Looking to get into astronomy

Dave!

Hey folks,

I was just flicking through the Argos catalog last night and I decided that I'd like to have a go at astronomy! Not on any serious level or anything like that, but I'd like to be able to whip out a telescope, look at the stars, be able to see them, and know what I'm looking at.

Questions...

-Has anyone got any tips for this?
-Is it difficult to learn basic astronomy?
-Would I actually be able to see planets or constellations from my back garden in this country, what with the clouds and crap?!
-Has anyone got recommendations for books that would tell me step by step how to identify what I'm looking at, or find what I want to look at?

Re: telescopes,

would any of the telescopes in the Argos catalogue be sufficient for what I want to do?

They are:
National Geographic 76mm Newtonian telescope
Celestron Powerseeker 660 refractor telescope
Celestron Powerseeker 675 reflector telescope (out of my price range :oops: )

I know they're probably terrible compared to your telescopes, but like I said, I don't wanna get into it too seriously so I don't want to spend over say €150. Maybe in the future when I'm working, I'll spend a bit more, but as it is I'm not exactly loaded (college student )!

Thanks for any help

dbran

Hi

First thing you should do is to learn the sky and constellations. Any of the astronomy magazines on the news stand will have a section about what to see in the sky at the moment. Have a read of it and see what you can find. For a lot of people this is all that they need. But if you feel further inclined you could join your local astronomy club and find out more.

The main thing is not to rush out straight away and get a cheap telescope but rather to invest in a set of binoculors as quite a lot of stuff can be seen inthe sky by these. They are relatively cheap and can be used for other things as well as astronomy.

Telescopes can be quite expensive and you will generally find that a low powered cheap one such as the ones sold in argus does not offer you that much more then a set of binoculors to see but wil cost you much more.

Hope this helps

Flukey

To start astronomy, the first step is very simple: Go outside and look up. Now you have started astronomy. Yes, it is as simple as that. That is how we all began. We have cloudy nights yes, but plenty of clear ones. With the good old naked eye you can see constellations and up to 5 of the planets. Mercury is hard to see because it is near the sun, but Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all easy enough, if you know where to look. You have probably seen them all, and just thought they were stars, as many people do. Venus is visible for a short period after sunset at present. Mars is currently very prominent in the night sky for most of the night. It is high up and slightly red looking. Saturn too is not hard to find, if you know where to look. If you are up before about 7am at present, on a clear morning you can see Jupiter, very prominent in the southern sky.

So start with the naked eye and get to know what you are looking at. Even if you can't identify much, just looking is good in itself. Have a look at some of the websites on Astronomy. There are loads. The one nearly everyone here recommends to newbies is www.heavens-above.com which will show you what you can see at the current time from your location. All you have to do is register, which is free. It and the others will give you and idea of what it is you are seeing. The International Space Station (ISS) is visible passing over Ireland these nights. On Heavens Above, it will tell you where and when to see, with very accurate times. It only takes a few minutes to pass over, and only at certain and varying times, but it is well worth seeing. It just looks like a bright moving star.

After a while get yourself a good star atlas, preferably one small enough to carry around outside with you. If you have any book tokens from Christmas, put them towards one. That will easily identify all the constellations, and their stars, that you can see at any given time of year. The planets move over time, as you will notice, in relation to the stars, but the constellations that you can see will look the same in your lifetime. So the books can give you good details on the constellations and a little on the locations of the planets. While their positions change, making them impossible to show in the books, they will always be along what we call the Ecliptic: an imaginary line through the sky. That will be in your book. It passes through the constellations that we all know as the signs of the zodiac from horoscopes you see printed in the papers.

Your next investment should be in a good pair of binoculars. A pair of 10 x 50s are a good start. With them you'll see even more stars and with the knowledge you've gained by then you'll know what is good to look at and also discover a few gems as you scan the skies.

Leave the idea of buying a telescope for a while after that. The binoculars will do fine. When you do decide to get a telescope: do some research. A lot of those cheap ones are just that, so they are not much good and some won't do much, if any, better than a good pair of binoculars. For a good telescope, you'll have to pay a bit more. So if you like what you see with the naked eye, start putting a few euros away and saving, for the binoculars, if you don't already have a good pair, and then later for the telescope.

