What to do with your new telescope

So, you’ve finally convinced your spouse that this is the year to get you a telescope. As you ran downstairs in your footie pajamas early this Christmas morn, there it was.

Your new telescope.

‘Oh thank you Santa!’, you cried as you opened the box and looked inside. There you found all sorts of goodies you’ve wanted for as long as you can remember. You’ve eagerly read the manuals, and set up your telescope. You’re all dressed up and ready to go.

Now what?

Well, if you’re not very familiar with the night sky, you need to get that way. It’s not hard, and like anything it gets easier with practice. For starters, you need to download a copy of Stellarium, a free planetarium program for your computer. There is no easier way to find out what’s up in the sky tonight than by using this program, I like it even better than Sky and Telescope Magazine, it’s just so trivial to use. It’s available for Windows, Macs, and Linux machines, of all of the planetarium programs I’ve ever used for computers, I like this one the best.

Stellarium is easy to use, and free. The controls are also very intuitive and complete. And it makes finding things in the sky a complete breeze. Get this program now and install it. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Got it? Good. Below is a screenshot of what’s up in Colorado, you’ll have to enter your own location to see something else. If you’re in North America though, the sky won’t differ all that much from what’s shown here. Click on the image below to see a larger version.

As you can see, there’s a lot to look at.

Start with the obvious: the moon. It’s easy to spot and this is a good place to set the focus on your scope properly. There’s lots to see here, craters, mountains, valleys, and all sorts of great stuff.

You may also find that your night vision is ruined after looking at the moon through your telescope. Your scope is designed to collect light, and the moon is quite bright. I’m almost always blind in one eye for about 20 minutes after looking at the moon.

The next really cool thing to look at is M42, that’s the Orion nebula. It hangs from the belt of Orion and if you have relatively dark skies, you might actually see it as a fuzzy patch with your naked eye. Point your scope to it. It should fill your eyepiece. There are four bright stars in the center of the nebula, known as the trapezium.

All of those other M-numbers you see correspond to ‘Messier’ objects, a catalog developed by Charles Messier. They are among the brightest interesting objects in the sky. Spending a little time finding and getting to know them is well worth the effort.

I’m so happy you got a new scope. Hopefully it is an easy to use one. I can’t cover how to use all scopes in one blog post, but I’m happy to help if you have any questions on how to use the one you’ve gotten for Christmas.

Here’s the thing: if you’re not out there with a big smile on your face and awe in your heart, you’re not doing it right. Have fun above all else.