Quote:
Originally Posted by Merlin66
Astronomy is such a vast subject it's very easy to get "lost".
A couple of well balanced comprehensive books never go astray......
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Exactly, the annual "Astronomy Australia" books I consider essential for everyone at ever skill level. As is a good sized planisphere and Sky Atlas/Star Map that you can use outside. I use the Sky & Telesvcope Pocket one which is about A5 size.
Yes ALL the information is online... IF
IF
IF you know where to look and
IF
IF
IF
IF you know what information you want to find. Which is what gets many people and limits what they do with the hobby and how far they learn. A $100 for essential publications is well worth it to get anyone insterested in astronomy on firm footing for the rest of their life, whereas $100 wont really buy anything essential for the telescope, maybe a cheap eyepiece that gives poor constrast and hurts the eyes to use. I feel bad for anyone who gets buy by deliberately cheaping out in any avenue of life. Not to say the expensive routes are best, but if its something your are really passionate about and learning and have the commitment to learn then its money well invested. If you just want shiny things, good luck to you, sounds boring to me.
With a dobsonian you are going to be star hopping a lot to find your way around to things to look at. A large 8-10" diameter planisphere is great to help you get familiar with the constellations which is the first thing you need to orient yourself with where things are in the sky. Next is a skymap, both paper and digital are useful. These show you the fainter stars you'll see in the eyepiece along with clusters and where nebulae are. The hard part at this magnification is figuring out the scale of the stars in the eyepiece versus the map. So often I spot an obvious group of three stars and then on the star map see there are a dozen similar groups in the region of different sizes. In practice you often only use two eyepieces, something in the 20-30mm range to help you navigate the stars to your target then sojmething around 10mm to view. Spend the money on getting two eyepieces to fit that have good optics and eye reliefs and you're set for life. Then with the 20-30mm one look at somethinf recognisable like the southern cross then with pencil you can mark on the star map what the field of view covers. Then I cut up a postit note to cover the field of view then that becomes my guide for what to look for and where in the eyepiece when star hopping. Its then easy to stick it on pages for star hopping and help keep your place of where you are in the sky. A Star map type program on computer like Stellarium (free) or Starry Nights(commercial) really help just to browse and look for things to go hunt. If you have some viewing limits, eg trees and neighbours that obscure part of your view such a program you can use to find out when something you want to view clears the obstacle. Similarly on your smartphone something like Sky Safari is awesome to have for the above tasks too and also easy to use when outside at the telescope. You can just view any part of the sky easily with a dob and find interesting looking things on your own and having a digital skymap app on your phone helps you identify what you're looking at. The apps typically have an option to define an eyepiece field of view marker on the screen so again that helps you understand the scale in your eyepiece and navigate around.
The Sky&Telescope pocket star map gives good coverage, easy to use and opens flat and cheap so jotting things on it in pencil not a problem. Whereas high quality large expensive starmaps are less practical to use outside and people take care of them plus most people will never own equipment that can resolve to the dimness that these publications reach, so a useful cheap one will suit you for your life.
The great thing about the annual Astronmy Australia books is the richness of information. Firslty they are NOT useful for only one year. They do cover things to look out for during that year and special events like eclipses. But so much of the information is relevant for our lifetimes. Its dirt cheap and will teach you so much, no matter your current skill level. Some of the information does require existing knowledge/understanding which gives beginners the clues of areas they may want to look up online to learn about (ie knowing what you need to know about). So even picking up a few older copies is handy for learning. While times in past issues will be out of date in later years the planets and constellations are seasonal so so if an old issue says to look out for a certain constellation during September, that constellation will always be in that region ever single September. Whereas a timetable of when Io transits Jupiter you will need to check elsewhere for current/coming dates an times but at least the old issue taught you Io transits Jupiter so now its something you know about and can research further if it interests you.
There are of course essential tomes for certain areas of astronomy such as the fictional 1897 12 volume set of "Sir Alfreds Guide to Star Clusters of the Southern Hemisphere". It may be essential to researches and contain lots of data measurements and formulae but its not essential for astronomers in general. However I consider for Australians the annual "Astronomy Australia" book, large planisphere and S&T Pocket Star Atlas as essential for everybody willing to learn and want to get the most out of astronomy beyond peeaking through neighbours windows. If those three items are so expensive your life falls apart perhaps astronomy is not the best hobby for you. in fact those items are I think essential and a telescope to be NOT essential to astronomy.