One super-simple setup trick for telescopes
The easiest way to find night sky objects
Hunting down your first deep sky object
Video 2: Easiest Way to Find Objects
To download Stellarium (free) and follow along with this video, click here (link opens a new tab)
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What is stopping you from using your telescope?
Hi Adam, just got (& put together!) my first telescope – a Skywatcher Starquest 130p. Ever since I’ve had full cloud cover – but that’s given me a chance to find your website, which is fabulous for a complete beginner like me! Have downloaded Stellarium & watched this tutorial, really helpful thanks. Looking forward to learning more – I was getting a biy worried as to just how I was going to know where to point my ‘scope, apart from at the moon!
Hey Vicki,
I’m pleased you’ve found my guides useful and am grateful for your kind feedback.
I hope you enjoy discovering much more than the moon with your Sky-Watcher.
Thanks from a newbie, still looking for a scope. Great vids, great help. Kansas City, i grew up there although im in Greensboro, NC now lol. Clear skies
Glad you enjoyed it Charles. And clear skies to you too!
Thanks Adam. I am using my Samsung phone and tablet as aids so I have Stellarium Mobile free version. I made the adjustments based on the app. I see this program will be useful. I like that it will take my phone to where what I want to see is. For me I have struggled with my finder scopes magnification in that what it shows me is not the same as the night sky give the finder magnifies the sky. It leaves me unsure if the star in the finder is the one I see without the finder. Also the finder uses a 90 degree eyepiece adding to the issue. I just got a red dot finder and tried to use it once but it kept fogging up. I hear that Dawn detergent can help with that so I plan to try that too. At the same time I received a finder cell phone holder from Star-Pal on Ali Express and I tried that with the SkEye free app but that app is eratic at times. Hopefully Stellarium will work better. I am using an Orion 8″ dobsinian for viewing so that should be good once I get the finder issue out of the way.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for your comment, I have emailed you a longer response directly. But, the best way I’ve found to make sure I have the correct star in the finder is to keep both eyes open while hunting it down – with only one eye looking through the finderscope. This way you can see the star and the crosshair heading towards each other.
I hope this helps you,
Adam
Thank you for a very well-paced, interactive tutorial on Stellarium. I found it to be of immense value in helping me navigate my way through this piece of software.
Submit
Hi Terry,
Thanks for the positive feedback, I’m pleased you found my video useful!
Adam
Hi Adam! I just retired last year and I decided to finally get serious about astronomy. I received a large medical settlement and bought a big-ass Celestron 11″ Edge on a GEM. It’s intimidating (alignment) and complicated (I don’t know Stellarium yet).
Jim
Hi Jim,
That’s a great model you own! Once you get to grips with it, you’ll see some magnificent views. You may find this video helpful for alignment.
Hopefully you found the video above a useful introduction to Stellarium.
Clear skies!
Adam
Hello Adam, I am struggling with moving the sky up and down on my Mac. Using the up and down arrows is not helping. I have no problem moving it horizontally all 360 degrees along the latitude using the arrows. But am having trouble with the vertical movement. Any suggestions? Am using the Stellarium software.
That’s strange Rashmi because the cursor keys are the right thing to use. I have a Mac as well and they work fine for me.
Do you have a mouse? If so, you can move the sky by left clicking and dragging it around.
Best of luck!
Adam, that was a pretty cool video. I have had Stellarium on my desktop for a few years now and did not know how to adjust the settings like you explained in this video. Just bought a new telescope, the Celestron NexStar 102, and looking forward to a little more stargazing with help from Stellarium. Really enjoyed this video and was very informative.
Hi Doug,
I’m pleased you found it useful. Stellarium is fantastic software (especially since it’s free) but it is a tricky beast to find your way around.
I wish you clear skies so you can get that 102 pointing at the stars!
Adam
Let me know what probelms you’re having with astronomy and I’ll do my best to help!
I bought an Orion Sirius ED80=G Computerized Refractor Telescope with an Equitorial Mount and go to handheld controller. Although I have subscriptions to two astronomy magazines (Astronomy and Sky at Night) and I get several daily emails (astronomy, space.com, Sky & Telescope, etc.) and I watch several astronomy shows and read books too, I consider myself an amateur astronomer. I have downloaded several videos from you tube on how to use the equipment along with the manuals. They problem is I would learn how to use the equipment much better with actual one on one instruction. Any Suggestions? Thank you
Hi David,
That’s a nice little scope you’ve landed there. My best advice is to join your local astronomy club (list of US clubs) or get on the Cloudy Nights forum.
If you hold on just two days, I have an offer of assistance that you might be interested in… keep watching your email.
Clear skies!
Hi Adam, I’ve just recently gotten more into stargazing and gotten a skywatcher 707 Mercury telescope on an az2 mount which came along with a star map and some books which was helpful to a degree, but your videos so far have been helping out in ways they didn’t quite include so thanks for that, so far I’ve been able to view the moon , and a few stars including Orion’s rigel and the North Star and seen a few meteor showers with my naked eye, I really want to try and get a look at a nebula though and Orion happening to be up in the evenings here in Sweden now and quite bright been focusing on the Orion Nebula , furthest I’ve gotten is observing the belt and then possibly Orion’s sword in my finderscope then as I try to find it with my main one I tend to lose it , not knowing what size to expect it to be in the Main telescope or if I even had the right spot in the finder or found something else I couldn’t see with my naked eye, i have a 700/70mm refractor with a 25mm, 10mm and a 2x Barlow lens so it should be able to handle around 140x magnification and if my calculation was correct my 10mm+2x Barlow should achieve that , my current plan is to fix some kind of chair to make it more comfortable using the finderscope which is quite far down if I’m pointing my telescope up at the sky which doesn’t let me be all that steady upon moving it which hopefully should make it a bit easier , but do you have any suggestions?
Hey Gabriel,
I’m pleased you’re finding the videos helpful.
The number one thing you need to do is make sure your finderscope is well aligned. After setting it up in the day, test it on a bright star you’re comfortable with finding, or even a streetlight.
If that is well aligned, your next step is to begin with a LOW magnification. This will let you see more of the sky in your eyepiece, which will make it easier to find the Orion Nebula. Use the calculator on this page to work out the exact details, but if you use your 25mm eyepiece you’ll get about a 1.8° field of view.
With that, you should just be able to get two of Orion’s ‘belt’ stars in the eyepiece at one time. More importantly, you’ll be able to get all three of the ‘sword’ stars in the same eyepiece view. The sword is due south of Alnilam, the middle ‘belt’ star. You should at this stage notice the nebulosity surrounding the middle sword star. It doesn’t look anything like the Hubble images you’ve seen – it is a wispy greyness, like smoke, around the stars.
When you have the three sword stars in your view, center the middle one of the three in your eyepiece. Now’s the time to increase magnification by swapping to your 10mm eyepiece OR adding your Barlow. Don’t use the Barlow with the 10mm, it is just too much power to use in a 70mm scope for this nebula and you won’t see it because it’ll be too faint.
Remember that 70mm is a relatively small telescope that is not collecting a lot of light. So, you can improve your view by being under a dark sky – including observing when the moon is not around.
I hope this helps and best of luck!