Expert: Tom Whiting - 8/18/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hello i have purchaced a Konusmotor 90 Refractor Telescope and i am a begginer. I also have a program for the pc wich show deep sky objects and gives ther Ra and Dec of them but when i adjust my telescope so its facing this way it sometimes hits the mount. also the Dec setting circle goes from 1 to 9 in units when the co ords are in 10s has it just been shortend (for example 21 would be 2.1on my telescope)? I know how to polar align it but im getting stuck here. thank you.

ANSWER: FOLLOW UP:

It doesn't matter if you have a goto scope or not; You stated that you are a beginner in astronomy.  I know it will generate me a bad
rating, because it ain't what you want to hear, but you're going about it ALL the wrong way, by depending exclusively on the telescope's Right Ascension and Declination coordinates
(with those tiny little, nearly unreadable, dial numbers)
to find objects. Plus you are continuously night-blinding your
eyes with a bright light to read all those little numbers!
(Instead of learning the night sky yourself).  DON'T be lazy!

This method you are using will NOT work in the long run, therefore the same rules and advice that I gave you STILL apply. (even though right now you may not think so).

Would you rather memorize 6Hr 42 min 39 seconds of RA;
-15 degrees, 32 minutes 21 seconds of Declination? For just one object?.....or just learn the night sky yourself?
You'll find that the latter system (in the end) is easier, faster, more enjoyable, more workable, and you will not lose interest in the hobby like you will, memorizing all those coordinates for each and
every object, and then you still won't remember exactly where they
are at in the night sky if you don't know your constellations, so you'll have to look up (or memorize) all those coordinates
on each and every outing for each and every object! (And all this will be after 30-60 minutes of wasted time polar aligning, clock aligning, scope aligning, etc etc....a total waste of good observing time)! That's....insane!!

With my way (actually the normal way) you will eventually learn where
objects are at, relative to the stars and constellations, so like
the grocery store or post office, you'll learn their exact locations
in the night sky, just like you don't need a map now to get to the grocery store or post office, after you've been there 4 or 5 times.
That coordinate system is a total waste of time for us amateurs!  No one that I know in amateur astronomy ever does it that way!
(But what do I know? I've only been doing astronomical observing for over 50 years)! So you do it your way, and I'll do it mine, by memorizing their night sky locations relative to the stars and constellations, and star-hopping to the various objects.
FWIW,
Tom

FOLLOW UP:
Plus, you'll find once you've been doing this hobby a while, under dark sky conditions, about 1/4 of all Messier objects, ARE
NAKED EYE fuzzies, and easily seen in a 6 x 30 (or 5 x 20) finderscope!
Things like M-31, Orion Neb M-42, Lagoon Neb M8, the Swan (M-17), M-24, M-34, the Pleiades (M-45), the Beehive ( M-44), M's 6, 11, 13, 17, 35, 41, 46...  along with the double open in Perseus, Collinder 399...even NGC 752 in Andromeda and NGC 4756 in Serpens, NGC 457 in Cassiopeia...are ALL naked eye fuzzy objects easily visible in your finderscope. So why "dial in coordinates" for those objects when you can easily see them in your finderscope?  If...you know, and have learned, where they are relative to the stars and constellations.
So why do very time consuming coordinates, when you can actually see those objects with either naked eye and/or a small finderscope?  Eh?
Once you know where they are at. And the same method is true for all the other deep sky objects too; you simply star-hop to them.
tw

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your time helping me out with i guess i am just being lazy. I was wondering, to learn the constelations and the where abouts of deep sky objects is ther a pc program with star charts on or do i need to purchace a star chart from amazon for example. thank you

