How dim am I ?

[vlebo]

I have had my equipment for about a year now but have not really been able to use it as much as I would have liked, (work , kids ,general fatigue etc ) so consequently my interest has been going through some peaks and troughs lately. Had my niece round the other night so I got my 300 Flextube out and showed her Jupiter and the Andromeda Galaxy for the first time and she was very excited , this reignited my interest in stargazing but also reminded me of how difficult and slow the process of locating objects by starhopping in the London area can be.

Looked into possibly getting an Astro-Fix Locator to make my life easier so called Steve at FLO to see what he thought of them.

After a brief conversation he suggested why not get a compass and a Wixey (of which I have both but have never used , der!!) and with the help of Stellarium find things a lot quicker.

So now , armed with compass and Wixey , I am looking forward with more than a little excitement to getting out there and doing what I have been trying to do for the last year.

I got carried away by trying to complicate things while the simple answer was staring me in the face, it just took someone with a bit more common sense than me to point it out.

Clear skies to all of you.

Vlebo

[Belfastman1958]

Hi....I'm new to astronomy also.

Never heard of a Wixey before......what is it?

Alan.

[Doc]

Hi Alan I use a wixey, it's a digital angle guage. Sits on top of your scope and measures the angle your scope points at, this equates to the altitude reading of the object you are observing.

Misc’ - Wixey digital angle gauge