The Backyard Astronomer
By Adam England
If you’re like me, you’re already thinking about your Christmas list. Why not ask Grandma or Santa for a telescope this year? Come Christmas morning, that big box that has been taunting you from under the Christmas tree will become the highlight of your evenings for years to come.
What should you do with your new telescope? Well first you will probably have to put it together. Most telescopes come with an assembled tube separate from the tripod base. Once you open your new telescope box and make sure the base is secure, the instructions will indicate how to properly attach the tube to the base, and you’re almost done. All you need now is an eyepiece, and you’ll be off to the races!
Wintertime is great for beginning astronomy, with lots of fun objects that are easy to locate in the night sky. A great way to begin locating these objects is with an astronomy computer program or cell phone app, such as SkySafari, SkyView, or Stellarium. Many programs and apps have a free version, so you can begin exploring the sky without having to spend any extra money.
The Moon is a great object to begin with, as it is large and bright and easy to find! I like to observe the Moon around the first and third quarter phases, when the Moon is not quite as bright as during a full Moon, and the edge-on illumination from the Sun makes the craters very crisp and defined against the dark shadows below. Use this time to practice with different eyepieces and the focal adjustments of your new telescope. If your image looks blurry, use the knobs on either side of the eyepiece to make small adjustments up and down until the image comes in to focus.
Now that you have practiced with your telescope on the Moon, see if you can find a star cluster or nebula! The cool winter skies are home to the Pleiades, an easy to find open cluster of stars. You may also be familiar with Orion, the legendary Hunter of Greek Mythology. The three stars of Orion’s Belt are a bright asterism, or a group of stars that make a simple shape that may be easier to locate than a whole constellation. Just below the left most star of Orion’s Belt are three more stars, denoting the sword or scabbard of the Hunter. Carefully look around these stars, and you will find one of the most beautiful nebulae visible from Earth – The Orion Nebula. This cloud of gas and dust is where new stars are born, and is one of the largest and closest to Earth, making it one of the best deep sky objects to observe with your new telescope.
Adam England is the owner of Manzanita Insurance and Accounting and moonlights as an amateur astronomer, writer, and interplanetary conquest consultant. Follow him at Instagram.com/TheBackyardAstronomerAZ