I will state it right now sorry for the lenghty post.
OK I will start out by saying what everyone has been telling me since I started out last December "I told you so", but maybe I am just stubborn or just waiting for a holiday gift of "Take a Left Turn at Orion" but I have yet to buy a book to help me find my way around the sky.
I download and use Cartes Du Ciel but I have not loaded it onto my laptop so I print out the sky charts before I head out the door to observe (or I bring the charts from Night Sky before I realized I never received my issues last month?).
So I hunt and peck my way across the sky but I think my main problem is I do not know what I am supposed to be seeing through my scope. I was told on these boards that I bought an OK scope for my a starter scope (8" Celestron Starhopper DOB older model with a variety of eyepieces that I have purchased through the Astromart classifieds). So I think I am doing well finding various objects that are identified on Cartes Du Ciel and look through the scope and I am not sure if what i am looking at is really what I have been looking for (I know I am in the right part of the sky but what exactly should I be expecting to see...?).
For instance on Saturday night I am searching for Andromeda and I think I found it but it looks like a big ball of fuzz almost like a fuzzy cluster. Now I know it will not look like the pictures I see all the time with the tight spiral and colors, etc. But I did expect to see something that looked a bit like a spiral galaxy rather than something that looked like a nebula.
Is there a site out these that I could look up various objects, clusters, nebula that will better represent what I should actually be seeing or looking for though thee eyepiece of a smaller scope like mine? That way I can print 4-5 out per session and take them with me and compare to what I am seeing?
OK I will start out by saying what everyone has been telling me since I started out last December "I told you so", but maybe I am just stubborn or just waiting for a holiday gift of "Take a Left Turn at Orion" but I have yet to buy a book to help me find my way around the sky.
I download and use Cartes Du Ciel but I have not loaded it onto my laptop so I print out the sky charts before I head out the door to observe (or I bring the charts from Night Sky before I realized I never received my issues last month?).
So I hunt and peck my way across the sky but I think my main problem is I do not know what I am supposed to be seeing through my scope. I was told on these boards that I bought an OK scope for my a starter scope (8" Celestron Starhopper DOB older model with a variety of eyepieces that I have purchased through the Astromart classifieds). So I think I am doing well finding various objects that are identified on Cartes Du Ciel and look through the scope and I am not sure if what i am looking at is really what I have been looking for (I know I am in the right part of the sky but what exactly should I be expecting to see...?).
For instance on Saturday night I am searching for Andromeda and I think I found it but it looks like a big ball of fuzz almost like a fuzzy cluster. Now I know it will not look like the pictures I see all the time with the tight spiral and colors, etc. But I did expect to see something that looked a bit like a spiral galaxy rather than something that looked like a nebula.
Is there a site out these that I could look up various objects, clusters, nebula that will better represent what I should actually be seeing or looking for though thee eyepiece of a smaller scope like mine? That way I can print 4-5 out per session and take them with me and compare to what I am seeing?
