Starting in astronomy monthly guide to stargazing for students By Mike Barrett Everyone at some time in their lives must have looked up at the stars in awe at the vastness of our home galaxy and the universe. This is the first step in your journey in the amazing world of astronomy. I am writing this series of articles as I found it very difficult to work out what equipment I needed and more importantly what I could realistically expect to see. Starting from scratch I will take you on a magical journey into Astronomy avoiding some of the common pitfalls and issues faced by newcomers to the science. When you look at all the images on the Internet and in magazines you see all these wonderful and colorful images of planets, stars, nebulas and galaxies and expect to be able to see these yourself. This is very unlikely to happen, but there a wealth of amazing things that you can achieve with just a little money and a lot of patience. Now your first instinct may be to scan the Internet or local adverts to buy a telescope. Stop right there! This is the first mistake people make. I will cover buying your first telescope in a later article, but for now lets look at other Astronomy options available costing little to nothing which will get you started in the right direction.
Terminology As with most things in life there is a whole dictionary of terminology and TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) to learn for astronomy. If you bear with me I will explain them as we come across them, and have a lookup table or panel with each article.
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Photos: NASA
Learning the Stellar Constellations Indeed there is a lot you can do in astronomy on your own with no financial outlay whatsoever. Simply going to your local library and borrowing a book will help you to gaze into the skies and start learning the constellations. The constellations date from way back over 4,000 year ago. Our ancient relations looked up in the night sky and visualized pattens by drawing lines between prominent stars and associating animals, mythical figures or common artefacts with them. Learning the constellations is a great grounding for your introduction into Astronomy. With this knowledge you can navigate both the celestial and terrestrial domains. More importantly it will provide the basic knowledge for finding the various wonders of the heavens above. With 88 constellations there are lots to learn. Don’t worry I only know a few but I am learning all the time. Learning to distinguish some of the major constellations will get you on your way and the others will fall into place over time.
join your Local Astronomy Society The next thing of value that you can do, and possibly the best possible advice that can be given to a newcomer, is to get in touch with your local Astronomy Society. If you can find an active society you
will find that there will be people of all different abilities, and interests, most of who will be happy to share their experiences with you. Societies hold regular observation evenings and open evenings when members and the general public have access to the various telescopes, binoculars and other equipment. This will allow you to both talk to someone who has experience and also to try some of the equipment out as well.
Naked Eye Observing There are a number of things that can be observed with the naked eye. The more you learn the more you can see. That of course is not strictly true, the more you learn the more you realize what you are seeing. First start with the brightest things in the sky, the Moon and Planets. There are 6 planets visible, one of which is visible at all times of the day. This is of course Earth, but during the night the other planets can be seen as the brightest ‘stars’ in the sky. The planet Uranus is just possible to see with the naked eye, but you have to be in a very dark location and have good sight so I have not counted it in the visible list. There are a number of easily observed ‘Deep Space Objects’ that can be seen with the naked eye, but become progressively more interesting with different types of equipment. Among these the two most obvious are Pleiades ( a stellar cluster) and the Great Nebula in Orion. To the naked eye these can easily be mistaken for clouds
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