If you’ve ever looked up at the sky and felt even a tiny granulation of wonder and bewilderment towards what you see and curiousness to see even more – you are already on the first step in understanding and interest in astronomy.
But if you already know that countless wonders await you any clear night, very soon you’ll begin gazing at the stars from your backyard, and you’ll be taking the second step toward a cosmic exploration and enjoyment with useful and suitable equipment.
Therefore, if you’ve further interested in how to see and experience stars, planets, and other planetary phenomenons, let us see what you should pay attention to as a beginner.
Going Places
As an astronomy beginner, you’re mostly a backyard astronomer as most astronomers first start sky-gazing from their garden, terrace, or any lawn or yard with a clear look at the sky. In most cases, if you don’t have any disturbances as high trees, houses, or light pollution around you – this setting is all you need.
Wherever you decide to observe from – your window, balcony, backyard, local park, or somewhere a bit more remote – it’s worth consulting the Bortle scale, a measure of a sky’s darkness. It runs from Class 1, the darkest skies available on Earth, through Class 9, inner-city skies.
Many applications can also help you determine what sky objects you should be able to spot from your location, so make sure to enjoy the benefits because they can make the process a lot easier and simpler.
What Comes Next
For anyone completely new to astronomy, the most important is to become familiar with the night sky, how it changes through the night and season by season, how it varies according to the observer’s scope, etc.
It’s advisable to do a little bit of research on astronomy techniques a priori, read some telescope reviews as well the survey on other equipment like binoculars or apps. At https://lovethenightsky.com/ you can find exactly all of the helpful summaries, as well as courses, guides, and articles with star-gazing content. There is a very nice community, so you can find and connect to many backyard beginners, and learn new things about the sky every day and from each other.
At this point you will want to know:
- How to get oriented – if you don’t already know, learn where north, east, south, and west are from your vantage point.
- Some shortcuts – the width of your outstretched fist held at arm’s length covers about 10 degrees of the sky and these can help estimate positions in the night sky, for example.
- Those planets shine brighter – even with light pollution in major cities, they are easy to recognize once you start looking up.
- Position of planets – will often be described concerning which bright stars and constellations are visible as the seasons change.
- How to observe the Moon – is one of the easiest ways to get started with astronomy so make sure to check all its phases since your view of it changes depending on the shape and brightness.
Telescope, or Not?
In the era of mobile technology, software on smartphones is becoming the most useful piece of equipment for stargazing these days. These regularly updated apps can tell you what is visible from your location on a given night, and where to look, which is an amazing step forward relatively to only one decade.
Before you set yourself on a journey called a telescope, maybe you can try using binoculars. They are relatively cheap, widely available, easy to carry and store, and most importantly, they can help you see the Moon’s craters, Jupiter’s moons, and reddish Mars. They’ll also allow you to see Neptune and Uranus, which are generally not visible to the naked human eye.
After a stargazing acquaintanceship, you can start using smaller telescopes for being able to see some planetary features you couldn’t before. With telescopes, size doesn’t matter for optimal sightseeing but make sure not to choose inexpensive telescopes sold by toy shops or natural-history stores, for example, since they are often of not very good optical quality and are not likely to give a satisfying performance.
There is a wide range of these optical aids, but one which is large enough to be of much use, and which will give satisfying images, will cost several hundreds of too much. The smart idea, besides binoculars, would be terrestrial telescopes, such as those used by birdwatchers that are generally between good value and good quality.
Once you get enamored with telescope astronomy, you can start researching for bigger and more professional telescopes to use, and then the sky is not even the limit anymore.
Astronomy is a fascinating and rewarding pastime where amateurs make genuine contributions to research, but many observers simply do it for the excitement of seeing with their own eyes the planets, stars, nebulae that are oh so familiar.
Whichever tool you use, it doesn’t take much skill or equipment to get started with stargazing and amateur astronomy, and you can do it almost anywhere.