The first thing most people ask me is how do you know the name of THAT star or THAT constellation? Or that point of light is a planet? With a little bit of work anyone can learn to find their way around the night sky – most of us can already recognize a few star patterns like the Big Dipper or the Belt of Orion.
But to really learn what’s where and where you can expect to find what you are looking for, you need to spend many nights under the stars just looking. And a good star atlas can’t hurt either.
Most amatuer astronomers collect star atlases like baseball cards or matchbox cards. I currently have three.
The big one, the one that stays on the desk, is the Sky Atlas 2000.0. This comes in various editions – laminated for the field, white on black or black on white, with or without bound pages, you get the picture. It’s the big book of stars and it’s a sight to behold.
The one that goes with me to star parties and comes out at night with me is Sky & Telescope’s Pocket Sky Atlas. This has just enough detail to keep more advanced users happy but simple enough to use for beginners. Plus it’s small and can fit in your backpack. It’s also perfect to take along on a trip in case you get a nice clear night and need to find your way.
Last but not least is Will Tirion’s Bright Star Atlas. It’s a nicely sized reference guide, halfway between the full blown Sky Atlas and the pocket sized Sky and Telescope version.
There are a lot of other books out there. I would also recommend a copy of Sky and Telescope or Astronomy for the current month to get yourself started. They will alert you to anything new – a comet, nova or meteor shower in the sky, and let you know what planets are up and where to find them.
Just a few things I couldn’t otherwise live without:
I have three Tele Vue eyepieces, the best by far is the 12.0mm Radian. The view out of this baby is like looking out the window of the Enterprise. It gives me 76X magnification, just enough to really show details on the Moon, color on Saturn and even the Equatorial Bands of Jupiter. It’s a lot to spend on an eyepiece but worth it. I’ve had mine for years and it never lets me down.
My telescope sits on an Orion EQ Deluxe, which they no longer sell. The current equivilant model is the Orion SkyView Pro Equatorial Mount. This guy is rock solid. The movements are as smooth as can be. EQ mounts can get very expensive, this is a good pick up for the money – you won’t do any better at this price point.
I own a Newtonian Reflector so collimation is a task of which I have become intimately familiar. If you don’t know what collimation is, I’ll be covering that soon. In the meantime, here’s a guide. I’ll just say that I couldn’t do it without my trusty Orion Collimating Eyepiece. Don’t stare down the eye piece barrel of your Newt without one!
Saturn is one of the easiest and most rewarding views for a small telescope.
A good pair of binoculars can show the rings. Moving up to a small telescope and you can see some cloud details, a moon or two and maybe even the elusive Cassini Division between the A and B rings.
The secret to viewing planets is having good seeing. Seeing is a losely defined term refering to the quality of the air between you, the viewer, and what you are looking at. It might be clear as a bell from where you stand but 60,000 feet above you there might be enough turbulance in the upper atmosphere to ruin a good night’s viewing.
The best way to deal with this is to stick with what you are viewing for at least a half hour. You’ll get enough breaks in that time for the skies above you to clear and the views to sharpen. So be patient. And enjoy the view.
