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The AstroLair Guide To Amateur Astronomy
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The Pleides |
Photographed with a 80mm f5 telescope, mounted "piggyback" on a Celestron CG-11 telescope
INTRODUCTION
So..... assuming that you have an interest in astronomy, be it early and casual or lifelong and obsessive, one of the following profiles probably applies to you:
You have just gained access to your very first telescope. You are wondering what the heck to point it at that won’t get you thrown in jail. Perhaps you received it as a gift. Or maybe you made an impulse purchase. Either way, it is staring at you in your family room, begging to be taken outside and enjoyed under the stars. Being the astute person you are, you realize that it will take a web page like this to get you started on the right track. Life is good. You’ve taken step #1 towards getting the most out of your telescope.
You’ve discovered another use, beyond an occasional football game, for the binoculars that collect dust in your closet. You have done the unthinkable, and allowed them to wander at night above a horizontal plane. "Look at all those stars!" you gasp (or at least silently wonder to yourself). This sight, and the realization that there is a bunch of stuff up there that might be worth looking at, has sparked an interest in learning more. Rest assured you have come to the right part of the galaxy for help in sorting it all out. Think about it: stumbling onto this page in your time of wonderment is like hitting a cosmic hole-in-one.
You are a young person whose interest in astronomy has been sparked by a teacher, parent, TV show, or something you stumbled into on the net. You had never given much thought to what is "up there" in the night sky. For you, the darkness of night had been a curse.... a time when all the really fun stuff, like a sand lot baseball game, or a winter day skating endlessly on a pond, were signaled to an end by the setting sun. But someone or something inspired you to look up into the night sky, and wonder. And now that your mind has started on what will be an endless journey in search of an understanding of everything cosmic, you are wondering how to take the first real step out into the night. "Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are" has all of a sudden become much more than a child’s lullaby. It is now a burning question for which you yearn an answer. If finding this page is your first step, rest assured you are on the right path.
You are a not-so-young person whose interest in astronomy has been sparked. Darkness at night has taken on a new significance; it’s no longer just the spoiler that keeps you from getting in a full round of golf at the end of a long summer day. Perhaps you’ve seen some glorious photographs taken by the Hubble telescope and have been inspired to say "What an amazing universe we live in" rather than "I can’t believe they’re spending my tax dollars on that when I’ve got potholes at the end of my street". Very early in your fresh discovery of the Universe, you wonder to yourself "how could I have not realized all this was here when I was a young person". Well, don’t fret. You may have lost some years that could have been spent learning about and enjoying the Universe, but this site will get you caught up in a hurry.
You were interested in astronomy before, probably as a young person, and are now rediscovering it as a not-so-young person. Beyond the mysteries of the universe, you ponder the greatest mystery of all: "Why couldn’t I have had all this disposable income when I was a kid?" On your first go round in your youth, you felt you knew the basics. Maybe you had a Tasco 60mm refractor when you were young. You mostly enjoyed looking at the Moon and planets. You’ll never forget the first time you saw Saturn in that scope. You’ll also never forget that little eyepiece with the tiny little hole. After the initial thrills, however, the whole experienced just never seemed to meet your expectations. Try as you might, you just couldn’t see very much when that fuzzy view of the moon was flying by at 650X. You also realize that you didn’t have a mentor back then to help you along. You were out in the Universe alone. You did the best you could, but you just couldn’t figure it all out. Mom and Dad didn’t have a clue, but they did have their most sincere "That’s nice, dear" reserved for trips out to your telescope on chilly, dew laden nights. Maybe you even asked your science teacher at school, only to be told "Son, my specialty is really biology. If you’ve got questions about using a microscope, I’d be glad to help". Left to your own devices, you searched for galaxies and star clusters, but you weren’t quite sure what they were supposed to look like. Even if you found them, you might not realize it. Sure, you could find the Orion nebula in a crisp winter sky, and that alone was worth the price of the telescope. But what else was there? You were at a loss, and eventually you ran out of steam. You probably also turned 16 and discovered the opposite sex. But now here you are, with renewed vigor and interest many years later (in astronomy, not the opposite sex). Maybe you went out on a nostalgia kick and bought another one of those department store refractors before browsing through this page. Or better yet, maybe you are doing a little research before you make a purchase. Even if you already bought the department store scope for the second time around, I’ll help you make the best of it. If you don’t yet have a scope in hand, I’ll try and save you before you give the expiration date of that VISA card over the phone. This time, you won’t be out there alone. The night sky is your long lost Friend, and this page will help you rediscover it.
And finally, there is the experienced amateur. The person who knows just enough to be dangerous! You may not have seen every NGC object, but you sure as heck can find any one of them if you want to bag it bad enough. Perhaps you’ve owned more than a half dozen scopes over your observing life. You’ve discovered that a Black Hole must be tugging at your wallet when it comes to fueling your hobby. You drive miles and miles in search of dark, transparent, diamond studded nights. You may even image what you see, either on film or a computer screen. Many of you have an insatiable lust for reading about any astronomical topic (probably the reason you've made it close to the end of this page). I don’t know your individual level of knowledge, so I make no guarantee on how much "new news" you’ll pick up on this page. Amateur astronomy may be awe inspiring and intellectually challenging, but it is also just plain fun, and this site is meant to compliment that aspect of the hobby. For you, this site may simply be a fresh, new way of looking at stuff you already know.
Does one of the six profiles sound familiar to you? If you can identify with at least one of them, then you’ve come to the right place. On my site and links, I’ll attempt to get you started (or restarted) in amateur astronomy. You’ll learn about the various areas of interest within amateur astronomy, and I’ll give you enough information to put you on the road towards developing a respectable proficiency at whichever specialty you choose. Trust me, there are a lot of them! You don’t need to learn about them all, either. You can pick and choose the areas that interest you. A good amateur astronomer would never put pressure on you to learn it all; a good amateur knows that there is so much out there, you couldn’t hope to know everything about everything.
One of the most important things I will attempt to do on this site is manage your expectations. Perhaps more than any other hobby, astronomy carries with it many misconceptions among new, novice practitioners. Often, the expectations are totally unrealistic, so much so that they are dashed at the very first trip to the eyepiece. And that’s a shame, because the Universe holds so many marvels for the person who doesn’t expect too much up front. The discovery and appreciation for the subtle views of the majority of objects in the night sky comes over time. The longer you observe and stay in the hobby, the greater the rewards.
So let me end this individual page by once again saying welcome! Going forward, I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
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