Finally, just to give you a start, have a look at this page of mine which will give you an idea of what you can see now. If you have Internet Explorer it will also let you identify individual stars and planets by putting your cursor over them. Both Saturn and Mars are in it. There is also a photo I took of the moon and by putting your cursor over different parts, it will identify them for you. The main constellation in the sky at present, if you look south, is the finest constellation of them all: Orion. It features on the right side of my diagram in the page:

http://homepage.eircom.net/~flukey/NightSky.htm

It's a great and fascinating hobby and, as I said, all you need to do to start is go outside and look up! You won't regret it. Keep dropping in here and we'll keep you up to date on what to see, and you can tell us how you are getting on.

Flukey

Sunday night, January 8th - The Moon is just above Mars right now, about as close as they can get without the Moon outshining or covering it. The Moon will be moving further eastwards in the coming nights. It will be close to the Pleiades star cluster on Tuesday night and will be near Saturn on Sunday night next, the 15th. It is going to be a cloudy week, but you may get lucky. If it is still Sunday when you see this, go out and have a look and you will see the Moon and Mars. It is amazing to see them that close. It can be done with the naked eye too.

Dave!

Thanks for the help everybody!

I got 3 books today -- the first 2 from the library and bought the 3rd one:

Beginner's guide to astronomy by Patrick Moore
The rought guide to the universe by John Scalzi
Practical astronomy by Storm Dunlop

Anyone familiar with these books? I'll probably start reading the second one at some point today, to help me understand everything before I start looking at it.

Flukey, I found out about Mars and the moon being close from another message board which I just registered on -- you're probably on it if you're into astronomy: http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards/index.php

So I went out last night and had a look, and I saw it I thought it had a red tint, but then I looked through (crappy) binoculars and it seemed not to, so I'm not sure. It was the only bright star near the moon as far as I could see, so I'm pretty sure that was it.

I'm pretty chuffed about seeing it too

Thanks again, and keep the advice coming

dbran

Dont forget to look out for Saturn the other gas giant on view tonight.It is currently below the beehive cluster (M44), a nice open cluster easily seen in binoculors.

You should have picked Astronomy as an elective in the 1st semester!

Dave!

dbran wrote:

Dont forget to look out for Saturn the other gas giant on view tonight.It is currently below the beehive cluster (M44), a nice open cluster easily seen in binoculors.

I don't suppose you'd be able to walk me through the steps to be able to see it, would you? I have (a) my eyes, (b) some crappy binoculars, (c) a sky map, which I don't understand how to read, and (d) a compass which seems to be crappy too.

Like do I go outside, look in a certain direction, and there it is? Or maybe in relation to the moon, would I look NSE or W of it?

I know you said it's below the beehive cluser, but I don't know how to find that either! :eek:

Thanks

Deleted User wrote:

You should have picked Astronomy as an elective in the 1st semester!

Tell me about it! I've only picked up this interest in the past week or so, though

Seanie M

DaveG, you're hardly Daveo on irishastronomy.org??

Dave!

Seanie Morris, how could you tell? ¬_¬

Seanie M

*eye dart from side to side....*

Flukey

I pop in there, occasionally. Not often enough. I visit a lot of internet discussion boards. Too many boards, not enough time.

Dave, my site above with the map of the skies, still holds true for Saturn. It will be close to the Moon on Sunday, if you are not sure. Another giveaway is that stars twinkle a lot whereas the planets are steadier. It is not very bright, but certainly bright enough to be seen. Aim binoculars at it, and you'll see it looks like a disk.

slade_x

Im not sure on what was said already but since i didnt read all the responses, here it goes;

It really all depends on what you want to see, if you go out side and look up, thats not all the stars that are visible in your hemisphere using even a low powered telescope you will pick up ones that you normally wouldnt see, and some clusters that you cant naturally focus on.
Are you interested in Planetary Observations, Celestial Objects (Nebulae, galaxies, etc.), The odd look at the moon, or all?

Without going in depth into what makes a good telescope
Its a very general rule of thumb that the usable magnification you will be able to use on your telescope will be twice the reflectors/Refractors diameter
So say you want a 60mm = 120x times of usable magnification (however this is not true to all, but it is a general *ball park*)

Refractors are typically used for high resolution Observations of, the moon, terrestial objects(scenery) and all depending on how much you are willing to pay (and i do mean pay €€€...) for a quality refractor you can add galaxies, nebulae, etc. to the list also, however Note *Quality*

Reflectors are cheaper than refractors in terms of their Objective lens size as instead of using an "expensive lens" they use mirrors to relay the image onto a focal point, they can do all a refractor can do but at a cheaper cost, the amateur/Professional astronomer/astrophotographer will usually opt for a reflector type (i know i would) as they will get a lot more, and i mean a LOT more i will say "range" for their money. but dont construde what i am saying as the reflector is of cheaper build to give people with a low budget a better option, in fact they can be far more powerful than a refractor, because refractors are much much more expensive to produce the bigger you go, for example a good 80mm refractor may cost you €250-300 maybe (idealy 160 times magnification) now for €150-200 you could have a 114mm Reflector (idealy 228 times magnification) and the image quality would be almost identical to a relevant observer

