One year into

by Pentti Kanerva

A year ago Christmas my wife and son conspired to surprise me with a telescope, knowing my latent love of astronomy. Wasting no time, observing I go from our front lawn, not knowing how, except in theory. An equatorial mount is baffling when you first encounter it, but I did manage to find the Moon and even some stars, never mind where the polar-alignment axis was pointing! Studying the manual during the next few days made things much easier, and I was soon able to track Saturn with its rings and a few moons. I even learned the secrets of the setting circles and once pointed the scope straight at a globular cluster with them, and at our dining room window the other time. I have not used the setting circles since then.

Of course I wanted to see all the heavenly wonders I had heard of, exotic things such as the Crab, Horse-head, and Owl nebulas. Guess what: not there. I made triple sure I was pointing at all the right spots but they weren't there! Turns out, what you see from Menlo Park with a small telescope ain't exactly what you find on the Internet.

Besides the equipment one needs books and charts. I started out with Guy Ottewall's ASTRONOMICAL CALENDAR 2005, have used it throughout the year and now look forward to the 2006 edition. I often check the astronomy section in used-book stores and have made some finds, first among them Robin Scagell's STARGAZING WITH A TELESCOPE, which was invaluable in getting started--I'd say super--and the amazing 3-volume BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK with material to last a lifetime. To me the Handbook has extra charm by having been done with a typewriter. "Make do with what you got," to quote from a subject line in November's TAC postings.

I found star atlases on the WWWeb

http://www.sics.se/~aho/staratlas http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1052

and so far have managed with them, and with finder charts for asteroids and such, likewise from the Web.

I fumbled through the first few months, surfing the Web as much as the skies, and learned that we are supposed to inspect the work of certain Charles Messier, and so I started into that in late May. Virgo slipped by before I had spotted all the nebulas Messier had, trying to do them from down home. I have since learned that it will be much easier to go after them from up Monte Bello--it helps to be that much closer. I got there just in time to see the Mother off all Globulars in Centaurus.

To aid with Messier's list, I found a used ATLAS OF DEEP- SKY SPLENDORS by Hans Vehrenberg. Its 3-by-3-degree astrophotos are great although not always as easy to follow as black-on-white finder charts that exclude stars too faint for my scope. The Audubon Society's FIELD GUIDE TO THE NIGHT SKY is another beginner-level book I read and enjoyed, and I got Ottewall's THE ASTRONOMICAL COMPANION for the Big Picture. As for bargains, the top price goes to THE CAMBRIDGE ATLAS OF ASTRONOMY--really a 470-page large-format encyclopedia bought at a garage sale for $2.

Peter McKone told me about The Astronomy Connection, and I have roamed through this web site to web sites of all sorts for advice, object lists, events, weather, the postings, Richard Crisp's astro images, what have you. A wonderful resource! Peter also helped me with difficult objects at Monte Bello, I have stolen splendid views on other people's scopes up there, and have gotten useful pointers to asteroids from Bob Jardine. I should also mention a friend abroad, Anders Holst, who gave me my first view of the Great Orion Nebula on his 8-inch Dubsonian and pointed out the coathanger-in-the-sky one chilly October night in 1999 in the outskirts of Stockholm. What would life be without friends?

I am quite pleased with my telescope (Orion's 5-foot focal-length 5-inch diameter Maksutov-Kassegrain, f/12.1, 25mm Ploessl and 7-21mm zoom for 62-220x magnification, 40mm Ploessl bought later, 3x Barlow [does not see much use], 6x correct-image finder scope), can count on seeing down to magnitude 10 and tease out another point or so. The scope is fine for planets, asteroids, stars, and clusters and OK for many nebulas. Galaxies aren't much to look at but still fun to hunt down.

In my first year I have spied on all the planets except Pluto, ten of their moons, one comet, ten asteroids, 80 of Messier's 110 (including #1 which didn't use to be there), 20 additional objects from the NGC and IC lists, a number of double stars, and a few "special" stars such as the speeding Barnard's. That averages out to just over two per week (compare to 10 per hour for a Messier Marathon). I have also seen Ganymede disappear into Jupiter's shadow, Io's shadow on Jupiter, the Moon riding over Antares, and Venus turning into a sliver (was surprised to see the crescent shape even with 8x binoculars). Also got doused by the sprinkler system one night in June. I enjoy the hobby enormously, like to share the views with others, and expect to for many years to come.

See you when it is too dark to see you. Looking forward to a Happy New Year!

Posted on sf-bay-tac Dec 28, 2005 15:03:33 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 16, 2006 22:55:32 PT