Answer
Hi Jake,At the cost of another bad rating, I'll tell you what to do....Yes, you want to purchase a fairly good star chart (Norton's Star Atlas, or Cambridge 2000.0 Star Atlas for about twenty bucks)  and forget the computer, the college classes in astronomy, the Planetariums...these are all good incentives-- but NONE of them give you what you need right now. (Current star atlases are good until 2050, so that's about 50 cents per year, cost-averaging it).Take your star chart out at night and self-teach yourself the constellations using a red flashlight. Learn to correspond (or correlate) the diagram on the chart with the actual star patterns in the night sky...we all had to do it...that's the only way TO do it.  Don't use computers (other than a current sky print out for use outside at night if you wish) or any other fancy stuff.  IN fact, get away from the computer and all that other fancy stuff! Don't take a computer outside at night because it's night blinding...you want to stay in total darkness, or as dark a sky as you can find...it takes 30 minutes for the eye to fully dark-adapt and one white light ruins it, and you have to start night-adapting all over again. It's not as hard as it sounds, if you can learn and memorize 4 adjoining states on a map, like PA, OHIO, INDIANA, and ILLINOIS, then you can also learn and memorize Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, and Sagittarius across the southern sky....4 adjoining area's of the sky. It ain't rocket science, but it does take a little....self-motivation and desire to want to learn them. (Also, find others...a club...it's easier working together than alone, or a couple of neighbors or friends that may want to do the same activity). That's not necessary, but it makes it more fun and interesting if you use a group project.  OR, maybe for you it would be easier and simpler to start with the northern sky, the Big Dipper (with the rest of Ursa Major, the Little Dipper, Cassiopeia (the Big "W") Cepheus (the upside-down dog house) and later Perseus rising underneath Cassiopeia.  (Yes, that bright naked-eye fuzzy between Cass and Perseus is the famous double open star cluster (NGC 884 and 869), and radiant point for the Perseid meteor shower of August 11/12th.[You've probably already seen it naked eye, and didn't recognize it.]The Perseids still continue through the end of August, but at very reduced rates, like a couple of meteors per hour.Most (even fairly new) amateur astronomers at star parties can get on things like the Ring Nebula (M-57) in Lyra in about 10 seconds! How? They simply point their scope exactly halfway between two bright stars, namely Beta and Gamma Lyrae, two stars out on the end of an obvious parallelogram (which is what Lyra looks like)....takes about 10 seconds to get a scope on it.  The Hercules Cluster, M-13 It sits on the Hercules Keystone about 1/3 the way, on the western side, from the northernmost to the southernmost star....takes the average amateur about 20 seconds to locate it that way. Once you are in the area, it's an easy object in your finderscope, wedged between two 6th magnitude stars. In fact, it's an easy binocular object. Then go to the bright red giant star Antares in Scorpius, and then offset the scope only one degree to the west, (lower right) and Bingo! you're right on globular cluster M-4...takes 5-10 seconds to locate. I've just put you on 3 objects in less than 3 minutes that are super-easy to find and star-hop to, once you learn where Lyra, Hercules, and Scorpius are.     It's that simple.  And isn't that the name of the game? The bottom line? Getting on your objects as efficiently and quickly as possible? Guests at yourscope would get awfully bored while you do polar alignment, calibrations, look up the coordinates of the objects, set the scope on those numbers, pray they happen to hit exactly right, etc...You take 30 minutes to do all that, and your guests have long departed and found something more interesting to do...but you do it our way (described above), and you've just hit on 3 easy deep sky objects in 3 minutes!  Quite a difference. So don't do all that fancy alignment business; just set your scope on the driveway, and start pointing it to those locations, and you'll be on your way, and your guests at the scope won't get bored stiff...they'll be happy campers and VERY impressed at your knowledge of the night sky.AND all the other deep sky objects are nearly just as easy, once you know your night sky;  simply by offsetting a certain amount (that's what you want to memorize, the correct offset from a certain naked-eye star) from a naked-eye star.  You're making something simple...way too complicated. IN fact, it's only the guys that do photography that really have to go thru all that polar aligning and calibration stuff, because they have to, to track exactly on the night sky. (That's why photography is considered advanced amateur astronomy).  Oh, another easy naked eye one is the Lagoon Nebula (M-8)...it's that naked eye dim fuzzy spot about 2 degrees above the Sagittarius teapot spout star, Gamma Sagittarii, nearly due south now. In fact there are a lot of fuzzy spots embedded in the Milky Way down in Sagittarius, and most of them are deep sky Messier objects; Sagittarius contains 15 Messier objects, and most are very easy, almost naked eye objects...all are easy binocular objects, except M-20 the Trifid Nebula..it's rather difficult, even for a 3 inch scope. But us visual observers don't have to bother with all that alignment stuff.  Of course, if you're not polar aligned, you'll have to use 2 motions to follow an object, but SO What? You're only viewing it, not photographing it, so don't be lazy. Move the scope...manually!  Do the two motions, up-down, left-right, and enjoy the view.BTW, in our hobby, since the average person knows nearly nothing about the night sky, you work hard for the next 3-6 months learning your constellations and stuff, and suddenly...YOU'RE the neighborhood EXPERT!  In only 6 months of learning!  Because the rest of the public knows almost nothing about the sky!  You'll soon be the one they come to for information and advice, like Hey Jake, what's that bright star in the west at sunset?  It's not a star, it's the planet Venus, or what's that bright object in the SW? That's the planet Jupiter. And of course, they NEVER ask about a dim object, they always wantto know about a BRIGHT object!  They'll actually come to you for advice, after only 3-6 months.  What other science can claim, or could you do that? None I know of, except observational astronomy. On cloudy nights? Get into the textbooks on astronomy.(Raid the public Library for books on the subject).  Why? Because guests at your telescope will ask...How big is that planet and how far away? YOU'll get tired of saying, I don't know, but I'll find out. It's just so much simpler to get up on the subject, so when a guest asks you, you can automatically say for Jupiter, 88,000 miles in diameter, and its 484 million miles from the sun. That's where and why the textbook reading comes into play...one get's tired of saying,I don't know. So make good use of those cloudy nights studying the subject either on the internet, or out of textbooks. (I use the English system as opposed to the metric, because most of your guests at the scope can relate more to the English system of measurements).That's how it's done...so, good luck. If you're really interested and serious, you'll be zooming to all the prominent DSO's within 3 months, without all that alignment business. And then you'll be on the right track, and really enjoying the great hobby.Hope this helps,Clear Skies,Tom WhitingErie, PAPS...OH, and don't forget to join a local astronomy club, or if none is near you, then why not...start one? That's what I had to do and we now have nearly 50 members in Erie.  And don't forget about bright double/multiple stars too, start learning and memorizing some of those too. why? Because they are pretty too, but a more important reason, some night will be slightly hazy or moonlit (we all HATE the moon)! so most of the Deep Sky objects will be invisible, so you initiate Plan B...bright double and multiple stars for your guests, like Albireo, Alcor and Mizar in the Big Dipper, Beta Lyrae (up near the ring nebula) is a quadruple star, as is Epsilon Lyrae. In fact, every star in Lyra is a double or multiple, except one, Gamma Lyrae. Yes, even Vega has a faint companion. Polaris is a double too, but it's faint companion might be tough for a 3 inch glass...other fine ones are Theta Serpens, Gamma Delphini in the Dolphin, Gamma Aretis in Ares, Beta Scorpii, Alpha Capricorni is a quadruple, Beta Capricorni is a nice poor mans Albireo (yellow and blue), as is Delta Cephei, etc. etc. Also learn some very red carbon stars, TX Piscium, T Lyrae(up near Vega), S Cephei, and V Aquilae...those are crowd pleasers too, and all quite easy objects for a 3 inch glass, if they are plotted in your star atlas. If not, you need to upgrade your star atlas.