Galaxys and nebulas to target for a beginner astronomer?

Look to the Messier objects for your next challenge! You found one. M31, "The Great Nebula In Andromeda" which as it turns out is another galaxy.

google.com/sky/ He would have gone to pieces over your scope. M41 is going to be your next target I bet. It's winter, You get a great view of Orion early enough to get a good look.

Aim your scope at the second "star" down from the belt in the sword. Wow right? That's a star nursery you are looking at!

Little baby stars being born. Space is cool! Happy hunting.

http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/messier….

Yes, the Messier list are a great place to start for looking at deep sky objects. A couple of good resources to tap into are - davidpaulgreen.com/tumol.html Which is a free logging and finder program. The other, which provides a vast richness of information is this book - amazon.com/Year-Round-Messier… The key phrase is "Marathon".

In March and April, you can observe nearly all 110 objects within one evenings viewing. The trick is prior planning, dark skies and knowing how to find stuff. Knowing how to find stuff, you can use a technique called "star hopping".

This is were you use a bright star to act as a marker for you to start with, that is near your object. From there you work your way down to were the object is by matching what you see in the eyepiece to a chart that matches your view. cvas.cvas-north.com/documents/Sta… amazon.com/Star-Hopping-Your-… What helps in this endeavor is a cool little device called a "Telrad" - backyard-astro.com/equipment/… To help you find stuff, you do need a chart.

Either with software or a book. Software can give you the ability to match up to what your your telescope and eyepiece are able to provide (field of view and magnitude) and give you a hard copy of how to find it and what the region near the object should look like. There are a wide variety software programs out there (free and less free).

But for freeware - ap-i.net/skychart/index.php Is really pretty good. For books, a really nice handy guide to have is this one - http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Telescopes-Poc… For dark skies, that might be a problem, depending on where you live. In urban areas, you need to be as far away from the light bubble as possible and have that bubble at your back or at least away from whatever it is that you are trying to find.

If you live in North America, this is one of the best resources to find not only dark skies, but weather information - http://www.cleardarksky.com/csk/coverage… The other item is to see if there is an astronomy club in your area. A decent club can help you with the learning curve that comes with the hobby and may provide resources for dark sky observing.

Besides the sources mentioned above, and on line sources for Messier lists, there are important factors you must do to be successful: Clear dark sky with calm air, no heat waves from roof or pavement Dark adaptation by using a flitered DIM red flashlight or LED illuminator. Twenty minutes or more are needed to see faint things. Averted vision to pick up faint fuzzies.

Looking straight at one will use only the daylight cones for color at your fovea, the sharp center of your retina. The low light rods for B&W are around the edge. Look to the side of where you find galaxies.

You will see better. Use low power wide field eye lenses. These pass a brighter view, and let you see more sky at once.

Use higher power to increase contrast and pick out details. Do star hopping from known star patterns in bright constellations. Learn how to move the Dobsonian mount to go from an easy object to a faint one.

Get an equatorial platform to put under the Dobsonian. This will track stars as the earth rotates. It gives about an hour of motion between resetting.

You will see more details if you don't have to bump the scope along frequently. You can make your own platform from plans on line, or buy a kit, or buy a complete one. Get a good sized one, as you will be putting a big scope on it someday.

Observe with someone with experience in a club. That will show you where and what and how things look.

Fifty-two years building and using telescopes, fifty-five years of amateur astronomy, thirty-six years in sdaa.org.

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