Spectrum Scientifics Blog

So you read our telescope buyer’s guide, you did even more online research, you chose a telescope, you took it home, you went managed to put it together, you aligned the finderscope, heck you may have even taken the time to collimate it if you got a reflector! Now the skies are clear tonight and its time to take that telescope out and give it your first viewing!

So what do you need to do?

First of all, if you have a telescope with an EQ (equatorial) mount, give yourself plenty of time the first time you set it up. With a Dobsonian or an altazimuth telescope you can just bring the thing out and drop it anywhere and you are good to go. But to get the advantages of a tracking EQ mount, you really need to take the time to set it up properly. The first time you do this can be tricky, so you might want to do a couple of ‘dry runs’ during the daytime to get some practice in. Fumbling around in the dark not knowing which knob loosens which direction is not the way to enjoy your telescope.

Prepare yourself, and start easy

So now your scope is set up, are you immediately ready to start viewing? Maybe not. If it is cold outside you might want to give your telescope some time to cool down. The warm air in the telescope tube can mess up your viewing a bit, so give it some time. Don’t run inside and watch TV, though, take this time to sit outside and let your eyes adapt to the dark. Even in the middle of the city, your eyes can adapt quite a bit after you’ve been outside for a bit - this assumes you aren’t starting at a street light, however. When your eyes start to adapt and the telescope cools, try to spot the constellations or at least some bright stars. This will give you an idea of what is up that night.

What to view first?

You might be tempted to point your telescope at the Moon right away, and I can’t blame you. It will make for impressive viewing of the great Lunar detail you get from even a low-end telescope! But remember there is more in the sky than just the Moon. Consider aiming at a star with a low-power eyepiece. Bring it into focus and….

It’s full of stars!!!

If you’ve allowed your eyes some time to adapt the first thing you will notice in the eyepiece is that there are a lot more stars than you saw with the naked eye! Your telescope doesn’t view a very large
part of the sky, but in your eyepiece you should see dozens more stars than you did with the naked eye. Here the light gathering power (i.e. its Aperture) of the telescope really works to bring this view, almost unviewable to the naked eye except in very dark skies, to you. This should impress anyone, but soon you will to look at something a bit more specific…

continued in Part 2

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Filed under: Astronomy, International Year of Astronomy, Urban Astronomy