube. You can do this during the day by finding a distant object (chimney pot or some such) in the main eyepiece, and adjusting the finder until it shows the exact same object. There's three screws on the finder for that purpose. The Dob will show the object upside down, which feels a bit weird at the start, but as long as the same part of the object is in the centre of both the tube and the finder, you're good to go. It's always worth having a slew around during the day to get a feel for how it moves, but I guess you've already done some of that.

Start with your lowest power eyepiece (biggest focal length number), when hunting objects, then when you've pinned them down you can move up the powers if you wish. At higher power the objects will drift across the eyepiece due to the Earths rotation pretty quickly, which means you'll follow them by nudging the scope. Again, a skill that becomes second nature.

Looking forward to hearing about how you get on.

All the best,

Mark

Edited September 8, 2020 by Starwatcher2001

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

Peter

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi Ken, welcome. 

[banjaxed]

Hi Ken, welcome to SGL.

[sloz1664]

Hi Ken and a very warm welcome to the Lounge. Invest in a fabulous book by the name of "Turn Left at Orion" It is written for observers finding their way around the heavens and very hands on.

Steve

[igorigs]

Welcome to SGL mate!

That’s a pretty decent scope. Clear skies!

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[Nigella Bryant]

Welcome to SGL, great scope to learn with. Lot's of expertise here so ask any questions you have.

[Xsubmariner]

Hi and welcome to SGL. You will find there is a steep learning curve when starting this hobby but it is well worth the perseverance. 

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you have lots of fun. 🙂

[10-7]

Thank you all for the wonderful welcome and all the advice. 

[toshapetriji]

Hi, welcome to SGL

[Pixies]

Hi Ken and welcome.

I second "Turn Left at Orion" as an excellent starter book.

Also, you have a right-angled finder, which makes it harder to know exactly where you are pointing to start with. I can recommend a non-magnifying finder, like a Telrad, to compliment you current finder. It means you can line everything up to the point you want to start at, then use the right-angled finder to star-hop to your destination.

Can I also suggest another good starter target - M57, the Ring Nebula. It's relatively easy to star-hop to:

 

[igorigs]

As Pixies says m57 is really amazing thing to observe and relatively easy to find. It was my first deep space object to find 😁

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Peter in Bedfordshire 🙂