Note: using different eyepieces naturally will change the total magnification

To determine the actual magnification you use is very simple, Just divide the Focal length of the telescope by the focal length of the eyepiece you want to use.

as an example i took the liberty of looking through the argos catalogue and so i will use the Celestron Powerseeker 660 as an example

Celestron Powerseeker 660 (60mm diameter)
Maximum magnification 660x
800mm focal length
Supplied lenses:
Eyepiece 20mm
Eyepiece 12mm
Eyepiece 4mm
3.3 x Barlow lens

Right, thats almost a max usable mag of 120x (ball park)

Now lets look at the eyepieces, paired with the telescope these are the magnifications; (800mm Focal length)
20mm = 40x
12mm = 66x
4mm = 200x (dont know why they would bother including this as it will severly overpower a 60mm refractor)

Now paired with the barlow lens the manifications are as follows:
With the 20mm and barlow = 132x, (you would be very luck to focus properly)
With the 12mm and barlow = 217x (Severly overpowered)
With the 20mm and barlow = 660x (You have to be joking me)

So they may as well have not bothered to include the barlow lens.

Hopefully you can see where i am going with this and hopefully if my explanation is worth anything to you you can apply the above principals to whatever telescope you may be interested in.

What to get with what Magnification isnt something i would expect you to know anyway so here


From what i can remember this was taken with a 12mm and a Barlow 3x on an ETX70AT (the resulting mag would be 88x approx)
And if you dont already know thats what saturn actually looks like at low magnification

Here is a product of 7 sequential shots of saturn, which was run through an imaging program to extrapolate a better Image/details

Note however that the original shots of this were taken with Meade's LX range of telescope, which sadly is not even near your budget

This info may also help you too:
Planet diameters
Mercury 4878 km
Venus 12102 km
Earth 12756 km
Mars 6792 km
Jupiter 142982 km
Saturn 120534 km
Uranus 51116 km
Neptune 49526 km
Pluto 2300 km

As you can see saturn and jupiter are pretty big, im sure you have a rough idea of the order of the planets and how far away they are relative to an observer standing on earth, so hopefully this will help you magification wise in the respect of what you will be able to realistically see with your potential purchase

Finally im sure it may have already been mentioned above that some of the brightest objects in the sky are not always stars, but satellite's and more importantly planets.. (Jupiter is actually part of the constellation Libra, Saturn is part of the constellation Cancer and so on...)

Saturn and mars can be seen in our current night sky and if you want to wait for maybe 4-5am you will see jupiter rising in the SouthEast, however the summer may be a better time for most as you can view it at non obsurd times

Good Luck

Flukey

These are all approxmate mean figures, but about right:

Mercury is about 35,985,274 miles from the Sun. It takes about 58.65 of our days to do a full rotation and 0.24of our years to orbit the Sun.
Venus is about 67,235,480 miles from the Sun. It takes about 243.01 of our days to do a full rotation and 0.61 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Earth is about 92,961,440 miles from the Sun. It takes about 1 of our days to do a full rotation and 1 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Mars is about 141,641,916 miles from the Sun. It takes about 1.02 of our days to do a full rotation and 1.88 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Jupiter is about 483,654,262 miles from the Sun. It takes about 0.41 of our days to do a full rotation and 11.86 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Saturn is about 886,725,372 miles from the Sun. It takes about 0.42 of our days to do a full rotation and 29.46 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Uranus is about 1,784,033,186 miles from the Sun. It takes about 0.74 of our days to do a full rotation and 84.01 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Neptune is about 2,794,479,298 miles from the Sun. It takes about 0.8 of our days to do a full rotation and 164.79 of our years to orbit the Sun.
Pluto is about 3,674,661,328 miles from the Sun. It takes about 6.38 of our days to do a full rotation and 248.54 of our years to orbit the Sun.

Flukey

I had my telescope out earlier. It was a lovely clear night, but cold, as is the case with such nights at this time of the year.

I got nice views of Mars and seeing Saturn and its rings is always a thrill, and it was tonight. I scanned around at a few other things too. There should be a few more clear nights this week, though midweek may not be great, though the weekend could be good. So get your eyes, binoculars and telescopes, looking up.