Your New Telescope: What To Expect Your First Time. Part 2
by adminOK, Now you can look at the Moon!
OK, having gotten a quick glimpse you can take your telescope to the Moon! If you’ve chosen wisely, the Moon will only be half full, waxing or waning. The Full Moon looks like it might be a great target, but it lacks the shadow detail that a half-lit Moon gives you. Craters and ridges are much more defined when the light from the sun comes from the sun rather than straight-on! You can check out both situations to prove it to yourself!
Now, onto the planets!
So you’ve done some random gazing, and now you want to try something a little more interesting. You want to see some planets in your telescope!
Well first you need to see what planets are up at your time of the year. The Earth moves around the sun quickly compared to Jupiter & Saturn, and is pretty fast compared to Mars. Venus & Mercury are faster than the Earth of course, but are also inside our orbit so they tend to appear near the sun…which in Mercury’s case is so close good viewings are pretty rare. All of this means that you’ll need to check a yearly star atlas, or an online or home planetarium program to see when you get the best views. One great advantage to viewing the planets is that they are not affected by light pollution as much as fainter objects.
Saturn is probably one of the favorite things to view in the sky. With its gorgeous ring it is not hard to see why. With a larger scope, you should be able to make out the separation of the rings known as the Cassini Division. It will seem small in even a large telescope, but keep in mind it is almost 5,000 km wide.
Jupiter is probably the second most popular planet to view. In small telescopes it will have the hint of bands (they will appear as beigish-colored stripes). You should also see a number of the Galilean Moons (so-named because Galileo first discovered them and they are visible in even the smallest of telescopes). With larger telescopes you can get more hints of banding, or even see the famous Red Spot (or the more recently discovered impact spot!)
Mars may be closer, but it can be harder to view. About once every couple of years Mars reaches ‘opposition’ where it’s orbit and the Earth’s orbit put the two as close as they get. This is the best time for viewing, but it doesn’t happen often. As of this writing the next opposition will be in January of 2010. Mars is hard to get good detail on, but with high magnification and good viewing conditions it is possible to see details such as the Polar Ice Caps.
Venus when it is up is very easy to view. The only problem is that It has no features besides its phases (Venus goes through phases much like the Moon does). But it is fun to view.
Neptune, Uranus, much like Venus, these planets don’t have many features and generally appear just as a colored disk. They are not visible to the naked eye so half the fun in viewing them is finding them!
Onto The Deep Sky!
OK, odds are that you on your first night with your first telescope you are unlikely to start viewing the Deep Sky Objects, but never forget they are there! After the wow of the planets they the most impressive objects to view! There’s too many to describe, nebulea, galaxies, star clusters. Part of the amazement is realizing just how huge and far away these objects are. When you consider that the Andromeda Galaxy is an honest to goodness galaxy that is many many light years away from our little planet! After you get some viewing nights under your belt, be sure to take a stab at viewing some of these ‘faint fuzzies’, they are worth the effort!
Conclusion
The first night with a telescope can be the most magnificent, but it can also be the most frustrating. Be sure to familiarize yourself with your instrument as much as possible, and be realistic about your viewing options. Also, remember that a telescope is a tool that can last a lifetime, not a one-use toy. Care for your instrument, make certain it is not damaged when not in use…and for heaven’s sake don’t hang any clothes on it!
Clear Skies!
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[…] continued in Part 2 […]